Local libraries will probably contain documentary
records about the date of the subject, or other information
that can enhance your understanding of the area you have
studied through the sketch. Inquiry through graphic
analysis is a useful means of cultivating an appreciation of
an area or subject, particularly if it then leads to a search
through archival records or historic plans. This may not
suit everybody’s needs, but for a school or college project
the bringing together of graphic and written sources is a
useful educational tool.
Just as in your freehand drawing, the weight of line
must be used to help explain aspects of the plan. The
sketch plans are meant to communicate and thus should
abide by accepted norms of technical drawing. Hence the
most important information (such as the position of the
walls of a house) should be rendered in the thickest lines
and deepest tones. If the garden fence and structural
walls have the same weight of line, then their relative
importance is obscured. Likewise, the presence of
mouldings on the front façade may be important to
understanding the proportional rules that the original
architect employed (as with a Georgian house), and this
fact can be drawn to the attention of the viewer by your
selection of an appropriate weight of line. The presence
or absence of lines and their relative weight are as
important as the presence or absence of words in a
report.
Your sketches and plans are really records of facts or
your interpretation of them – they are not mere
speculations or whimsical invention. If you wish to move
into design changes, then your inventions should be
clearly indicated. The progression from sketch as record,
plan as description, and design drawing as proposed
change is an accepted method of proceeding. But it is
important that should you mix all three together on a
single sheet, then this fact should be communicated to
those who look at the drawing. Similarly, records of fact
and matters of interpretation should be clearly marked as
such and not combined in the same graphic language.
The intention is to supplement the sketch with other
relevant information. Your need for additional material will
in all probability stem from a practical consideration such
as curiosity about how the building is constructed, how
the landscape is formed, or the design put together.
Hence, the initial sketch – itself probably the result of a
need to admire or record – leads to further inquiry that
takes you from the sketchbook to the notepad and
perhaps to the local archive office, planning department or
library. Seen in this way, the sketch is part of the process
of understanding, not an end in itself
Through the sketchbook we may learn to appreciate
objects and places for what they are, and as designers
intervene in a more informed and sensitive fashion.
Because the sketchbook requires our concentrated
involvement and can lead outwards into the further
investigations mentioned above, it is a great deal more
useful than the camera. The camera can only record – it
cannot edit, select or interpret. A trained photographer
may use the camera creatively, but its educational
benefits are limited. By encouraging us to become more
visually literate through the countless photographs
produced each year, the camera can have the adverse
effect of focusing our attention upon the superficialities of
subject and form, rather than upon their underlying
structure and meaning.70 Understanding architecture through drawing