What seduces more: a hand drawing or a 3Dmodel?
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Apart from the way you all work, what do you think it expresses more your idea, a nice hand drawing or detailed 3D views or videos? why? and why are people using the last one so much? makes every thing more easy to understand or to sell?
definitely hand drawings… i used to produce computer renderings of buildings and they’re not particularly atmospheric no matter how good…. whilst drawings can be works of art in their own right…
I kind of agree with Paul on this one – I do all my perspectives freehand although I cheat occassionally by tracing over a 3d model.
Hand sketching is a very tactile thing, also clients value it – it is a little mysterious to them whereas you could produce all singing dancing animatronic presentation work, spend weeks getting it all together and receive a ‘so what’from your client.
One of the most successful approaches I have found with clients is to pull out the blank sheet of paper turn it upside down facing them and then proceed to draw my presentation perspectives in front of them as I speak – I know – its a party trick but people do appreciate it – also for some reason the eye seems to have difficulty with the 3d model (although they are becoming so good that it can be difficult to acept that they are not real).As to the real value – I think it is as a design tool – visualizing an idea in thumbnail form before committing to hardline.
clients like both kinds of visuals
the advantage to the freehand sketch is what it doesn’t show that the client supplies themselves – it suggests, it offers feel rather than tremendous detail
the 3D computer model can be problematic in static stills, especially early in the process where it appears that all is worked out when it is not; many computer still look dead because a lot of detail is supplied by software rather than thought
animations and fly throughs are good at defining space and experience, always impress (the way a physical 3D model is like Christmas morning), and don’t allow too much focus on detail when it is not appropriate to do so
Trouble with the graphics/CAD programs is that they impose a uniformity on all architects using them. As a result, presentations are now all similarly glossy and give little indication of the architect’s thinking.
Whereas a soft-pencil sketch or a dribbly watercolour a la Will Alsop at any rate provide evidence of a mind at work.
Clients will always respond to an architect reaching for a pencil and paper in a meeting. That’s involving. The exact opposite of involving is being made to sit through some kind of fly-through on a laptop. That’s just showing off.
Without wishing to awaken the debate about the use of the computer for the profession in general, I would disagree with Paul and say that computer generated images can be extremely atmospheric. I think that too many ‘young’ architects tend to apprpoach a 3d model as a finite piece. One can, I believe, achieve that vagueness/ richness by trying to be more abstract. There is nothing worse than a 3d rendering that longs to be a photograph.
Kristian, your work at Studio MKT.a tends to be more abstract okay but unfortunetly everyone else seems to be attempting photorealism…..
aside… if you haven’t seen Kristian’s work….. http://www.irish-architecture.com/onsite/mkt/index.html
Glad to hear there’s evidence in some form that Will Alsop’s mind is still with us!!
[This message has been edited by James (edited 04 July 2001).]
Well, Kristian’s work really suprised me but there´s a lot of people who also run away from the photorealism and try the 3D abstract schemes too, in a very expressive way… and i dont mean only the “young” architects like me.
As an exemple, at my office the 3D models are a constant since the beggining of a project wich can seem absurd but turns out to be a very usefull tool specialy on complex projects. So our clients are used to see it since the start at the same time as the hand drawings. Where you can notice it more is on TV sets and interior projects we produce where the calculations of lights and camera’s tracks is much more easy to study…I think that the general problem is to see the computer capabilities only as a way of “final presentation” and not being able to explore the world of tools it offers us during all the process!
The hand drawing is also essencial trough all process and probably the most useful tool but what you can achieve is much more conceptual and, therefore, much more personal and many times harder to explain to others (specialy clients!).
And James, dont worry about cheating occassionally by tracing over a 3d model because, as i said, you are just using the best tools you can get and mixing them
.by the way, sorry you all for my bad english…
A whole new world of architecture exists in the virtual world, most which will never be built nor was designed to be built. The ‘abstract’ 3D model is a new form of architectural & artistic expression, completely separate from the world of the hand drawing
The penny’s now dropped for me MK. Suddenly Hadid and Gehry make sense. Thanks
there has always been a good deal of talkitecture, now we have blobitecture – some of which is quite good sculpture – and virtutecture which seems just a varient of talkitecture to me
personally i still like good real buildings which can be made only by people that care and use whatever tool – their hand or their mouse – they wish…real buildings also deal with weather, wear and tear, and the good ones do not fade with time
[This message has been edited by deepnote (edited 06 July 2001).]
Well said, deepnote.
sticking with expressing architectural intent (of course the actual buildings are more important than the drawings), photorealism has been a focus of archtiectural presentations for a long time – i think the interesting thing happening now that serious photorealism is widely possible is that i think/hope there will be a return to more personal expressive and creative graphic work
[This message has been edited by JL (edited 08 July 2001).]
Rita, my partner and I will be going to the RIAI conference in Lisbon in November and line up a possible return trip for the office in 2002. Maybe see you there.
Alan, Hadid is primarily an artist, i.e., real paint and brushes, just the way you traditionalists like it.
Gehry (seemingly so) works out his concepts through physical models, & then the points of the model are mapped into the virtual world to calculate structure & structural sizing,(as in Guggenheim).
Neither of the above conceptualise in the virtual world & the computer model does not seem to be their choice mode of presentation. Has the penny dropped even further.Many people rely on the virtual world nowadays. Your friends may be virtual, business etc.etc. Why must architecture exist in the physical world before it is considered as architecture.
Whats the deal with talkitecture? Any competent architect should be able to talk an individual through a building. Alvaro Siza says himself that for him to clarify his concepts & distill them, the written word is the most effective method, basically talkitecture written down.Also, deepnote, some buildings are designed to fade with time. Buildings clad with untreated timber, or a skin of unpainted steel, will rust and rot and weather with time, appear differently in sun & rain, pale and matt, dark and shining. This all shows the passing of time and theres beauty in that also. Not all buildings are made to last forever, some can actually respond to the enviornment and age, just as we all do.
[This message has been edited by MK (edited 09 July 2001).]
Thanks once more MK. I think we all get a little ahead of ouselves every once in a while and I and was labouring under the mistaken idea that I was the thrusting young blade of Scot’s architecture. It takes someone like yourself to remind me I’m actually meat and two veg.
p.s are you real?
if so, has your own penny dropped?
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