Thinking point: Manual or digital?

Are there any designers who still sit at their drawing boards to draw by hand? Can’t drawings all be made by using drafting soft ware on any good computer? And what about model making – why would anyone want to work with glue, scissors, sticky tape, craft knife, card and paper to make a model when they could use that very same piece of drafting soft ware to produce a digital model of the space that can be rendered and lit an infinite number of ways? Isn’t it sensible to tap into the power and freedom that computers give us for all our design work?

The answer is both yes and no.

There is no question that computers allow us to work smarter, more efficiently and with more freedom than is oft en the case when using manual techniques, but this argument misses a vital point about the relationship between old and new methods that can more than compensate for the efficiency that computers bring. Manual drafting and model-making is a craft that gives you a real connection with the project. There is a wonderful link that allows ideas to flow through you and your pencil on to the paper which means you to engage more fully with the project. All the decisions about placement of lines and so on belong to you, and not a computer, and you are forced to think carefully about what you are drawing. There is no doubt that working manually leads to a better understanding of drawings, what they represent and how they work. The manual process allows for a more expressive and spontaneous approach that computer-based design oft en lacks; a sweep of the hand across a sheet of paper which leaves a unique and eloquent pencil line is not something that can easily be reproduced by a computer, for example.

On the other hand, computers give us the opportunity to copy and edit work quickly and easily. Simple functions such as ‘Copy / Paste’ are incredibly liberating – no more laborious hand drawing of 30 tables and 120 chairs on a restaurant plan, for example. Instead after just a few keystrokes, the designer is free to concentrate on the design, rather than the act of drawing itself. Drawing with the computer also means that ideas can be exchanged quickly and easily by email or other means of file transfer. So, computers give us freedom and versatility throughout the design process, which is very appealing. But you should remember that the CAD (computer-aided design) soft ware is essentially only a pencil, a tool to aid the drafting process. It has functions that enable some of the tedious aspects of working on drawings to be automated, and it can put lines on to a virtual sheet of paper where you tell it to, but CAD soft ware cannot create a drawing by itself, nor is it able in most instances to decide if what is being drawn is sensible or logical in construction or space-planning terms. It is, therefore, important that the operator understands what it is that is being drawn and how it should be represented on the page. The computer cannot add creativity to a project: that is the sole responsibility of you, the designer.

The elevation

Where plans show horizontal surfaces, elevations show vertical ones. In other respects they are very similar; they represent a record of height and width, and are drawn to scale. As with other technical drawings, they do not represent the space as we see it in real life, but they are an ideal way to assess the proportions of elements such as walls, windows, doors, fireplaces. They give a good understanding of spaces when used together with plans. The conventions employed when drawing elevations are similar to those used for plans. The vertical cut is taken one meter in front of the wall to be depicted, and all furniture and objects that sit closer to the wall than this line are shown in the elevation.

Once again, the furniture is not shown as if it has been cut in two; the complete piece is shown even when parts of the piece extend further from the wall than the one-meter cut line. As with the plan, there is some flexibility in what is shown and how it is depicted. Clarity is the key. Unlike the plan, an elevation does not show walls, floors and ceiling structures. Instead, the elevation ends at the face of the boundary building element. There must be a total absence of linear perspective in the elevation. This is relatively easy to understand when looking at a completed elevation, but oft en difficult to master when drawing one. Many people experience the temptation to add illicit glimpses of perspective to their elevations, many more so than feel the need to do the same to their plans. It is not clear why this should be so, but it may have to do with the fact that we naturally feel disconnected from the plan (it is only very occasionally going to be a view that we come close to seeing in real life), but we have a natural affinity with the elevation (a view we think we see almost all the time).

Understanding through technical drawings

The drawings that designers most often use to help them understand a space are technical drawings, rather than illustrative ones. That is, they are drawings that form a meticulous and accurate record of the relationships between widths, depths and heights. As a result, they clearly indicate the proportions of the elements of an interior space, but they are not drawings that show spaces as we are used to seeing them. Because of this they can appear cold, unnatural and somewhat daunting to the uninitiated, but through practice most people will become comfortable with reading them and will appreciate them for the information that they contain and communicate. Variations in the presentation of technical drawings do occur, but they also share certain standard conventions that allow anyone familiar with them to read drawings created by others.

Drawings will be amended and added to over time to reflect the development of a design, but initially they will be used to give a feeling for the space. It is important to realise that although reading a drawing which already exists will go a long way to informing you about the space, the most immersive experience comes when the drawing is actually created by you, the designer. And the experience will be stronger still if you have undertaken the measured survey that precedes the act of drawing. It is only this hands-on approach that gives us the most complete knowledge of the space. The process of drawing, where each measurement and the placement of each line is carefully considered, intensifies the relationship that the designer has with the space, and gives an even more intimate understanding of a building. The act of drawing also gives time for reflection, which leads to an understanding of the possibilities that the building possesses, too.

Accurate technical drawings are based on careful measured surveys. All relevant dimensions are taken in situ and noted in sketch form. These survey notes are then used in studio to create the scale drawings. Ultimately, the detail shown in the drawings will be partly dictated by the scale at which they are drawn, but the survey should account for every possible dimension that might be needed to produce the drawings. Photographic references of details are very helpful. Undertaking a survey also gives a great insight into the intricacies of a space. Although it is oft en a task that designers contract out, performing the survey and drawing up the first set of survey drawings is a worthwhile task to undertake.