Architects Sketches - Dialogue and Design torrent

This architect, placed in front of a dynamic and historic construction, may be recording the building ’ s proportions, details, or its placement in context. He may be drawing to try to understand its scale, materiality, or how it compares with other buildings throughout history. He may be trying to replicate how it looks as a way to bring a souvenir home or to preserve its complexities, which may be hard to imprint on his memory without visual stimulus. The architect, possibly on a Grand Tour , comprehends more through the action of sketching than mere observation. Forced to study as he imitates, this architect may understand more about the building ’ s construction or intention. Drawing from observation is one dimension of how architects may use sketches as dialogue.

Architects depend upon sketches throughout the process of design as a medium for dialogue. They are the physical manifestation of their thinking and are used in various ways from the inception of the project to fi nal detailing and evaluation. As instruments of a process, they reveal an intimate conversation that is coupled with desire for the future building ( Piotrowski and Robinson, 2001 ). Intention and meaning evident in the use of architectural sketches may be explored by comparing them to theories of play, memory, imagination, and fantasy. A further method of examining the propositions inherent in sketches is to compare them to characteristics of caricature and the grotesque to fi nd less obvious qualities of conscious, or subconscious, intention. Where architects depend upon sketches as the medium for the creative process used to conceive architecture, they also use sketches in all aspects of the design process with individual expression. This examination suggests an interpretation of architects ’ relationships with the transitory and immediate images they utilize for design.