Drawings: The Latest Architecture and News

If today technologies are emerging for different forms of representation and interaction with drawing, understanding how architects communicate through hand-drawn strokes can be essential to delve into the topic of architectural visualization. Through the simplicity of gestures, small texts or a collage of references, it is possible to translate ideas in an innovative way, unlike the ways that a render can present. For this reason, we highlight here the work of great names such as Lina Bo Bardi, Renzo Piano, Pezo von Ellrichshausen and Mikkel Frost, who, using different techniques, reveal different ways of representing a project.

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With an increasing amount of architectural visualizations being published on social media, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Adding this to how the famous algorithm works, we end up always being exposed to social media publications that are, in many ways, similar to each other. But for us as architects, designers, and students, social media is not only a platform for networking and sharing our works. It also serves as a source of inspiration. If the algorithm isn’t helping us to discover new and different ideas, then it’s up to us to go out of our way and look for them.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

In an age of ebooks and web-first publishing, Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (Lars Müller Publishers) is a defiant throwback: a lavish, 500-plus-page book, very much an object befitting its subject, whose buildings had a weight, both literal and figurative, that was part of their power and appeal. Conceived and edited by Michael Merrill, the book is both a deep examination of Kahn’s creative process, as told through the medium of the hand drawing, as well as a revealing portrait of the man behind those buildings and illustrations. Merrill is an architect and educator and currently serves as director of research at the Institute for Building Typology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. He’s also the author of two previous books on the master architect, Louis Kahn: Drawing to Find Out and Louis Kahn: On the Thoughtful Making of Spaces.

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In its new exhibition Peter Cook: City Landscapes, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art showcases drawings by the influential architect, best known for his architectural theories and visionary concepts. Curated by Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge, the event is part of the exhibition series Louisiana on Paper, which presented the work of various artists over the years and is now debuting its first show featuring drawings by an architect.

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How many times have you been faced with the challenge of designing a cultural center? While this may seem like quite a feat, many architects have had to design a program that blends a community center with culture.

Among the projects published on our site, we have found numerous examples that highlight different responses, from flexible configurations to sites that prioritize central gathering areas for citizens and activities. See our series of 50 community centers and their plans and sections below.

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2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic forced architectural students around the world to go virtual with their classes and coursework, transforming the way architecture was both taught and learned. Once based primarily on in-class participation, and collaboration, architectural workshops had to take on whole new methods of instruction. Conversations and debates between students and their instructors, a key element of architectural education were relegated to phone and video calls as well as written documents, making digital formatting an essential tool for students to share their ideas and receive feedback on their work.

For architects, schools are often complex structures to design. They must provide a variety of spaces for education, and also consider sports and recreational activities. But beyond its size or surface, the greatest challenge is to design an area that fosters a positive pedagogical environment for children. Below, a selection of +70 school projects with their drawings to inspire your proposals for learning campuses.

When we approached the Flores & Prats firm, we wanted to focus on their precise drawing just as much as their detailed mock-ups. We wanted to see a project that not only "values the time invested and accumulated in it but also sees said time as a virtue and not a defect;" an indication of paying attention to the process as well as the unexpected. (In this sense, it reminds me of reading about how to draw a forest, among other things, in "Las tardes de dibujo en el estudio Miralles & Pinós").

We conducted a long-distance interview with the Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores studio for this reason; to get a better idea of their thoughts on the impact of drawing on architectural representation.Their input makes clear the "why" of their decisions, and explains not only how they operate in a contemporary context but also indicates their relationship with construction among other disciplines.