Hand drawing is the most innate tool to the architect. The ability to represent ideas on paper can be extremely important to the decision-making process and is an excellent way to convey the motives of a design. At the very end of my first year, I was talking to my tutor, Marcin, about the realities of the architectural practice. Ultimately, as he explained, the decision that had led him into teaching stemmed through his frustration at the banality of drawing technical details with a CAD program on a 24/7 basis. This digital shift has leaked into the fabric of the school too; with the majority of, even first-year work being produced through a computer. The sketchbook making little or no appearance. Laurie Chetwood, a London based architect, makes the point that a generation of AutoCAD designers "lack the artistic inspiration to create buildings that appeal to users on multiple levels- functionally and emotionally."
An architects sketch can convey many messages in formats ranging from the very neat and precise to the more abstract and surreal. Foster uses his sketchbook as a communication tool with the clientèle and does not consider it artistically precious. The style of drawing is usually informal, riddled with the annotations and arrows that he uses. After looking over several architects' sketchbook work, I have decided to devote more time next-year to my own as I think it will help to voice my ideas and sharpen my design process through a feedback-loop of inspiration.
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