BAKER HOUSE AT MIT
Walk to the back side of the building. That, in a nutshell, describes the Transparent Drawing mindset when looking at a piece of architecture. We were in Boston on Wednesday, and I had a...
Author: Kurt
HOW TO STEAL
Picasso’s famous quote that good artists create and great artists steal has already been covered here. And true to Picasso’s great quote, it seems that he stole this? Or is it that great minds...
SKETCH DIGITIZATION
While the arc of the sketch universe it long, it bends toward digitization. My apologies to Martin Luther King. I am a Luddite. Anyone who thinks that the answer is one pencil, one piece...
DESIGN TRANSLATOR
We all design under limitations. We might have budget limitations on what we can propose. We might have limitations put upon us by our clients. And another common limitation is architectural review boards. These...
LET’S ELIMINATE 2D DRAWINGS
When we draw transparently, we by default are drawing in three dimensions. A two dimensional drawing does not exist in the transparent drawing worldview. Because we are drawing our enclosures and forms so as...
INCOMPLETE PARADIGMS
A scientific paradigm is incomplete when it cannot explain all of the scientific facts with which it is confronted. Does a scientific paradigm explain or predict everything? No. There are always interpretations, transference and...
THE TOOL WE CALL DRAWING
Science uses tools to collect facts. Scientific facts are essential to maintaining paradigms, which were introduced here. Scientific facts are also required for anyone working to originate a paradigm. We saw that paradigms typically...
THE MINDSET OF CONSERVATIVE CLIENTS
Humans have an innate tendency to avoid losses rather than to achieve gains. We are hardwired for this. All of our design discussion with our clients is, fundamentally, one of losses and gains. Let’s...
AUTOMATIC VISUAL PROCESSING
What exactly is our state of mind when we are drawing to solve problems? Much of what goes on between our ears is automatic. The common act of seeing is automatic. We are continually...
EL LISSITZKY
The Russian constructivists have been a cultural influence upon use here in the West. Many of the current famous architects developed their first architectural responses in the guise of constructivism. I am thinking of...
PRECEDENTS IN ARCHITECTURE
Some of the books that we have mentioned in these pages are by Ching, Lauseau, Jenkins, et. al. And they are great books. Elegant books. Theoretical books. Classic books. Yet all this theoretical power...
APRES TRAVEL
The trips that we take are often way too short. I always find that however long we travel, the time could have at least been doubled. One great way to extend your trip is...
GUGGENHEIM BILBAO
It extends under an ordinary car bridge. The Museum. Gehry’s Guggenheim. It extends under a four lane, mediocre vehicle bridge that spans the river. The bridge runs over the museum. We were just in...
SUBURBAN GROUND EFFECTS
We are traveling this week. So I offer these brief posts on various topics that I have prepared ahead of time. Although this may not exactly be the most burning design question, what would...
DRAWING ON AIRPLANES
We are traveling this week. So I prepared this travel related post ahead of time. You’re probably tired of hearing me extol the virtues of drawing...
PERCEPTUAL THINKING
Let’s try teaching our scientists to think like artists. One of the themes of these pages is the confluence of art and science. We have talked about scientists using the same language as artists....
CULTURAL COPYING
The cultural provenance of your ideas and solutions is what will establish what is valued, and what is not. How you manage, parse and organize the Googlized information flood is a significant part of...
IS CONTEXT THE NEW CONTENT?
The title above is a quote by Kenneth Goldsmith in his collection of essays titled “Uncreative Writing.” Goldsmith is a conceptual poet. Yet his ideas regarding the provenance of our ideas, specifically within...
SOCIETAL KNOWLEDGE
In these pages, we have bemoaned the subjugation of the visual and the elevation of language. Let’s look a bit closer at how language actually works so we can see what we are up...
DRAWN TO DESIGN 2
A few weeks ago, Eric Jenkens, very kindly responded to my comments on his book, Drawn To Design. Link here to that post. And Eric’s comments can be seen to the right side of...
YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE
I like to look at the basic geometries of Le Corbusier’s paintings for inspiration for my drawings. The image above was loosely structured around this painting, titled Icone 3, by Corb. When you find...
VISUAL CAUSALITY
It is accepted wisdom that we base our understanding of the world on repeated observations of cause and effect. Billiard balls will bounce off of each other in a very predictable way. The coffee...
Recent Comments