TECHNIQUE DESIGN

Technique is culturally biased. We have already established that there is a cultural approbation of drawing technique. Since drawing controls how we think, then how we design is culturally engrained. And this is difficult to see when accepted practice, or technique, is contiguous with the culture that it springs from.

As has been said before in these pages, there is a cultural emphasis on the how rather than the why. Self help books have a greater emphasis on the how; how to lead a happier life, how to be a better spouse. The medical establishment focuses on how to alleviate symptoms.

And this pervades our lowly practice of analogue drawing. We find it much easier to talk about the how when we design rather than the why. Pages and pages of beautiful drawings address fundamentally the how rather than the why.

This was stated recently in an article titled “Design Frameworks” by Brownell, et all, as published in the Journal of Architectural Education, October 2013. P 257.

The current critical mass of digital design practice in architecture has produced an attendant discourse of the “how-to,” shifting disciplinary focus from question of “what does architecture do?” to questions of “how does architecture do?” This trajectory of design research focuses on the techniques and protocols of the process of design, privileging the “how” over the “what.”

While the authors are concerned about digital practice, I invite you to read the above passage again, and insert the word “analogue” for the word “digital” in the first sentence. Just as in our analogue architectural world 30 years ago we were concerned with the how (see Ching for example), we are still concerned with the how in our digital architectural world.

Analogue or digital, we need to focus on the why. The focus of our daily practice needs to focus on the why. And the focus of our education needs to be centered on the why. We are culturally conditioned on how to think, and not why to think.

And then one more sentence from the publication:

The discipline must design technique as much as we engage technique to design.

We must design our own technique. The technique that we use to design is designable. And this technique can be less culturally directed.  We have the potential to create new forms of design technique that focus on the why. And you would think that this would be of greater cultural imperative given the unbelievable power of our new digital universe.

This is what we are doing at Transparent Drawing. We are engaging in technique design. And we are keeping it analogue.

Thanks to Virginia for pointing out this article.