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 experience transformation. This transformation cannot occur without either the transformation of facts or the generation of new facts.

To gather, manipulate, combine, and modify facts, science uses tools. Whether these tools are telescopes, petri dishes, or atomic colliders, some tool of this sort is required for successful scientific fact management and fact manipulation.

These pages have also introduced the concept of Visual Facts. As we draw, we are discovering, manipulating and managing visual facts. A slightly more expanded explanation of visual facts can be found here. Our use of visual facts contributes to our design paradigms. A design is an assembly of visual facts.

So to continue with this thought experiment of mapping the contours of science onto the contours of design, our primary tool for paradigm and visual fact manipulation is the drawing. Drawing is our primary technology. Drawing is our primary tool for investigation. Drawing is how we transform and generate existing and new visual facts. And it is drawing that allows us to formulate new paradigms.

If you need any convincing in this regard, think of LeCorbusier and the design of his Radiant City. Corb’s urban theories have of course been hugely influential in the development of urban fabric all over the world. Nobody had thought like this before. And Corb’s drawings of his Radiant City remain iconic and almost shocking in their power and clarity.

Corb used drawing as a tool to create a new paradigm. Corb used the tool of drawing to create entirely new visual facts. What are the visual facts of his Radiant City? Replication. Grid providing supreme order. Sequestration of tall blocks via the introduction of green spaces. It was an entirely new way of thinking. And the visual facts that Corb created in his urban paradigm remain with us today.

As I have said before, there are great parallels between the science and design endeavors. Design can benefit immensely from how science operates. Greater clarity. Greater objectivity. Greater transparency.