TRANSPARENT DRAWING METHOD

What if we were taught form generation simply for the enjoyment of form generation?

What if we were given the tools, an approach, a philosophy for pure enclosure and form generation? This would be irrespective of any sort of program.

The forms would have to close. That is, the form would need to be buildable in a scale model.

The form would need to show provisions for keeping the rain out. It would need to have indications of exterior barriers, or what we typically call walls.

This What If scenario might indeed be antithetical if not heretical to most architectural theories of education. We are always taught to solve a problem. Even the very first project that I have assigned to first year students is the typical build an enclosure that protects a light bulb when you drop it from a balcony. There is a problem that you must design an enclosure to solve.

What might this look like? I touched on this approach in this post. Here, I outlined a process in which the geometry of a painting serves as a starting point for the establishment of form. And for me, at least, it works. The photo at the top shows a series of forms that I used with this method. As you might guess, I call it the Transparent Drawing Method.

And as you might guess, I will extol on the virtues of drawing transparently. A transparent drawing mandates the resolution of the enclosure. With this resolved form as shown on the drawing, a chipboard scale model can quickly be generated. Each of my drawings takes anywhere from 1 to 1.5 hours. This includes time spent looking for something inspirational. It also includes drying time of the various watercolor layers. And then I can put together one of these scale models in less than an hour. So that’s around 2 hours for each form. I think that’s pretty efficient.

And of course I am not the first to postulate alternate methods of form creation. One method that I have seen used is where a cubist painting is, for lack of a better term, deconstructed so that it becomes either a building or the facade of a building. I’m sure that the Bauhaus and the Beaux Arts, two schools of thought that we have been following, would hate any approach like this.

I am immensely proud of my forms and enclosures. In fact they continue to be arrayed across our conference table more like a centerpiece. I firmly believe that I would not have been able to devise these enclosures without the Transparent Drawing Method.