WHAT IS AND WHAT WILL BE

In Transparent Drawing, you draw to solve what is to be built, and you draw to solve what has already been built.  Either way it is the same problem that requires a solution.

That statement suddenly hit me when I was riding my bike.  At first glance, we might not think these are the same.  When you are drawing what is to be built, you are free to imagine anything.  There are no mysteries about how the envelope works.  Because you are drawing the envelope, you see it clearly.  And you are free to make any adjustments to the envelope to get it to work.

When you are drawing what has already been built, at first glance it would seem that the amount of investigation is much deeper.  Exactly because you don’t know how an existing building works, then it is more of a puzzle to solve.  You need to rationalize all sides of the form.  Quite possibly you are missing a key piece of information and you have to work around that.

Yet I say they are the same.  When you are drawing what is to be built, you are solving a real world problem.  As you draw, you move from the conceptual into the real.  The building program might pull and tug on your form.  Meeting the requirements of a real client requires an adaption to their reality.  There might be things that you cannot do because of the client or the program.  So you end up drawing your forms and enclosures to match their reality.

In each case, you are fundamentally making your brain think in ways and patterns that it has not done before.  And that’s why these are both the same.  Both require solving a problem.  Both require a visual fabrication.  Both require a rationalization.  Both are significant mental tasks.  They are the same.

Which means that one reinforces the other.  The better you get at drawing what has been built, the better you will be at drawing what is to be built.  This is the first time that I have perceived this symmetry with this clarity.   And that’s why it is important to draw, transparently,  what has been built.