YEAR IN REVIEW

How do you generate new forms? More to the point, can there be a method which can be used to for novel form and enclosure generation?

This question is one of the central points of Transparent Drawing. The New Year is time for reflection, as cliche as that is.   So I looked back thru my drawings to see, indeed, how I might be answering this form generation methodology question.

I limited my search to form generation sources that were not buildings.  It seems obvious that the more that we can look to sources for our forms that are not already three dimensional constructions, be they buildings, sculptures, industrial objects, appliances, etc., then the more unique our forms will be.

Also as said in these pages, nobody, really, tells you exactly how to go about creating new forms.  Nobody gives you a methodology.  We are told that good design involves the shaping of forms that respond to and work with the human body.   When you bring in views of the outside, it is pleasing.  Natural light washing thru the spaces makes humans happier.  When you design a work table and the height is correct, the building is a better place to do work.  And all of this remains absolutely critical to our endeavor.

But to keep this thing we call design fresh, we need to be continually searching for new forms.  Form generation, alas, is also at the heart of what we do.

So how is Transparent Drawing doing in this regard?  Or to ask the really tough question, is it working?  To answer that, I’ll give the fair and balanced facts, and you decide if this is a valid methodology.

The compendium of four images at the top of the page were generated from the following sources.  Starting at the top left and going clockwise, we have a Picasso painting, 36 Poetic Immortals, Bengali Text, and a LeCorbusier Painting.  Whether the drawings are good are not is beside the point.  Each of them, though, provides an access route for form generation.  For me at least, I see the beginnings of an enclosure in each drawing.

And then one more and we’ll be done with this year in review thing.

The sources for the drawings above are as follows, again clockwise from the top left, Mecha Anime, Hindi Script, Sea Bass Fish Scales, and a Michael Heizer Drawing,

Actually, as I look back thru at these drawings, I do not remember doing them.  Without my recording on the paper what I was looking at when I did them, I would have absolutely no idea where they came from.

So all in all, a nice assortment of inspirations.  Which only proves that we can be inspired by anything, anywhere, anytime.  I think it also proves that indeed, for me at least, there can be a methodology for form generation.