Abstract
This chapter addresses visual representations used by designers, especially in architecture, in the process of designing, with an emphasis on rapid freehand sketches. Traditionally, designers sketched a lot in the early phases of designing, until their ideas became sufficiently solidified to be drafted using formal orthogonal projections. In recent years, powerful computer programs have made it possible to not only abandon manual drafting in favor of CAD (Computer-Aided Design) drafting, but also to model and perceive spaces and forms of even the most intricate geometries. The commonplace use of the new digital tools has increasingly devaluated manual sketching, including in the preliminary stages of designing. I propose that manual sketching has cognitive benefits that cannot easily be replaced by computational tools, and therefore sketching continues to be viable alongside computational tools, especially in the “front end” of designing and in the design studio at school.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Ill-structured problems, as opposed to well-structured ones, have no set solution routines and may have many valid solutions.
- 2.
Visual representation is used here to denote depiction of an existing or imagined physical entity of any kind.
- 3.
Also often addressed as “undiscovered”; see e.g. Pieter H.G. van Langen and Frances M.T. Brazier (2006).
- 4.
Note that Le Corbusier did not liken the building to a ship directly. Unlike a metaphor, an analogy pertains to the relationship among components in the source and in the target. In the Unité d’Habitation the relationship between the ship and its chimneys was mapped onto the relationship between the building and its decorative “chimneys” on the roof.
- 5.
For example, the 1972 Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa.
- 6.
November 7, 2007: “MIT has filed a negligence suit against world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, charging that flaws in his design of the $300 million Stata Center, one of the most celebrated works of architecture unveiled in years, caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up.” http://slashdot.org/story/07/11/07/1323249/mit-sues-frank-gehry-over-buggy-300m-cs-building. Accessed 6 Apr 2013.
References
Adi-Japha, E., Levin, I., & Solomon, S. (1998). Emergence of representation in drawing: The relation between kinematic and referential aspects. Cognitive Development, 13(1), 25–51.
Argiris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Badke-Schaub, P., Lauche, K., Neumann, A., & Mohammed, S. (2007). Mental models in design teams: A valid approach to performance in design collaboration? CoDesign, 3(1), 5–20.
Benys, J. M. (1997). Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature. New York: Morrow.
Curtis, W. J. R. (1986). Le Corbusier: Ideas and forms. New York: Rizzoli.
deBono, E. (1967/1971). The use of lateral thinking. Middlesex: Cape.
Ferguson, E. S. (1992). Engineering and the mind’s eye. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Finke, R. (1993). Mental imagery and creative discovery. In B. Roskos-Ewoldson, M. J. Intons-Peterson, & R. E. Anderson (Eds.), Imagery, creativity and discovery: A cognitive perspective (pp. 255–286). Amsterdam/New York: North-Holland.
Gabora, L. (2010). Revenge of the ‘Neurds’: Characterizing creative thought in terms of the structure and dynamics of memory. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), 1–13.
Gentner, D. A., & Stevens, A. L. (1983). Mental models. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Goel, A. K., & Bhatta, S. R. (2004). Design patterns: A unit of analogical transfer in creative design. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 18(2), 85–94.
Goldschmidt, G. (2002). Read-write acts of drawing. TRACEY (issue on Syntax of Mark and Gesture) 2002 (9). http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/sota/tracey/journal/somag/gabi.html. Accessed 3 Feb 2013.
Goldschmidt, G. (2003). The backtalk of self-generated sketches. Design Issues, 19(1), 72–88.
Goldschmidt, G. (2007). To see eye to eye: The role of visual representations in building shared mental models in design teams. CoDesign, 3(1), 43–50.
Goldschmidt, G. (2011). The Black-Curtained Studio. Eulogy to a dead pencil. In M. Bhatt, C. Hölscher, T. S. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of International Symposium on Spatial Cognition for Architectural Design (SCAD2011) (SFB/TR 8 Report Series). http://www.sfbtr8.uni-bremen.de/reports.htm. Accessed 5 Apr 2013.
Goldschmidt, G. (2012). A micro view of design reasoning: Two-way shifts between embodiment and rationale. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.), Creativity and rationale: Enhancing human experience by design (pp. 41–55). London/New York: Springer.
Goldschmidt, G., Hochman, H., & Dafni, I. (2010). The design studio ‘Crit:’ Teacher-student communication. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 24(3), 285–302.
Grobman, Y. J., & Neuman, E. (Eds.). (2011). Performalism. Form and performance in digital architecture. London: Routledge.
Hachem, C., Karni, E., & Hanaor, A. (2004). Deployable structures in nature. Examples, analysis and realization. Journal of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures, 45(3), 190–198.
Hayes, R. W. (2012). Vital signs: Is drawing dead? Constructs–Yale Architecture, 2012(Fall), 8–9. http://architecture.yale.edu/school/publications/constructs-fall-2012. Accessed 28 July 2016.
Hegedüs, Á., Horváth, Á., Ráth, I., Varró, D. (2011). A model-driven framework for guided design space exploration. Proceedings of 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (pp. 173–182). Lawrence, KS.
Hunter, D. (1943/1978). Papermaking. New York: Dover Publications.
Jamalian, A., Giardino, V., Tversky, B. (2013). Gestures for thinking. In Proceedings of COGSCI (pp. 645–650). Berlin.
Johnson-Laird, P. (1988). Freedom and constraint in creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity (pp. 202–219). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaufmann, G. (1980). Imagery, language and cognition. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
Keller, I., Visser, F. S., van der Lugt, R., & Jan, P. (2009). Collecting with cabinet, or how designers organise visual material, researched through an experimental prototype. Design Studies, 30(1), 69–86.
Langan-Fox, J., Anglim, J., & Wilson, J. R. (2004). Mental models, team models, and performance: Process, development, and future directions. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing, 14(4), 331–352.
Lasdun, D. (1976). A language and a theme: The architecture of Denys Lasdun & Partners. London: RIBA Publications Ltd..
Le Corbusier (1958). Vers une Architecture (Rev. ed.). Paris: Vincent, Freal & Compagnie.
Oosterhuis, K. (2011). Toward a new kind of building: A designer’s guide for nonstandard architecture. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers.
Oxman, N. (2010). Material-based design computation. PhD dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Prix, W. (2013, March 9). Turn On Lecture, Architecture Festival ORF Radiokulturhaus Vienna. http://www.coop-himmelblau.at/architecture/video/turn-on-lecture. Accessed 2 July 2014.
Rouse, W. B., & Morris, N. M. (1986). On looking into the black box: Prospects and limits in the search for mental models. Psychological Bulletin, 100(3), 349–363.
Santos, D., Heyneman, B., Kim, S., Esparza, N., Cutkosky, M. R. (2008). Gecko-inspired climbing behaviors on vertical and overhanging surfaces. In Proceedings of IEEE ICRA 2008 (pp. 1125–1131). Pasadena.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Schön, D. A., & Wiggins, G. (2002). Kinds of Seeing and their Functions in Designing. Design Studies, 13(2), 135–156.
Shah, M. (2012). Engineering Tomorrow’s World (Blog). http://sites.psu.edu/mitanshshah/2012/10/23/biomimic-engineering. Accessed 6 Apr 2013.
Suwa, M., Gero, J. S., & Purcell, T. (2000). Unexpected discoveries and S-invention of design requirements: Important vehicles for a design process. Design Studies, 21(6), 539–567.
Suwa, M., & Tversky, B. (1997). What do architects and students perceive in their design sketches? A protocol analysis. Design Studies, 18(4), 385–403.
Tzonis, A. (1990). Hütten, Schiffe, und Flaschengestelle. Archithese, 20(3), 16–27.
Tzonis, A. (1992). Huts, ships and bottleracks: Design by analogy for architects and/or machines. In N. Cross, K. Dorst, & N. Roozenburg (Eds.), Research in design thinking (pp. 139–164). Delft: Delft University of Technology.
van Langen, P. H. G., & Brazier, F. M. T. (2006). Design space exploration revisited. AIEDAM, 20(2), 113–119.
Verstijnen, I. M., van Leeuwen, C., Goldschmidt, G., Hamel, R., & Hennessey, J. (1998). Sketching and creative discovery. Design Studies, 19(4), 519–546.
Visser, W. (2010). Use of metaphoric gestures in an architectural design meeting: Expressing the atmosphere of the building. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) (p. 284, abstract). http://www.gesturestudies.com/files/isgsconferences/ISGS10Abstracts.pdf. Accessed 8 Apr 2013.
Woodburry, R. F., & Burrow, A. L. (2006). Whither design space? AIEDAM, 20(2), 63–82.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goldschmidt, G. (2017). Manual Sketching: Why Is It Still Relevant?. In: Ammon, S., Capdevila-Werning, R. (eds) The Active Image. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56466-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56466-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56465-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56466-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)