Abstract:

This paper will analyze the motivations that lead architects to continue drawing in sketchbooks in the digital era. The research will focus primarily on the graphic diaries (sketchbooks) in their different forms: from data collection to graphic experimentation. We will review the most transcendental examples in recent history, to extract the most original contributions in each case. In a second phase, we will illustrate the use of the sketchbook as a learning tool for students. We will focus on the early stages of the Architectural studies (first and second semester) to verify the influence of this methodology on the development of the creative process.

One of the first examples of graphic diaries are the “travel diaries”. Through the drawings, the architect transmits the sensations felt in the places visited, together with the personal interests and architectural obsessions. Le Corbusier’s diaries represent a perfect example of that personal process. A few decades later, back in the fifties, one of Le Corbusier’s masterpiece, Ronschamp, became the main motive for the graphic diaries of architects such as Louis Kahn and a young Norman Foster. They represent an analytical example, but we can find more informal sketchbooks, such as Sou Fujimoto’s or more expressive and utopic ones, such as Lebbeus Wood’s… We will emphasize a very specific example that raises the graphic diary to the category of “object”, developed by Zaha Hadid. All these sketchbooks represent experimental graphic processes to find alternative designs.

The initial answer to the question of “Why do architects still draw?” is that the drawing represents a thinking tool that allows architects to formalize a new reality. Drawing enables, as well, the analysis and representation of a pre-existing reality and, more importantly, it allows the generation of a narrative process. It is a fact that the act of drawing encourages the arising of creativity. It is especially significant in the case of Architecture, a discipline riding between art and technique, with the purpose of transforming the physical environment to host humans (following the highest functional, technical and esthetic levels). Nowadays, architectural drawing represents more than the graphical simulation of the architectural object. It means analysis, development, communication, transformation and encouragement. In short, is a powerful tool of social interaction. Perception, expression and internalization are associated in the movement and the action of drawing. One of the main features of a creative learning consists in the development of strategies that allow the students to make an adequate use of their knowledge and experience to solve specific challenges. When working with first-year students, the intention of the instructor is to provide them with the skills to confront these challenges, as well as helping them find their personal drawing strategies, to develop a creative process. Through the sketchbook, it is possible to determine their chronological evolution, and find an immediate and expressive tool to undertake the initial moments of design.

This research shows the importance of the graphic diaries (or sketchbooks) in the creative process of architects, from the initial moments of data collection to the design phases.

Keywords:

Sketchbook, design, communication, pedagogy.