Learning Through Drawing

An architectural student is taught how to draw with orthographic techniques but can they explore ideas to solve design issues through hand drawing to refine an outcome? Has the pandemic and the turn to online interaction, exposed the vital role that hand drawing has as a tool for critical evaluation and exploration? Hand drawing is a tool which encourages a working methodology, a way of thinking through a problem, narrative or idea and not just representation. Using a case study of a house completed in 2010, the journey of drawings were compiled into a time line, against the RIBA plan of work stages. The range of drawing types, scale and purpose demonstrated how various architectural possibilities could be explored, and how the drawings could act as an evaluative tool for the design team as well as for the client. Through a series of workshops, the undergraduate architectural students were led through this case study, to demonstrate the practice of drawing as a fundamental tool in the way that architectural ideas and narratives are explored, evaluated, and communicated. Workshop activities built on simple line drawings, to drawings to communicate an architectural idea. Workshop engagement increased student confidence in drawing, lessened the self-conscious aspect of drawing in front of others and fostered peer interaction around communication through drawings. Asking the students to draw a diagram of the displayed case study as a time line, allowed them to focus on the iterative process of drawing and understand that the process is not a straight line but often requires re alignment due to numerous constraints relating to context, brief, planning processes and budget. Each of these constraints generate a new set of criteria to explore through drawing. With the increasing use of digital technology, and increase of isolation arising from Covid 19, the importance of hand drawing in the design process is still fundamental to how each individual explores, evaluates, iterates and communicates an architectural idea, carried through a narrative of drawings. We propose that the act of drawing can become a more deliberate, conscious and clearly staged process that provides a student with a methodology for designing