Drawing equality

The Architecture Drawing Prize 2018 showcased the importance of drawing as a tool for generating, capturing and communicating ideas. The prize, launched in 2017, embraces the creative use of digital tools and digitally-produced renderings, while recognising the enduring importance of hand drawing. The competition has three three categories of drawing; Hand-drawn, Digital, Hybrid, and each category provides clear evidence that drawing is not only alive and well, but that there is equal value in the craft of each of the categories, as the tools available to achieve a means to an end. For a review: https://www.makearchitects.com/thinking/the-architecture-drawing-prize-review/ Similarly, Eye Line, the RIBA annual drawing competition, which started in 2013, highlights the skill and talent involved in 2-D representation of a building design or concept through visual means, and without drawing distinction between ‘hand drawing’ and computer rendering skills – not only because both are of equal value but because so many architectural de­pictions layer several techniques to produce the final image, making such distinctions meaningless https://www.ribaj.com/eyeline/eyeline-winners-2018

Generative ideation

One of the advantages of generating ideas with the help of computing is speed, that is, in the time it takes for a designer to create one idea, a digital computer can generate thousands (from the fact that where complexity and scale are of concern, human ideation requires exponentially more effort and time than computers, which excel at iteration without fatigue). But not only in terms of speed, and quantity is the computer a suitable ideation tool. Generative design software, such as Autodesk, helps designers create complex shapes and form, some of which would be impossible to make with traditional manufacturing techniques and procedures. Instead, they're built using additive manufacturing (defined as the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data). Moreover, when designers input goals and constraints into the software, along with parameters (variables) such as materials and manufacturing methods, the software is able to produce a wide range of potential design solutions for the designer to choose from and, by altering the parameters experiment and explore further. Using generative design software for ideation purposes (generative ideation), in conjunction with additive fabrication, can save substantial design, modelling, prototyping, and, ultimately manufacturing time, while avoiding costly errors and enhancing product quality.

Narrative ideation

The narrative, or story is a powerful means of communication and used as a conceptual tool can make ideas more complete, exciting or persuasive. The narrative, then, turns the ideator into a storyteller developing and communicating ideas through written or spoken words, or visual images, or both. Using narrative formats such as analogy, metaphor and storyboard, design ideation thus becomes an interaction, or a dialogue between language (verbal) and visualisation (non-verbal) that not only brings ideas to life but also provides possible design solutions that can be understood by professionals, clients and laymen alike. Moreover, using computational power (by a computer), narrative ideation may help contextualise ideas further fusing seemingly unconnected, unrelated or contradictory ideas or situations to produce even more compelling ideas and concepts.

Ideation practice

While new ideas can appear from anywhere, and at anytime - the proverbial Aha! moment, and generated with the help of an array of conceptual tools, one may ask if there are conditions particularly conducive to ideation? In trying to answer this question, ideators may consider two practices: one is to open themselves to inspiration through seeking out and embracing stillness; the other is to focus on the present moment. The first practice follows from the observation that the mind is most receptive when not disturbed, the second that often the best ideas present themselves right now, in the present. But although these two conditions may seem desirable for ideation they are neither necessary nor sufficient for the free flow of ideas which may occur in many "other places" and, moreover, may not appear "all at once".

Use it or lose it

There’s an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a hopeful principle when applied to ideation tools because it implies choice. Designers possess both the knowledge and the technology to identify and redress the changes in how they use ideation tools in everyday practice. That includes the physicality of tools and the sense of touch that afford spatial and sensory awareness in the ideation phase also allowing for ideators to return to first thoughts, to check information and learn from re-examination. The question, then, is what happens to design as a reflective practice, and designers ability to use analog tools when the use of digital tools or drawing and reading on screen become the deafult position? Why make notes, draw and read on paper, or build physical sketch models when digital tools seem so much more efficient, and less messy? Yet if designers work to understand fully what they might lose, alongside the new capacities that the digital age has brought the design field, there seems as much reason for excitement as caution.

Machine learning and ideation

Machine learning, a branch of artifical intelligence, AI, and related to computational statistics, is based on the idea that computer systems can learn from data, without being explicitly programmed, identify patterns ("object detections") and make decisions with minimal human intervention.This may suggest machine learning could be a useful tool for practising designers when making decisions about idea implementation. But for a machine to aquire a lot of information ("data mining") and making data-driven predictions or decisions is not the same as humans being capable of generating original and sustainable ideas because machine learning, from a computationalist perspective, in its attempt at mimicking the human decision making process, is not conscious of its own computations, and therefore lacking "human conscious". So while machine learning may help develop and implement ideas, and become an ideation tool, it doesn't replace human intervention in idea generation.

Sketchbook speculation

Will Alsop, the British architect (1947-2018), was a keen sketcher from the very start of his career, saying "You can speculate in your sketchbook – you're allowed to think about anything, with or without a client.". An ideas-driven architect, Alsop was also known to use painting, before he began to work on a new project, to clear his mind, think freely and create an uncontaminated design approach (his office walls typically included large paintings of colourful abstract compositions). Or, as he put it, "One of the reasons for painting is that you are not really in control of what you are doing - and that interests me a lot. Instead of having a specific starting point, which perhaps, in architectural terms, would lead through to a series of logical thoughts working towards a designed building, you can start anywhere."

i-sketch and we-sketch

A sketch is a sketch is a sketch. Or is it? There may be an assumption that all idea sketches are for sharing with others. Not necessarily so. There are reasons why a designer may prefer to keep their sketches private, and reasons why they show and share their sketches with colleagues or clients, and whether face-to-face or online, including, for example, drawing on a whiteboard in an ideation session. In the first instance, we may call the activity i-sketch, and in the second, we-sketch. Such distinction may have implications for education too in that students should feel free to decide what sketches should be displayed and shared with others, and which should remain a private record of ideas. But whatever category, freehand sketching is a powerful means of ideation that improves with practice.

On why sketching still matters

Michael Graves, the US architect (1934-2015), argues that 'Architecture cannot divorce itself from drawing, no matter how impressive the technology gets. Drawings are not just end products: they are part of the thought process of architectural design. Drawings express the interaction of our minds, eyes and hands.' Continues Graves:  'The referential sketch [and he argues there are three types of architectural drawing; the "referential sketch", the "preparatory study" and the "definitive drawing"] serves as a visual diary, a record of an architect’s discovery. It can be as simple as a shorthand notation of a design concept or can describe details of a larger composition. It might not even be a drawing that relates to a building or any time in history. It’s not likely to represent “reality,” but rather to capture an idea.' Moreover: 'These sketches are thus inherently fragmentary and selective. When I draw something, I remember it. The drawing is a reminder of the idea that caused me to record it in the first place. That visceral connection, that thought process, cannot be replicated by a computer.' Further: 'As I work with my computer-savvy students and staff today, I notice that something is lost when they draw only on the computer. It is analogous to hearing the words of a novel read aloud, when reading them on paper allows us to daydream a little, to make associations beyond the literal sentences on the page. Similarly, drawing by hand stimulates the imagination and allows us to speculate about ideas, a good sign that we’re truly alive.' Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/architecture-and-the-lost-art-of-drawing.html

Experimental tools

"There is no such thing as a failed experiment," said the American inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller, "only experiments with unexpected outcomes." This quote may also apply to design ideation when explorations count for more than discoveries, and when curiosity is more useful than knowledge. Moreover, ideation, as an inquisitive process, goes beyond mere thought experiment, that is, when ideation has an intended physical outcome, the designer, (or the design team, in collaborative design), has an intention to perform the experiment too. In this, ideation tools (words, drawing, sketch modelling, and computing) become experimental tools too for generating, developing and communicating ideas.