Ideas turned stories

Ideas can be expressed and formatted in many ways using both verbal and visual languages. Indeed communicating ideas is a creative activity in order to capture the intended audience, be they a colleague, a client or a group, say a planning committee, and convince them that the idea is worth pursuing towards realisation. Or, as put by the Danish architect, Bjarke Ingels, 'My drawing skills probably froze when I was 18 ... Now I'm more interested in the story, how the drawings, the layout can help express the stories and communicate them'. Significantly, each of his buildings has a signature visual gimmick that plays well on Instagram and on the image-heavy web sites that make up much of online architecture media. Interestingly, Ingels first wanted to be a caroonist and graphic novelist but as there was no cartoon academy in his native country, he got smitten by architecture seeing architecture not as style but comparing it to portraiture where the success lies in its power to capture the subject's soul and potential. Not surprisingly, then, Bjarke's published architectural monograph uses the comic book format to express its groundbreaking agenda for contemporary architecture.