Recently I have been reading books and articles about architectural drawing. In many of these readings there is an occurring dilemma that the architectural designer faces, the dilemma of translating ideas from drawing to the actual building with minimal loss of meaning and essence of the idea. It occurred to me how the field of Design/ Build solves this dilemma. Below is a list of points that illustrate this dilemma and highlight the emollient aspect of Design/ Build.
- Architectural design can be thought of as an attempt to translate an idea from drawing to building with minimal loss of meaning and essence.
- If we think of architectural design as a liberal art we can compare it to painting and sculpting, where architectural design has a clear disadvantage because the designer never directly works with the object of their thought. However, painters and sculptors might spend a short time on preliminary sketches, but ultimately ended up working on the thing itself which absorbed most of their attention and effort.
- Phenomenal psychology tells us that the bodily experience is ground for all other perception of meaning and nothing can replace the meaning of experiencing a building regardless how sophisticated the architectural drawings presented are. So the distance between the pictorial image of a floor plan or a projected elevation drawing and the actual real-world bodily experience of a building is acceptably clear and distant.
- The potential of loss in translation from drawing to building increases, when an architectural designer’s concern for meaning is embodied in a drawing whose implicit or explicit role is the reduction of a building or a picture of a building.
- In the past 200 years very few architects have built their own buildings so the potential of loss of meaning and essence in translation increases.
- If a designer can maintain control in transit (from drawing to building,) that more remote destinations may be reached”. In art, this is ideal.
- Design/Build bridges the gap between drawing and building. We design it, the activity of intellect, and we build it, with our hands. Continuity and control is maintained by the designer from drawing through building.
- Francisco says that when we design, we think like builders and when we build we think like designers, so that the activity of intellect and the apprenticeship of building remain a constant through the entire process of design & build.
Readings:
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