Hand Drawing

You probably noticed in my last post that my architectural renderings were not done in AutoCAD, but instead with plain old pencil, scale, and triangle.  My incredibly talented mentor, Emily Bourgeois, and her draftsman, Steve Nelson, taught me the value of hand rendering and inspired me to continue to use hand drawings to express my ideas even though I protested that AutoCAD can be infinitely easier at times.  Emily once told me 'All of the architects/designers that I truly admire use hand rendering'.  She convinced me that when you can see the entire space on the paper all at once, and you (not the computer) are responsible for drawing the measurements precisely right, and you are calculating the mid-point and you are dividing the space into equal parts, then the space begins to take shape in your mind and you begin visualize and feel a part of the space as if it already existed and you could walk around in it.  You begin to feel what will and will not work in the space instead of letting the computer blatantly show you 'there's obviously not enough space for a dishwasher in that island, duh'.

I'll illustrate my point (ha - so many puns there, i couldn't resist) with an example.  First, here is an AutoCAD drawing that I completed while in school:

Pretty boring, right?  To give it credit, it was only a school assignment in drafting and not truly a designer kitchen.   But regardless, upon first glance you can't even tell what it is....it could be a basement workbench for all you know until you realize there's a rangetop and a microwave.  AutoCAD drawings don't have much depth so it's hard to read and you certainly aren't going to fall in love with any design when it's presented in that fashion.

Let's compare it to a hand drawing.  This is a similar kitchen elevation that I completed for a client.  Obviously I did not have to include the subway tile backsplash or the books in the niche above the refrigerator, but i wanted to use this drawing to tell a story, and to impart my design ideas.  Simply the addition of the shading in the toe kick adds so much more dimension to the drawing.

All of my designs start out with drawings - either scaled drawings or sketches.  Usually i do some rough sketches of the design first, and then once I start on the measured drawings I will determine if the proportions will work in the amount of space I have to work with.  Then I will design, tweak, and add details accordingly.   I enjoy the process of completing the drawings, and I love making them look as realistic and stylized as possible.  I'll share the kitchen elevation drawings from the Farmhouse project in a future post.

Thanks for reading!