Drawing and Modeling

Drawing is being replaced by digital simulation models in architectural practice. This

will have profound effects on how architects work and think.
David Ross Scheer
David R. Scheer is a practicing architect who has taught design and theory at several
schools of architecture. His firm pioneered the use of building information modeling in
the 1990’s and he writes and speaks widely about technology’s impacts on architecture.
He was the 2012 Chair of the AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Knowledge
Community.
An Appreciation of Drawing
For centuries, drawing has been the lifeblood of architecture. In fact, the architectural
profession owes its existence to the establishment of drawing as the chief medium of
building design in the fifteenth century. There is a crucial difference, almost too obvious
to mention, between a drawing and the building it represents. Drawing is abstract-- it is
a mental construction. None of the views typically shown in construction drawings
(plans, elevations, etc.) can be seen in reality. A single drawing shows very little of what
is present in a building. Architectural drawing is a symbol system that must be learned.
Understanding a building from a set of drawings requires the ability-- gained through
long training-- to synthesize a three-dimensional image of a building from a set of
interrelated two-dimensional images. The qualities of the building’s form and spaces
must be imagined by the architect from this synthesized image. Since it is the primary
support for our design processes, drawing conditions how we think to a great extent.
Architects think by drawing.
Drawing is also a physical skill. In learning to draw, architecture students absorb many
of the values essential to architecture such as attention to detail and craftsmanship. As
architects they transfer these values from drawing to building. Learning to draw in
specific ways embodying these values is a key part of becoming an architect, inducting
students into the culture of architecture. Drawing provides architects with their first
encounter with materials (paper, pencil, ink, etc.) that, while different from construction
materials, teaches them how intentions and materials work together to form a final
product. Most importantly, by involving the hand, eye and mind, drawing joins mental
processes with bodily (haptic) experience to create the unique way of thinking needed
to designing buildings that are themselves experienced in all these ways.
Thus, drawing has provided architects with the scaffolding on which their design
thinking is erected and their professional identity is established. CAD changed this only
partially. While it diminished the physical skill and material experience drawing entails,
it left the ideational role of drawing intact. With the rise of building information
modeling (BIM) and computational design, the last remnants of the influence of drawing
on architecture are disappearing.
Representation and Simulation
Drawing is a form of representation. In this context representation has the specific
meaning of a set of signs that refer to reality. These signs have utterly different
properties than the object to which they refer, as the spoken or written word “cow” is
nothing like the animal. The sign system associates an object with a set of ideas and
provides a means of manipulating these ideas and by extension thinking about the
object. We create representations in order to think about our experience. Our languages
are the most common and probably most important representational systems. For over
five hundred years, architectural drawing has been the primary representational system
used to think about the design of buildings.
Simulation denotes a different relationship to reality than representation. Where
representation works by means of sign systems distinct from the reality to which they
refer, simulation works by duplicating reality to some extent. Instead of viewing reality
through the filter of signs, simulation gives us the experience of reality itself. Although
computation is used to create a simulation, all the user perceives is the final result of an
experience of reality. How this result is obtained is completely hidden from the typical
user. Since only the final result matters from the user’s point of view, what an
architectural simulation is effectively doing is predicting the performance of a building.
Performance in this context can refer to any aspect of a building, technical or visual. The
processes behind the simulated performance are entirely different than in the real
building. In the simulation, the processes are computational; in the building they are
physical.
In order to use simulation in design, architect-users must overlook the obvious fact
that they are looking at a computer display and not at a building. This sounds unlikely,
but the logic of simulation drives the architect to do precisely that. The entire point of a
simulation is to reproduce the experience of the eventual reality of the building.
Architects must accept what they see in a simulation as an anticipation of reality in
order to use it. Insisting upon the difference between simulation and reality amounts to
a refusal to accept the simulation and negates its use as a design tool.
The seductiveness of simulations also pushes the architect to forget the separation
between simulation and reality. This is not simply a pitfall to be avoided. The almost
irresistible tendency to be drawn into a simulation is well-documented phenomenon
among users in the scientific research community where it causes considerable anxiety
(see S. Turkle, Simulation and Its Discontents, 2009).
Simulation in architecture
 The technology behind architectural simulations has made enormous strides since its
inception in the 1970s. With the widespread adoption of BIM and computational design,
simulation has begun to replace representation (drawing) as architects’ medium.
Although these tools are currently being used chiefly to produce drawings, the process
behind the extraction of these “drawings” from a computer model is radically different
than creating drawings by traditional means, including CAD. Furthermore, the day is
approaching when models themselves will replace drawings as architects’ deliverables.
There are many obstacles to be overcome before this happens, but for reasons of
efficiency and owners’ demands, it will happen eventually. Answering the question of
what will happen as simulation displaces drawing is of the utmost importance.
Simulation has effects on both practice and design thinking. These effects stem from
two aspects of simulation: information management and computational design.
Information management has always been a significant aspect of architectural
practice. With drawing, information management presents challenges due to the
difficulty of coordinating drawings that are separate from one another and come from
many sources. Architects act as the gatekeepers of project information, enabling them
to control the design process by deciding what information is made available, when, to
whom and in what form. Also, because most people cannot read construction drawings,
the architect has additional control over information given out to clients and the public.
The centralized control of information in the hands of architects is largely responsible
for their special position in the project. As the only member of the project team with a
comprehensive view of the project, the architect is naturally considered its author.
The situation is much different with simulation. Now project information can be stored
in a data model on a server, accessed and augmented by a number of people, reducing
the architect’s control over the information. Contractors can be included from the
beginning of design, providing constant feedback on constructability and costs.
Furthermore, the information can be displayed by the model so that anyone can
understand the form and organization of the building, allowing non-professionals to
participate in its design. These capabilities allow design to be intensely collaborative in
real time, breaking down traditional barriers among ownership, design and
construction. This process provides great advantages to the owner and these
advantages are greatest when a maximum amount of information is available and
collaboration is as free and open as possible. The owner’s interests counter the
architect’s tendency to want to control information. This implies a complete rethinking
of the legal structure of the project.
Design thinking is affected by these changes in project structure. The criteria for a
“good” design can now be based on its performance under various quantitative
analyses. Since there is so much information available even early in the project’s
development-- and it is in computable form-- technical performance can be evaluated
early and often for a large number of alternative designs. Because simulation allows
every aspect of a design to be viewed through the performative lens, those that are
most easily quantified tend to receive the most attention. Therefore, quantitative
measures of project performance, be they technical or financial, tend to have greater
influence on design decisions.
Computational design can yield forms that are impossible to draw yet can be
fabricated using computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools. These forms may
not be directly designed but can be generated by a computer algorithm. The architect
designs the algorithm rather than directly designing a form. The architect often cannot
foresee the results of the algorithm, but evaluates its results displayed by the computer,
selecting among the forms it generates in an iterative process. While this can produce
visually exciting results, it demands profound changes our concepts of design thinking
and intent.
The automated fabrication of building components directly from the architect’s
computer files not only expands the possibilities of buildable forms, it also blurs the
separation of design and construction. While architects can become builders in the
sense that their computer files drive CNC tools, fabricators can become designers
insofar as architects need their input and expertise to create economical, constructible
designs that respect the properties of the materials and machinery.
Prospect
The building industry in the U.S. is in the midst of a transition from a drawing-based
system to one based on simulation. However, the bridge has already been crossed.
Many students emerging from architecture schools today are not skilled at drawing and
unquestioningly accept simulation as the means of design without understanding its
implications. More owners are requiring their architects to use simulation tools. New
technologies and project delivery processes are being created under pressure from
owners who are demanding greater efficiency and certainty. Simulation is pervasive in
our culture. Architecture will inevitably follow suit.
For More Information
Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan
Press, 1994.
Peter Cook, Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons,
2008.
Mario Carpo, The Alphabet and the Algorithm, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2011.
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
David Ross Scheer, The Death of Drawing: Architecture in the Age of Simulation, New
York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
from The Architect’s Handbook of Practice, 15th ed. (2014)