To speculate is to engage in thought or reflection. In design, we speculate about the future. As we think about what might be possible in the future, drawing gives material existence to our conceptions so that they can be seen, assessed, and acted upon. The drawing out of these ideas, whether executed quickly or slowly, roughly or carefully, is necessarily speculative in nature. We can never determine beforehand precisely what the final outcome will be. The developing image on paper gradually takes on a life of its own and guides the exploration of a concept as it travels between mind and paper and back again.
In the generative and developmental stages of the design process, drawing is distinctly speculative in nature. Thoughts come to mind as we view a drawing in progress, which can alter our perceptions and suggest possibilities not yet conceived. The emerging image on paper allows us to explore avenues that could not be foreseen before the drawing was started, but which generate ideas along the way. Once executed, each drawing depicts a separate reality that can be seen, evaluated, and refined or transformed. Even if eventually discarded, each drawing will have stimulated the mind’s eye and set in motion the formation of further conceptions.
Therefore, speculative drawing is different in spirit and purpose from the definitive presentation drawings we use to accurately represent and communicate a fully formed design to others. While the technique and degree of finish of exploratory drawings may vary with the nature of the problem and one’s individual way of working, the mode of drawing is always open-ended, informal, and personal. While not intended for public display, these drawings can provide valuable insights into an individual’s creative process.
Speculative drawing is a creative process. The imagination triggers a concept that is seen as a flashing and dimensionless image in the mind’s eye. The drawing of that idea, however, does not arrive full-blown and complete. Images rarely exist in the mind fully formed down to the last detail, waiting only to be transferred to a sheet of paper. It develops over time and undergoes a number of transformations as we probe the idea it represents and search for congruence between the image in the mind’s eye and the one we are drawing.
If we draw blindly, as if following a recipe, we limit ourselves only to preconceived images and miss opportunities for discovery along the way. While a prior image is necessary to initiate a drawing, it can be a hindrance if we do not see that the evolving image is something we can interact with and modify as we draw. If we can accept this exploratory nature of drawing, we open up the design process to opportunity, inspiration, and invention.
Visual thought is the essential complement to verbal thought in cultivating insights, seeing possibilities, and making discoveries. We also think in visual terms when we draw. Drawing enables the mind to work in graphic form without consciously intending to produce a work of art. Just as thought can be put into words, ideas can take on a visual form to be studied, analyzed, and refined.
In thinking about a design problem, ideas naturally come to mind. Such ideas are often not verbal. The creative process inevitably involves visualizing a potential outcome in the form of images that are not clearly or completely crystallized. It is difficult to hold such ideas in memory long enough to clarify, assess, and develop them. In order to commit an idea to paper quickly enough to keep up with our thoughts, we rely on diagrams and thumbnail sketches. These generative drawings lead the way in formulating possibilities.
The smaller a drawing, the broader the concept it forms. We begin with small sketches, since they allow a range of possibilities to be explored. Sometimes a solution will emerge quickly. More often, however, many drawings are required to reveal the best choice or direction to pursue. They encourage us to look at alternative strategies in a fluent and flexible manner and not close on a solution too fast. Being speculative in nature and thus subject to interpretation, they help us avoid the inhibiting nature of a more careful drawing, which often leads to premature closure of the design process.
Without lifting your pencil from the paper, draw six straight lines that connect all 16 dots. This simple puzzle illustrates both the iterative, trial-and-error nature of problem solving and the need to commit pencil to paper in working through the problem-solving process.
This cube consists of a 3 × 3 × 3 array of smaller cubes. How many ways can you find to divide the cube into three different shapes, each having an equal volume containing nine of the smaller cubes?
Circular-, triangular-, and square-shaped holes pierce the solid block. The diameter of the circle, the altitude and base of the triangle, and the sides of the square are equal in dimension. Visualize a single three-dimensional object that will fit exactly and pass completely through each of the apertures. Can you imagine a solution without drawing out the possibilities?
The design process leads into uncharted territory. To pursue what we do not already know, it is necessary to have a sense of wonder, the patience to suspend judgment, and a tolerance for ambiguity. In accepting ambiguity, unfortunately, we lose the comfort of familiarity. Dealing only with the clearly defined and the familiar, however, precludes the plasticity and adaptability of thought necessary in any creative endeavor. Tolerating ambiguity allows one to accept uncertainty, disorder, and the paradoxical in the process of ordering one’s thoughts.
The mystery and challenge of ambiguity applies as well to drawing from the imagination. Unlike drawing from observation, in which we are able to represent a subject that is visible through prolonged viewing, speculative drawing is open-ended and full of uncertainty. How can we draw out an idea for a design if we do not know where the process will lead? The answer lies in understanding that we use drawing in the design process to stimulate and extend one’s thinking, not merely to present the results of the process.
The first lines we draw are necessarily tentative, representing only the beginning of a search for ideas or concepts. As the design and drawing processes proceed in tandem, the incomplete and ambiguous state of the drawings is suggestive and subject to multiple interpretations. We must be open to the possibilities the drawings present. Every drawing we produce during the design process, whether the idea it represents is accepted or rejected, helps us gain further insight into a problem. Further, the act of drawing an idea out on paper has the potential to trigger new ideas and enhance cross-fertilization among any number of previous ideas.
The two patterns of lines can serve as the basis for further development of a three-dimensional image. For example, they could suggest how two walls meet a floor. What other ways can you interpret and develop the patterns?
Draw a wavy line across the middle of a rectangular plane. Then draw parallel lines above and below the wavy line, making them closer to each other at certain points so as to create areas of concentration. As the drawing develops, what does the emerging image suggest or recall to your mind’s eye?
Imagine what one might see upon looking to the right in the perspective below. First explore a variety of scenarios in the smaller frames and then develop one of them into a perspective view in the larger frame.
“…‘How can I design if I do not know what the end result will be like?’ is a frequent complaint. ‘Why would you need to design if you already knew?’ is my response. The need for a prior image is most keenly felt when we do not trust the form as something to work with. There is nothing wrong with having such an image, but it is not a prerequisite and may be a hindrance. When we speak with other people, we need not know what the result of the conversation will be either. We may come out of the conversation with a better sense of the issue; in fact, we may have changed our mind. When we are concerned about ‘doing our own thing’ and feel we must be on top of the form all the time, we cannot relax and trust the process. Once students find out how one’s dialogue with the form will always bear the imprint of one’s personality—whether one likes it or not—the complaint is no longer heard.”
—John Habraken
The Control of Complexity. Places/Vol. 4, No. 2
In the search for possibilities and to outline choices, we rely on intuition as a guide. Intuition, however, is based on informed experience. We cannot draw out what is not already within each one of us. Drawing requires understanding of what it is we are drawing. For example, it is difficult to convincingly draw a form whose structure we do not understand. Yet the act of trying to draw it out can lead the way to understanding and guide the intuitive search for ideas.
The first lines we draw are the most difficult. We often fear even beginning until an idea is fully formed in our head. Faced with a blank sheet of paper, what does one draw first? We may start with specific aspects of a particular form or setting, or begin with a more generalized image of a concept or construct. In either case, where we start is not as important as where we end up.
Drawing too carefully in the early stages of the design process can lead to hesitation and disrupt our thinking about the problem. The time and energy spent on the creation of a drawing can inhibit the willingness to explore other possibilities. We should understand that speculative drawing is a trial-and-error process in which the most important step is to set down the first few lines on paper, no matter how tentative they might be. We must trust our intuition if we are to move forward in the drawing process.
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
His response was a question: ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’”
—Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland
To be fluent in the creative process is to be able to generate a wide range of possibilities and ideas. To be fluent in the drawing process is to be intuitive when placing pen or pencil to paper, responding with ease and grace to our conceptions. We must be able keep up with our thoughts, which can be fleeting.
Writing our thoughts out is an easy, almost effortless task. To develop this same fluency in drawing, we must practice on a regular basis until putting lines down on paper is an automatic reflex, a natural response to what we are seeing or imagining. While speed may come with pushing ourselves to draw faster, speed without discipline is counterproductive. Before drawing can become an intuitive component of our visual thinking, we must first be able to draw slowly, deliberately, and accurately.
A quick mode of drawing is necessary to capture a brief moment in the flow of ideas, which cannot always be directed or controlled. Fluency in drawing therefore requires a freehand technique, with a minimum of tools. Attention paid to the mechanics of drawing with drafting equipment or to the menu and palette structure of digital software can divert time and energy from the visual thinking process. We should therefore draw freehand whenever fluency and flexibility are more important in the design process than precision and accuracy.
Related to fluency is the idea of efficiency. Efficiency in drawing, and the resulting increase in drawing speed, comes with knowing what to draw and what to omit, what is necessary and what is incidental. This knowledge too comes with practice and experience.
An effective way to develop fluency and promote drawing on a regular basis is to maintain a sketchbook and to draw in it a half-hour to an hour each day. One possibility is to focus each week on a different architectural element, such as windows, doorways, walls, and rooflines. Another is to focus on specific qualities, such as material textures, shadow patterns, or the ways different materials join or meet each other. The most important thing is to draw subject matter that interests you.
With just a few quick pencil strokes, try to capture the essence of these images in the adjacent frames.
What simple geometric shapes can you find within these images? Use a pen or pencil to outline these basic structures.
Explore how far you can simplify these images and still have them remain recognizable.
In any creative process, we must be prepared to take advantage of the unexpected. Drawing allows us to explore avenues that could not be foreseen before the process was initiated, but which generate ideas along the way. If we remove ourselves from the position of author and view our drawings as an objective observer, they can present possibilities not yet conceived. These are involuntary products of an inner vision. Ideas naturally come to mind when we look at a drawing. As a single visual idea triggers other ideas, one drawing leads to another and another. Even if not serving an immediate purpose, speculative drawings can still be useful for future reference and to stimulate seeing in new ways. And through a series of drawings, we are able to see unexpected relationships, make connections, or recall other patterns.
Layering is a graphic mode for both analysis and synthesis. It allow us to quickly and flexibly see patterns and study relationships. Just as we refine our written thoughts by editing and rewriting drafts, we can build up a drawing in layers on a single sheet of paper. We first draw the foundation or structural lines of the image lightly in an exploratory manner. Then, as we make visual judgments on shape, proportion, and composition, we draw over the emerging image in a number of discrete steps. The process may include both sketchy and detailed work as the mind focuses in on some areas for closer inspection while keeping an eye on the whole.
The revision of a drawing can also occur through the physical layering of transparent sheets. Tracing paper allows us to draw over another drawing, retaining certain elements, and refining others. On separate transparent overlays, we can draw patterns of elements, associated forms and groupings, and relevant relationships. Different layers may consist of separate but related processes. We can study certain areas in greater detail and give greater emphasis to certain aspects or features. We can explore alternatives over common ground.
Drawing provides the means by which one can see things that are not possible in reality. As we draw, we can vary the arrangement of information. We can free the information from its normal context so that it can come together in a new way. We can fragment, sort and group according to similarities and differences. We can alter existing relationships and study the effects of new groupings.
When exploring a series of design possibilities, it can be advantageous to remove, relocate or recombine the elements of a form, space, or composition. This process can be as simple as carving away a part and reattaching it in a different location. It can involve extending one element or form to intersect with another, or superimposing completely different elements or ordering systems over each other.
Once recorded on paper, we can spread these alternatives out for comparison, rearrange them, and manipulate them as in a collage. We can evaluate the ideas and develop them further. Or we can discard them, bring others back for reconsideration, or incorporate new ideas into the next stages of progress.
Use a series of drawings to illustrate the following operations. First, slice off or carve out a part of the cube. Then remove the piece from the cube. Finally, reattach the piece to the cube in three different ways: touching at a point, adjoining along an edge, and abutting face to face.
The seven shapes that comprise the Soma cube represent all the ways in which three or four cubes can be arranged other than in straight lines. Use a series of drawings to explore the different ways one could combine these shapes. What is the most compact grouping you can develop? The tallest stable configuration? The interlocking arrangement that encloses the largest volume of space?
Transfer the plans of the Hardy House and the Jobson House onto separate sheets of tracing paper. Overlay the plans and study the different ways one could reconfigure the plan elements and their relationships. On a third overlay of tracing paper, use drawings to explore how one plan may dominate the composition but incorporate parts of the other, or how an entirely new composition may incorporate parts of both of the original plans. You may repeat this exercise with any other combinations of plans that either contrast sharply or share certain characteristics.
Drawing is only a translation of what we are envisioning. As we commit an image to paper, the mind’s eye filters out what is interesting or important. The more important points will tend to rise to the surface, while lesser ones will be discarded in the process. As drawings record our thoughts, they then become independent objects for study, elaboration, and the stimulation of new ideas.
Drawing represents ideas in a tangible form so that they can be clarified, assessed, and acted upon. Every drawing undergoes a number of transformations and evolves as we respond to the emerging image. Once drawn, the graphic images have a physical presence that stands apart from the process of their creation. They serve as catalysts that play back into the mind and provoke further study and development of the ideas in our head.
In the process of exploring an idea and pursuing possibilities as they arise, we develop a series of drawings, which we can arrange side by side as alternatives to compare and evaluate. We can combine them in new ways; we can transform them into new ideas. The principle of transformation allows a concept to undergo a series of discrete manipulations and permutations in response to certain directives. In order to force a shift in our thinking, we can transform the familiar to the strange and the strange to the familiar.
Through a series of drawings, gradually transform the images on the left to the ones on the right.
Create the illusion of depth and movement in a drawing sequence that relates each pair of images.
Improvise a sequence of drawings based on the images in the first frame.
To be flexible is to be able to explore a variety of approaches as new possibilities arise. Flexibility is important because how we draw affects the unconscious direction of our thinking and how our visual thoughts are formed and articulated. If we feel comfortable knowing how to draw only one way, we unneces-sarily limit our thinking. To be able to look at a problem in different ways requires being able to draw these various views. We must become familiar and fluent with various drawing media, techniques, and conventions, and view them simply as tools to be selected according to their appropriateness to the task at hand.
A flexible approach to drawing is the beginning of a search that often involves trial and error. The willingness to ask ‘what if…?’ can lead to alternatives worthy of development. A flexible attitude thus allows us to take advantage of opportunities as they arise in the drawing process. While fluency and flexibility are important in the beginning of any creative endeavor, they must be coupled with reasoned judgment and selectivity. We must be able to generate choices without losing sight of our goal.
First complete the drawing using a pen and the technique shown. Then redraw the scene using a different medium and technique of your choice. How does changing media affect the resulting image?
On separate sheets of paper, draw the scene described in the following passage from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment from two different points of view. Use a soft pencil for the first drawing and a pen for the second.
“The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one side, and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass in front of her:
‘Step in, my good sir.’
The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.
‘So the sun will shine like this then too!’ flashed as it were by chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows, chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow frames, representing German damsels with birds in their hands—that was all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything was very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly polished; everything shone.”
A creative imagination regards old questions from a new angle. Relying on habit and convention can impede the flow of ideas during the design process. If we can see in different ways, we are better able to see hidden opportunities in the unusual, the exceptional, and the paradoxical. To see in new ways requires a keen power of visualization and an understanding of the flexibility drawing offers in presenting new possibilities.
To see with a fresh eye, we can look at a mirror image of what we are drawing. We can turn the drawing upside down or stand back from it to study the visual essence of the image—its basic elements, pattern, and relationships. We can even see it through someone else’s eyes. To encourage a shift in view, it is sometimes useful to use a different medium, a different paper, a different technique, or a different drawing system.
Drawing can stimulate our thinking by offering different points of view. Multiview, paraline, and perspective drawing systems comprise a visual language of design communication. We must be able to not only write in this language but also to read it. This understanding should be thorough enough that we are able to work comfortably back and forth from one drawing system to another. We should be able to transform the flatness of a multiview drawing into a three-dimensional paraline view. Viewing a set of multiview drawings, we should be able to imagine and draw what we would see if we were to stand in a particular position in the plan view.
Turning an idea over in our mind enables us to see and study it from different points of view. In a similar fashion, if we can imagine how an object rotates in space, or how it might appear as we move around it, we can explore its many facets from all sides. And if we are able to manipulate a design idea on paper as we turn it over in our mind, we can more fully explore the multiple dimensions of a design idea.
When drawing how something rotates in space, it is much easier to imagine the revolution of a simple geometric element rather than an entire composition of parts. Therefore, we begin by establishing the ordering device that binds the form or composition together—whether it be an axis, a polygonal shape, or a geometric volume—and analyzing the principles that regulate how the parts are related to the whole.
Then we imagine and draw how the ordering device might appear as it rotates and moves to a new position in space. Once we arrive at this new position, we reestablish the parts in proper relation and orientation to the whole. In building up the image, we utilize regulating lines to form the structure of the object or composition. After checking for accuracy of proportions and relationships, we add thickness, depth, and details to the framework to complete the drawing.
Draw both an isometric and a plan oblique view of the structure described in the multiview drawings. Then draw perspective views of the same structure from opposite vantage points. Compare what each drawing type reveals and conceals about the composition.
Imagine the die is moving freely through space. Draw the die at two intermediate positions B and C as it rotates from A to D.
Imagine the composition is moving freely through space. Draw the composition at two intermediate positions B and C as it rotates from A to D.
In working from the general to the particular, from the broad, overriding issues to the detailed resolution of a problem, we parallel the gradual formulation, refinement, and crystallization of a design. The graphic technique progresses in a corresponding manner from diagrammatic sketches executed in broad strokes to more definitive drawings of concrete ideas and solutions executed with more precise instruments.
We stimulate our design thinking by working at various scales and levels of abstraction. The scale of a drawing establishes which aspects or features we can attend to and likewise those we must ignore. For example, the question of material goes unanswered at a small scale partly because we cannot represent material at that scale. At a larger scale, however, this question would arise. Unless the material question is resolved, such a drawing would seem too large for its content. Changing the scale of the drawings we use during the design process allows us to distill an idea down to essentials as well as expand the idea to incorporate issues of material and detail.
The interdependence of design issues and scale is a question not only of perception but also of craft. Our choice of a drawing medium depends on the scale of a drawing and determines the degree of representation or abstraction we are able to illustrate. For example, drawing with a fine-tipped pen would encourage us to draw small and enable us to attend to detail. Drawing with a broad-tipped marker, on the other hand, would allow us to cover more ground as well as study the broader issues of pattern and organization.
Reduce the scale of the column capital in each succeeding frame by a half. How much detail can you eliminate in each drawing without sacrificing the identity of the capital?
Find and select a building element, such as a window, doorway, or ornamental frieze. Draw the element from a distance of 30 feet, then 15 feet, and finally 5 feet. In each successive view, increase both the scale and the amount of detail.
Repeat the above exercise with another building element. This time, reverse the procedure by first drawing the element from 5 feet away, then 15 feet, and finally 30 feet. In each successive view, decrease both the scale and the amount of detail.
