Form follows function - Part I

Easter weekend was fun. My family and I spent a fantastic weekend in Philadelphia. Despite being one of the oldest cities in the US, I found the buildings in Philly very pleasant to look at. The entire city was laid out in a lovely grid pattern - and all the buildings seemed to be in pretty good shape despite their age.

However, Philly has some of the strangest collection of sculptures that I have ever seen in my life. The strangest of them perhaps being the Clothespin located bang opposite the lovely City Hall. Designed in 1976 by Claes Oldenburg, the Clothespin was apparently meant to be a jibe at the form of the City Hall tower also seen in the picture to the left..


There are so many other weird sculptures strewn all over the city as captured by a photographer here. I for one am really puzzled as to what purpose these sculptures provide other than perhaps a opportunity for a photo-op for curious tourists. 


I feel that some sculptures may seem visually appealing, but really are not easy to understand for the common man. Sculptures should have some relevance and significance to the their location. 

Take for example, the world famous LOVE sculpture located just a few blocks away from the Clothespin. Although not originally created for the city of brotherly love, this sculpture is very easy to appreciate and relate to.


This brings me to my main talking point - why do we architects give more credence to design that only has shock value over another that is simple and easy to comprehend?


As students, we are pressured into thinking more about the concept and form of our designs rather than the function they are expected to cater to. We are tricked into spending too much time worry about how something will look. Often this comes at the expense of  the functional aspect of design. In my next few posts, I will illustrate this with more examples from the past and the present. Do you feel that architects today believe in the concept of form follows function or vice versa?

Presentation of a drawing or sketch

• A well presented drawing can make the eyes ignore some of its minor flaws.
• So before sketching you should plan the layout of the sheet.
• Keep in mind that brown or dark colored sheets make the sketches (especially pencil sketches) look extremely dull.
•  The font used in writing is also very important. So a little knowledge about calligraphy will definitely help to enhance the presentation.
• Formatting and maintaining the sheet is the key to a successful presentation. Make sure the sheets do not develop dog-ears(ends folded) Also take care while folding the sheets. Roll the sheets properly and make sure you use a butter-sheet or newspaper to cover your drawing.

Sketching Tips II - Scaling and proportion

Scaling and proportion complement each other. When you see a sketch in a book or magazine, you have to be able to conceptualize and imagine what scale will be suitable to your sheet.

Every line in the sketch should have some calculated proportion, and maintaining that proportion is important. For example, you cannot show a building or object far away in same size as an object that is closer to you.

After the sketch is completed it is important that any text to be added is also in proportion with the drawing. You cannot have a huge drawing and a very small text or vice versa.

Scaling and proportion is probably the 1st ingredient for a good presentation.

Sketching tips

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, sketching is something you become better at with practice. Your strokes and style only improve with effort and patience.

However, here are some things that I have learnt.

• Try not to smudge your drawings too much. The more you smudge your drawings, the less clear the drawings. That is where good dust-free erasers for pencil sketches and high quality ink erasers are invaluable. Also, when using ink pens, allow the ink on the paper to dry. Often this leads to mistakes that mess up the sketch.
• Make sure that you use the appropriate type of pencil or pen to create the sketch. Using the wrong pen or pencil can make your drawing illegible. Make sure the nibs are clean and pencils sharpened appropriately before use. This prevents costly mistakes that force you to redo the sketch.
• When creating pencil sketches, hold the pencil properly. What this means is that only the lead of the pencil should be in contact with the paper. If your hand or fingers rub against the paper continuously, your sketches will have a lot of smudge marks.
• If you have to create straight lines, draw the line gradually in small parts. This way you can correct any mistakes quickly.
• Be careful about the type of paper you choose to make a sketch. If you are learning the art of sketching, choose a paper that allows you to erase easily. Do not choose hand-made paper or other paper on which editing is difficult.
• Most importantly, do not sketch in haste. Take your time to draw. The more effort you put into creating a good sketch, the better it will turn out.

The above sketch is a good example of what not to do. The sketch above was one of my first efforts of creating a large sketch. I committed all the errors mentioned above. This resulted in the drawing being smudged and unclear.

Rotor Ink Sketching - Equipment

In my previous post I wrote about the equipment used to create pencil sketches. Now I will talk about equipment used to create rotor ink sketches like the one below.

Rotor Ink sketches are extremely time-consuming to create. I had earlier posted how you can evaluate whether you want to create pencil or ink sketches here.

The method used to choose the type of paper remains the same as with pencil sketches. However the other items required are different. Here is a snapshot of the equipment required to create ink sketches.

Rotor Ink Pens


Rotor Ink pens primarily differ from each other due to the thickness and shape of the nibs. They tend to be rather fragile and require some maintenance and cleaning. They are generally quite expensive, so make sure you maintain them well. Investing in a good set is worth the money because the better sets tend to be easier to maintain and draw with.

A full set of pens would have the following nib sizes: 0.13, 0.18, 0.25, 0.35, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mm.

Here is a more detailed view of a pen.

Make sure you use water soluble inks in the pen so that cleaning the pen is easy. These pen nibs are extremely delicate. If you do not clean the nibs before use, the ink could have dried at the tip of the nib. 

A major point for using ink pens is that you can use different colored inks to highlight various portions of your drawings. 

Ink Erasers


Editing ink drawings is extremely difficult unless you have an eraser of very good quality. The image that shows the complete set at the top of this post shows a dual eraser (one side for pencil and the other for ink).

For extremely difficult edits, use whitening ink or whitening pens as shown below.

Pencil Sketching - Equipment

How good you are at sketching comes down to how much you practice. Sketching is an art that requires patience and precision. However the kind of equipment chosen can make a big difference to the quality of the sketch. Here are some of the important components that are needed to create a great pencil sketch

Pencils

Pencils generally come in four grades: H, B, F, and, HB.

The chart below shows the tone produced by each grades of pencils.

H or Hard pencils produce a lighter tone, while the B or black pencils produce deeper and darker tones. The B pencils have a soft lead that tend to crumble easily while the H pencils are quite brittle.

I have always preferred to use Faber-Castell or Apsara pencils for sketching. Although it is commonly assumed that pricier pencils produce results, unless you notice a huge difference in the quality of your sketches, go for the cheaper brands. I have never seen a noticeable difference myself between the more expensive brands and the more reasonably priced ones. I would love to hear from you if you know of any brands that you feel are excellent for sketching. Please feel free to leave comments for this post.

Sharpening blades

For best results with your pencils, it is very important to sharpen them properly. Regardless of what brand of pencil you use, you can get beautiful textures from your pencils if you sharpen them well.

Here is a link I found that has some really good information on the different methods to sharpen pencils.

Make sure you have a sharp blade when you do sharpen your pencils. Blunt blades can cause you to cut yourself or break the pencil leads.

I have preferred using blades for sharpening pencils. The normal pencil sharpener is good for producing points that can be used to draw straight lines. However, the blades give you flexibility to create different types of points that are useful for shading, drawing lines etc. Do not despair or give up if you are unable to sharpen properly with a blade initially. It can take a while to master sharpening with a blade. I have broken many a pencil on the way to becoming adept with a blade.

Sandpaper is also an excellent way to sharpen just the lead of the pencil. Especially, the B grade pencils that are difficult to sharpen to a point.

Erasers

As they say failures are the stepping stones to success. The good thing about a pencil sketch is that you can make mistakes and edit them easily. However it is very important to use non-dust erasers to do so.


The reason I stress non-dust erasers is because, eraser dust from a normal eraser can make a big mess of your sketch. It can smudge your sketch and leave indelible black marks on the paper.

Paper

Choose the type and texture of paper for your sketch with care. The right choice of paper greatly enhances the outcome of the sketch.

There are many paper types. Some that I have found suitable for sketching are:

• Cartridge sheets
• Criss-cross sheets
• Hand made paper
• Butter Sheets (used for tracing)

The type of paper to be used depends on many factors such as:

• Scale of the drawing - Choose larger sheets for bigger or more elongated buildings. Make sure to use the landscape or portrait alignment carefully before starting the sketch.

• Level of detailing required -  Don't choose dull, textured paper if your sketches require straight, crisp lines or if you are showing intricate details as they will not stand out on these types of paper. Conversely, do not choose crisp paper for sketches that require a lot of shading.

• Subject of the drawing - Historical drawings tend to require more textured paper such as hand made sheets. Papers in shades of yellow or cream suit these sketches more. On the other hand, Contemporary drawings look better on clean, white paper such as criss-cross or cartridge papers. Choose thicker hand made paper if you want to incorporate smudge effects in your drawings. 

Preserving your drawings
Butter paper sheets or wax paper sheets are invaluable to preserve your drawings. Make sure that once you finalize your sketch, you roll them up with a butter sheet on top of the sketch. Otherwise your sketch will smudge or fade quickly.

I hope that you find the above post useful. I will be covering equipment for Rotor Ink sketches in my next post. 

Sketching - Types of architectural sketching

Types of Sketching

Manual sketching broadly falls under two categories:

1. Pencil sketching

2. Rotor Ink sketching

3. Coloring methods

Pencil sketching

This type of sketching is made using pencils of differing lead thickness. I would recommend novices start out with this type of sketching as mistakes can be erased.

Pros:

• Easy to edit
• Show shading variations with less effort
• Useful for creating outline (concept) sketches and creating drafts
• Widely available

Cons:

• Easy to smudge pictures
• Fades over time
• Harder to preserve
• Clarity of the drawing heavily dependent on the type of paper used

Rotor Ink Sketching

This type of sketching is done using special pens called rotor ink pens. The main feature of the pen is the differing thicknesses of the nibs available for the pen. I would recommend that you get some practice sketching with pencils before investing in the rotor ink pen.

Pros:

• Excellent sketch clarity
• Easy to preserve
• Different ink colors available
• Delicate detailing possible without smudging

Cons:

• Expensive to buy equipment
• Fragile nibs
• Not available everywhere
• Nibs need lot of maintenance - The ink dries and clogs up the tip of the nib. This can be extremely difficult to clean. So make sure you use the nibs frequently - or clean the nibs after use immediately.
• Difficult to edit

Coloring methods

There are different types of coloring methods. Some of the methods I have used include dry crayons, charcoal sticks, color pencils, crayons, pastels, watercolors and oils, and, sketch pens.

These are generally used to create detailing and shading effects to drawings created using pencils or rotor ink. This is an extremely useful for color coding sketches such as landscaping, highlighting sections and differentiating types of walls etc.

If you have any specific questions regarding this please feel to leave me a comment or email me at swathy dot sivaraman at gmail dot com.

Coming up ... Sketching

The title picture of the blog has a couple of sketches that I created for my History of Architecture portfolio. Here are a few more sketches that I have created for that class.

Pencil Sketches

Rotor Ink

Feel free to leave me any comments about my sketches. I will go into detail about sketching in my next post.

I will elucidate more about:

• Types of sketching in architecture
• Equipment needed for drawings
• Sheet Layout
• Scaling and proportion
• Clarity of sketches
• Presenting the sketch with respect to equipment used
• Detailing of the drawing
• Preserving sketches

Life of an architect

This blog is dedicated to all those people who like me dream of becoming a world famous architect. When I was in college slogging through five of the toughest years of my life, I often wished I had a quick resource to lookup the hows and whats of a course. I wished I could talk about those frustrating problems that I spent days and nights trying to solve.

I have created this blog with the aim of filling the information void that I faced as an architecture student. Every week I will write an article about a topic providing tips, tricks and other advice that you will find useful when completing those projects and submissions.

Be it how to create technical drawings, or, how to approach case studies, I will let you know everything I have learnt during my time as a student.

Whether you just need a place to vent your architectural frustrations or want to know more about something I've posted, feel free to drop me an email at swathy dot sivaraman at gmail dot com.