How design ideas are crafted and communicated through a rich plethora of architectural tools.
Almost anything can inspire a building. It could be the socio-economic climate or the path the sun takes over the site. In the same way, when architects develop a design for a building working closely with the client, the starting point is not set in stone; the early sketches of the idea and later iterations can take many forms. As with so many aspects of modern life, in architecture there is a plethora of communication methods and sources of data to choose from. While this range of tools is a luxury, the trick is to know what to use and when, and how to combine them. This is especially so for smaller practices, which must manage their resources more carefully.
1. Image from Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
Image Source: Rpbw.com
The architectural brief is effectively a code to be cracked. The key to the code is often a diagram drawn by the architect, a process that translates the written words of the brief into shapes. In drawing the diagram the architect takes the client’s requirements and begins to think about how these might take physical form and how the different elements could interconnect and be overlayed.
Peter Eisenman’s architectural diagrams show how this method moves the brief into a different realm, in which the seeds of a built structure are shown. In the introduction to Eisenman’s book Diagram Diaries, RE Somol says: “the fundamental technique and procedure of architectural knowledge has seemingly shifted, over the second half of the twentieth century, from the drawing to the diagram. This is not to suggest that a diagram of one form or another was not always constitutive of architecture at various points in its history, but simply that it has only been in the last thirty years or so that the diagram has become fully ‘actualized’ that it has become almost completely the matter of architecture”.
2. Peter Eisenman’s study diagrams of the Biozentrum or Bioology project he designed in 1987.
Image Source: Architectural-Review.com
A simple hand sketch is a very powerful tool for working out and conveying architectural ideas. Such sketches may in fact not present the building with the same technical accuracy as a 3D model and yet they can more effectively capture the mood of the scheme. They also mean that the design does not ‘solidify’ early but rather continues to evolve more freely, perhaps inspiring the architects and clients to take the design in new directions.
Steven Holl, has used sketching in watercolour, for example, for many years. Holl’s sketches focus the viewer’s gaze on particular parts of the building and even exaggerate certain aspects, such as lighting, materials, scale or structure. In this way, although his sketches are static images, they are journeys through the space and evoke how it would feel to be there, rather than an exact technical specification. The result is an image that engages the viewer particularly directly. The beauty of an inspiring sketch, then, is that it provides all those involved with a very vivid sense of what the project is aiming to achieve.
3. Chapel of St Ignatius, Seattle, USA.
Image Source: Stevenholl.com
4. Chapel of St Ignatius, Seattle, USA.
Image Source: Stevenholl.com
5. Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum.
Image Source: Stevenholl.com
Often the tools we use to create the first images of a design are determined by the type of project. At Studio Spanakis we started work on our proposal for a large urban masterplan development in Sweden by making a physical model of the existing site in cardboard. The process of “building” the site, contour by contour, over several days, gave us an in-depth understanding of the scale, shape and heights of the site, its key transport routes and how it connected to the nearby city. This then informed and inspired our design decisions throughout the project.
6. Another Level © StudioSpanakis and Lefteris Tsolakis proposal for the EUROPAN 11 Norrkoping masterplan.
Among the best things about using a physical model are the ability to observe the impact of natural light on the design, to experiment with textures and to gain a holistic view of the project – for both the client as well as the designer. A model gives you a view of the scheme that cannot be achieved on a computer screen – there is no need to zoom in or rotate the image, instead you can interact with the site in a much more immediate way.
Knowing the discipline of making a model is essential to an architect’s perception of space, volume and structure. For architects and visualisers the discipline also provides a sound starting point from which a 3D computer model can be created because it furnishes them with a clear view of how the building’s components fit together. Perhaps most importantly, the process of constructing the model gives you a preview of how the construction processes will work in reality. Model-making is in fact a crucial element of an architect’s education, which should begin in the very early stages of study.
When beginning a project to fit-out a restaurant interior in Greece, our first step was to create a 3D model of the space. The 3D approach simulated the pattern of natural light in the restaurant and allowed us to test various positions for proposed lighting and arrangement of spaces. The approach also allowed for rapid changes to proposals, as well as the ability to communicate the impact of changes clearly to the client. This saved time and costs for the client because we were able to make decisions rapidly and quickly drop any options we decided were less attractive.
7. Interior design for Fatto Restaurant, Athens _ © StudioSpanakis 2012.
3D visualisation has developed almost beyond recognition in the past thirty years. In the 1980s the technology was such that a pencil sketch could tell you more about the lighting and atmosphere of a project. Today, 3D visualisation can achieve accuracy akin to a photograph of the real thing – it’s about as close to actually living and breathing your proposed project as you can be.
8. Tower in Shenzen, Morphosis _© Copyright 2012 Luxigon.
Image Source: Luxigon.com
But more than that, now the 3D model acts as a platform for communication. All parties involved in the project can add their ideas and knowledge to the model and work together on the evolution of the design, using the 3D images as their base.
The 3D model has evolved even further in recent years: Some software allows you to overlay sustainability data onto a 3D model, while Building Information Modelling is an approach that sees all parties sharing access to a 3D model that contains an array of data, including costs of components and construction programme details.
While architects, engineers and contractors might speak the same “language” it can be more difficult for clients who come from outside the industry to understand construction professionals’ ideas, much less the traditional architectural floor plans and sections of buildings, which provide less to spark the imagination. So 3D visualisation benefits the client with a vastly enhanced view of the proposed design. This allows us to work more closely with the client and, if necessary, make rapid adjustments so that the project meets their requirements perfectly. Using 3D early on means the project is as efficient as possible because the client knows exactly where the design is going and can ask for changes before too much time is spent on options they don’t wish to pursue.
Once we have set up a basic 3D image, we have a model of the parameters of the site upon which we can overlay a variety of options, showing the client different ways to arrange the space and trying out a range of colour and lighting schemes. The design can then also be viewed in different scenarios, including day, night, sunset and so on, or on a snowy or sunny day. It is far less easy to manipulate a physical model in the same way.
9. Amorgos Villa (concept design) _ © StudioSpanakis 2011.
3D models are the ideal way to ensure the design is a collaborative process between the architect and key stakeholders. They are invaluable in terms of communicating a proposed design to a wider audience, such as investors, planning authorities and members of the public. For example, the proposal for a major community project can be shown to the public in a format they can instantly grasp and respond to. By attending the presentation the architect can even witness the immediate reaction of the public to his or her design.
Again, this approach is evolving even further. Videos are being created increasingly to showcase proposals, such as the film of the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre, designed by Renzo Piano and under construction in Athens. You can watch this video at the end of this article.
Each of the architect’s tools brings something subtly unique to the design process, so the ideal approach is to combine them all. An equally important skill is avoiding using one tool at the expense of others, ensuring that each tool works to its full effect, while also knowing when a tool has given all it can to the project and is no longer needed. Because architects must be ready to change their design in response to the reactions of clients and other stakeholders, neither should the tool dominate the design. For instance, it is important that the 3D image does not dictate the design, but rather is part of a very flexible exercise. In the same way, the architect must know when to consider a multitude of design options and when to narrow the focus on to fewer options, as well as when to invite the views of other disciplines and so on.
New tools should also be a continuously added to the architect’s desk. Over the past three years at Studio Spanakis we have been working with software that allows us to calculate the energy efficiency of different designs. The software analyses the path of the sun over the site, the prevailing winds and the average climatic conditions at all points during the year, and can assess a building based on how it is used, including the times of day when it is occupied and so on. This has hugely enhanced our ability to offer sustainable solutions based on detailed, site-specific data to our clients.
10. Solar study for a house in Bucharest _ © StudioSpanakis 2011.
