Frank Melendez - Drawing from the Model: Fundamentals of Digital Drawing, 3D Modeling, and Visual Programming in Architectural Design

Frank Melendez

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ISBN: 978-1-119-11562-5

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As pervasive as Laugiers Primitive Hut myth, the napkin sketch occupies a powerful place in architectures disciplinary and professional narrative. The image, indeed expectation, of the artistic genius sketching out a design, one that is seamlessly realized, with nothing but cocktails, a fountain pen, and a napkin as aids, has simplified the incredible complexities and collaborative systems that have always been required to put a building together. The disciplines embrace of the napkin sketch paradigm has arguably been a force in resisting the integration of new technologies into the teaching of architectural design and visualization. Architecture still likes to think of itself as a creative endeavor, and the transition from the fountain pen to digital tools came to symbolize an abdication of individual authorship. However, the advancements of the technologies and techniques outlined in Drawing from the Model reveal the promise to rethink what drawing is, and consequently to embrace the interplay of intention, intuition, iteration, and integration that has always been a part of the design process.

Historically, these first two is (intention and intuition) have been foreground, and reflected by the napkin-sketch scenario. While Drawing from the Model does not deny their importance, its focus on the interplay of drawing, model, and technology puts a spotlight on the pedagogical importance of iteration and integration. In this volume, drawing and model are terms that flow between digital and manual techniques, as intertwined players in a process of discovery and materialization. As such, in considering the role of drawing and modeling as teachers, we need to shift our obsession with physical output and understand how different tools can expand the various possibilities for cognitive and creative input. How can our students move fluidly between tools to sketch; to ideate; to translate between two-dimensional drawing and three-dimensional space and volume; to evaluate; to fabricate; to collaborate with others; to represent in four dimensions; to simulate the real; to foreground the idea over the real? The boundlessness of what drawing can be and what it can do opens up opportunities and expands our notion of architectural creativity.

Digital tools have become an unquestionable part of the design process, and less threatening to the creative territory we architects like to claim as intrinsic. Consequently, we now find ourselves in a post-rendering age, where what drawing and modeling can be is ever-widening. This is the perfect time to acknowledge the many places that we draw from, and the explore the possible routes to get there that Drawing from the Model presents us.

Sunil Bald

Sunil Bald is founding partner of studioSUMO and associate dean and professor at the Yale School of Architecture where he teaches design and visualization.

This project was initiated while teaching at The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York (CCNY). Many faculty, staff, and students have been supportive of this project and have contributed in various ways. I would like to thank the following faculty members for their guidance, suggestions, and critical feedback during this process: Gordon Gebert, Julio Salcedo-Fernandez, Jeremy Edmiston, Marta Gutman, Michael Sorkin, M.T. Chang, and Bradley Horn. This book was supported in part by The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY. Thank you to the Spitzer family for their support of the school. Thank you to Camille Hall. Thank you to Hannah Deegan for her assistance. Many of the drawings and images in this book are the result of architectural representation and digital design courses that I have coordinated and taught over the past few years at The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY, as well as courses that I taught at Carnegie Mellon University. I would like to thank my colleagues who have helped to shape these courses and all of the students who have contributed their work.

I would like to thank the following reviewers for their generosity in providing great comments and suggestions: John Eberhart, Susannah Dickinson, Mara Marcu, Bradley Cantrell, Chrisopher Dial, Yichen Lu, and Michael Young.

A special thank you to Sunil Bald for writing the foreword to this book. Im very grateful for his insight and meaningful contribution to this project.

I would like to express my gratitude and a appreciation to all of the talented architects, artists, and designers who supported and contributed to this book by providing drawings, renderings, photographs, and other images of their exemplary projects and work. Also to all of the foundations and organizations who provided access to resources as well as permission to include images from their collections in this publication.