#visual case study

Sketch Everything.

Sketching is by far one of the most important tools an architect can have, both for representing their own thoughts and ideas, but for understanding the world around them. Sketching our surroundings helps us to understand how the world works, both visually and technically. It teaches up proportions, perspective, and perception, which we can then wrap into our own projects. 

Half of designing is being able to translate the ideas in your head into something that others can understand, and being able to transfer existing reality onto paper directly affects your ability to transfer your own ideas onto paper. Sketching is half muscle memory, so more sketching = better sketching.

Reminder that my Visual Case Study Challenge is running until the second to last week of August, and it’s not to late to join in! You’re more than welcome to go back and do the first six prompts, but it’s not required. More info found on the first post when you click the link.

Relying on natural lighting instead of artificial for the majority of your lighting needs comes with a number of benefits:

Improved general health and happiness of building occupants

Improved energy usage and associated costs

Interesting light/shadow patterning

It can be easy to think of threshold as a single, defined point of entry into a space or building, rather than what’s usually a more somewhat drawn-out process of entry that includes the spaces both inside and outside that point of entry. Streets, walkways, porches, and foyers are all key components of threshold systems. 

And we’re back! The Visual Case Study challenge - part 2 - will run from today until September 8th. My catch up sketches will be mixed in with the next two weekly reviews - daylighting with this week’s, and pathways with next week’s. 

Which brings us to this week’s prompt: Elevation. I think with all the access we have to digital modeling software nowadays, it can be tempting to jump directly into designing in 3D, but there’s value in looking at things in 2D as well. Working in elevation is especially useful for picking up on patterns, both in your own design, and in the surrounding context. Looking at the elevations of the surrounding context is also especially useful for informing your own designs, whether you pull out a texture pattern, or continue lines from neighboring buildings - i.e. window lines, floor levels, etc.

This week, take some time to really study your surroundings in elevation. What patterns can you pick out? Is there continuity between one building and the next? Or is there intentional discontinuity?

Introducing the Visual Case Study challenge!

It’s summer break here in the States, and with that, the habit of sketching anything and everything tends to die off a bit. As much as I personally love to sketch, I’m much less likely to do it during the summer, unless I’m going somewhere unusual with interesting things to see. My intention with this challenge is to make us more aware of the details that make up the world around us, especially those we see on a daily basis and often take for granted.

This challenge is going to last for 12 weeks - the entirety of summer - with a new prompt each week designed to make us more attentive to a particular aspect of our world. Every Monday I’ll post a little more detail, and perhaps examples, about the kinds of sketches I was thinking about when I chose the prompt for that week, but the end result is ultimately up to you. As long as you’re using the prompts as a springboard to further study the world around you, you’ve accomplished the goal of the challenge.

I’m also running this concurrently over on my Instagram. If you post over there, be sure to tag me @the_studious_archie and use #VisualCaseStudy. Each week I’ll be highlighting a handful of sketches in my story.

In a world that is growing increasingly urban, it's more important than ever for architects and planners to consider the importance of green space in our lives. Since I’ve been posting about this a lot in my Urban Outdoors series, I won’t go too in depth, but for those who haven’t read those posts yet, the essence of it comes down to the fact that interacting with nature makes us happier, healthier, and more productive members of society. It's not necessarily that difficult to include green space in urban design, but it does require thoughtful consideration. 

Visual Case Study week one was Interstitial space. I chose to study a space in between buildings in the downtown area of the city I work in. I appreciate that instead of letting it be a normal alley from one street to another, the adjoining building on the right used it as another opportunity for store frontage. There are certainly more things that can be done to make the space a bit more welcoming, but it's already bounds ahead of some other similar spaces I've seen.

Visual Case Study Week 3: Views.

It’s easy to look at your site from the outside - what abuts it in elevation, how it relates to its surroundings in plan. What we often forget to do, is look out from the site. Sure, you may know that there are buildings across the street, but what do those buildings actually look like when you’re standing on your site? What could the surroundings look like from the second, third, or tenth floors of your proposed design? Will some sides of the building have less favorable views than others?