Book Review

Abstract

In the process of architectural design, the drawings that are intended to represent the ideas stemming from the designer’s imagination fall into two main categories: conceptual sketches, related mainly to the early research phases; and communication drawings, related to the phase of divulgation of the results of the research. Conceptual sketches relate emotions, while communication drawings mostly report information. The communication drawing, in order to be efficient, must adhere to the standard codes of two- and three-dimensional representation, and therefore takes the familiar forms of plan, section, elevation, perspective, digital rendering, and so forth. It can be done by assistants or collaborators. Marco Frascari calls this kind of drawing “trivial drawing”. On the other hand, the “non-trivial drawing”, which describes the idea rather than the form, may take any graphic form whatsoever, and may be done with any kind of graphic tool. The quality of the conceptual sketch, done by no one other than the designers themselves, depends heavily on their ability to express their feelings on paper with pencils, markers, colors, and all sorts of graphic techniques.

Sylvie Duvernoy is the book editor of the Nexus Network Journal, and the author of the recently published book on “trivial” drawing Elementi di disegno. 12 lezioni di disegno dell’architettura — with English text (Florence: Le Lettere, 2011).