What are the marks that you make on the surface? What is your working balance? Are they lines? Does the term line confuse the issue? A line as defined by Euclidian modalities does not exist. Are they traces? A trace is produced from movement: a path worn into the field from deer, contrails, […]
READ MORE →
12Jan
2024
TAKE A DOT FOR A WALK
2024
Paul Klee famously stated that a line is “a dot that went for a walk.” You make a dot when your pencil touches your paper, and that dot goes for a walk because of the gesture of your hand. A walking dot is the trace that is left on the paper as you move […]
READ MORE →
12Dec
2023
THE MATH OF HOUSES
2023
The design of a house can be expressed in a mathematical formula. So let us see how we can incorporate mathematical equations as part of our design process. When a client approaches you with their requirements for a house, without question, there will be a list with elements, such as living, kitchen, dining, […]
READ MORE →
11Oct
2023
SIMULTANEOUS DRAWING
2023
In Transparent Drawing, I used the words simultaneous, and simultaneously, 20 times. Drawing simultaneously is one of my central concepts. As I took these photos a few days ago in the countryside of Girona, Spain, I thought, if I were teaching a drawing class, I would ask that students draw this form, from these photos, […]
READ MORE →
22Aug
2023
LET’S DESIGN THE PROFESSION
2023
There have been a spate of articles asking the question, will AI (Artificial Intelligence) make architects obsolete? Oliver Wainwright’s article in The Guardian is worth focusing on. In the article, Wainwright interviews Ethan Mills, who says the following: “What (architects) need to design right now is not another building, but the future of their profession.” […]
READ MORE →
5Jun
2023
YOU SEE SHAPE
2023
I happened upon course planning material for early grade teachers. These sources use the terms 2D Shapes, and 3D Shapes. They never use the term form. Shapes are not Forms. So let’s say you are an elementary school teacher, and you want to give your class an explanation of how humans see the visual […]
READ MORE →
13May
2023
FUNCTION IS FAKE
2023
You can’t understand architecture with regard to function. Function is a bore. Function has never made sense. Function is fake. “Culture imposes accepted understanding of function.” Deetz. “Where function enters into the analysis of a building’s performance, it is generally assumed rather than quantified.” Upton With the term function, we mean an object […]
READ MORE →
23Mar
2023
DESIGN COMPETENCE
2023
Architects, to maintain their license to practice, need to earn a certain number of what are called Continuing Education credits per year. Many of you readers are architects, and are of course familiar with the process. For those of you who don’t know, the vast majority of these credits are centered around Technical Competence. […]
READ MORE →
21Feb
2023
YOUR ACTS OF DESIGN
2023
Your only concern should be to produce forms that are authentic and responsive. You can only be concerned with your acts of design. This is all you can do. You cannot be concerned with the amount of attention that your form will attract. There is no telling the why or wherefore of what makes an […]
READ MORE →
20Jan
2023
YOUR GEOMETRIC REPERTOIRE
2023
If you are a designer, what do you do as design exercises? Athletes and musicians engage in strengthening exercises. If you are of the lingual bent, you develop sets of phonemes. As a designer, you are a generator of forms. What do you do to strengthen your geometric repertoire? “The ability to design is […]
READ MORE →