Category Archives: Design

Torino

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After a thoroughly enjoyable sojourn in Sicily, I departed for Torino, where I met up with faculty and students participating in the UW Architecture in Rome program. Unfortunately, I came down with Covid shortly after arriving in Torino but I managed to maintain a presence while recovering. Above are a few views of Torino, including a two-page spread that illustrates how I take notes, both verbal and graphic, while on day trips.

Until I returned home to Seattle, I did I not fully grasp how Covid had affected not only how I felt (tired) and my sense of taste, but also my ability to fully experience the joy of being in Rome once again.

Samford Hall: Auburn University

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William J. Samford Hall houses Auburn University’s administration, planning, and public relations offices. Built in 1888 after a fire destroyed “Old Main” on the present site, the structure, with its iconic clock tower, is now part of the Auburn University Historic District.

As with the previous post, there are two images above. On the left is my first attempt at blocking out Samford Hall. You can see how the structure fills the page and the top of the clock tower appears to be cut off. Note also how the dark figures establish the scale of the forecourt.

To give the structure more breathing space, I moved back to allow the engraved Auburn University sign to frame the scene in the foreground and also enable the entire clock tower to be included.

Another lesson in composing, framing, and providing context.

It’s Been 50 years…

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…since I first stepped into the classroom at Ohio University to begin my teaching career. To my great good fortune, I was assigned to teach a first-year design studio with Norm Crowe, who taught me how to teach in the way he planned the course syllabus, carefully thought out studio projects, prepared for each class, and displayed admirable patience with beginning students. I also taught an architectural graphics course, the class notes for which resulted in the publication of Architectural Graphics in 1975.

Above is one of a series of posters I did to advertise the School of Architecture’s lecture series. It depicts the Athens County courthouse in the middle of town.

Thinking with a Pen or Pencil

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Above is a site plan for the INA–Casa Tiburtino project in Rome, designed by Mario Ridolfi & Ludovico Quaroni in the 1950s. It shows how one can think with a free hand holding a pen or pencil while exploring possibilities, looking at alternatives, working out problems, even doodling on a sheet of paper. Below is another, more personal example of similarly exploring design alternatives, by hand, on paper.

Notan

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This a line drawing of the Danube, one of the Four River Gods in Bernini’s fountain in Rome’s Piazza Navona. The line is the quintessential element of drawing, able to convey to the mind’s eye three-dimensional forms in space, often not by its presence but rather by its absence—where we decide to stop a contour…and pick it up again.

These cropped enlargements of the original drawing use areas of black to emphasize the negative spaces of the drawing and the white of the sculpture. This brings to mind notan, the Japanese term for “light dark;” some translate it as “light dark harmony.” It is a concept revolving around the placement and interplay of light and dark elements in the composition of a collage, drawing, or painting. It is valued as a way to study possible compositions without the distractions of color, texture, or details.

Drawing Lessons

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From a Rome journal, two pages of sketches drawn during a teaching session. The first page contains explanatory sketches accompanied by bits of concise text: “Pay attention to profiles”…“Suggest details within shadows”…“Visualize shape of curves.”

The second page illustrates how to estimate proportional heights above and below an imagined horizon line.

Taking Notes

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Being able to listen, absorb, and process information during a lecture or conference is a valuable skill, one that can be practiced and cultivated by taking notes by hand. These notes can often be augmented with word diagrams and visual imagery that come to mind to reinforce points being made or expressing one’s understanding of what is being said. Here are a few pages of notes I took during a Design Communication Conference in 2018. See also my posts on 10.30.16 and 10.14.20 on the similar subject of taking visual notes. 

Building Codes Illustrated, 7th Edition

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Even with the nice, sunny weather we’ve been having, there hasn’t been enough time to go out and capture scenes in and around Seattle. I’ve been busily working with Steve Winkel and editors from Wiley and the International Code Council on revising Building Codes Illustrated to incorporate the changes effected by the 2021 edition of the International Building Code. For example, the title page above reflects how the development of mass timber construction has led to the creation of new categories of Type IV construction.

This page illustrates the necessary provisions for accessible electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS).

This series of illustrations is an example of how the book attempts to explain in graphical terms the intent of code requirements. In this case, these graphics illuminate the theory underlying horizontal exits.

Note: All of the illustrations in BCI were created in Adobe Illustrator.

Tempietto

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The Tempietto is a small, elegant temple situated in an outer cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, reportedly the site of St. Peter’s crucifixion, on the eastern slope of Gianicolo Hill in Rome. King Ferdinand commissioned Donato Bramante to design the martyrium in the early 16th century. It is basically a cylindrical form ringed by a series of Tuscan columns and topped by a hemispherical concrete dome. This and other examples of western classical and renaissance architecture are difficult to draw well due to the genre’s precise attention to proportion and scale. It is relatively easy to distort their forms, as in this case, where the vertical axis tilts slightly and the cylindrical from droops downward and to the left.

Near, Middle, Far

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In this view of an art museum in Palermo, I am looking from an upper level, through a staircase in the middle ground, to a courtyard beyond. To convey a sense of spatial depth on the page, I attempted to use relative values and value contrast to suggest what is near, clarifying what is in the middle ground, and again merely suggesting what is far away. In the image below, I have stripped away the color to show the equivalent gray values of the sketch.