Architect's Toolbox: The Sketches That Spark a House
With everything that goes into creating a house today, it’s tough to envision where everything starts. How do you communicate your thoughts to another person, and how does an architect translate things such as “indoor-outdoor stream, tons of natural lighting and a connection to the landscape”?
While architects use many different high-tech approaches to conveying conceptual designs to clients, such as iPad mock-ups, computer-aided drawings (CAD) and 3-D models, the first versions of a design have a tendency to begin with a few of the most low-tech art types around: the pen-and-paper sketch.
“That big idea, the entire project, needs to be dried into a little drawing. We call [them] ideagrams,” states Vancouver architect Sean Pearson. “It is an absolutely simplistic representation of the idea.”
Castanes Architects PS
Castanes Architects PS
Architect Jim Castanes prefers drawing by hand in the first stages. “I’ve got more control of scale,” he states.
For a project on the beach in Seattle, shown, he walked the land a few times before inspiration struck. “All of a sudden, I thought, ‘I do not want to have the house to be there and disrupt the motion of the natural beach, symbolically, metaphorically or physically.” He believed the house should float above the beach. The clients wanted something simple, and he couldn’t think of anything easier than a flat, sloping roof and a raised-platform design.
Castanes additionally attracted inspiration from things across the beach. Kids playing with beach balls and flying kites motivated colors to be incorporated by him to the outside of the house. “Beach architecture this is generally all gray or all brown. I didn’t want that,” he states.
“You’re constantly talking to the customer, and they are telling you things,” Castanes states. “You find the land, generate thoughts. As an architect, you can wake up at 2 in the morning and think of details of how this matches and that matches. You do not eliminate it. You’re constantly walking into a space and assessing it — a nightclub, a bar — it is everywhere.”
People have to have a lot out of these sketches, so “that you need to be focused,” he states. “They need to be great enough to show to your customer. Sketches are pretty extreme. You’re under the gun, under a charge; you can’t screw around. You’ve got to consider the program, website, fee limitations, time — they are superimportant.”
RUFproject
Pearson used only 11 lines to convey a concept to his clients on Gulf Island in Vancouver. He wanted to demonstrate how the design would consist of a rectangular main living space that appeared to float about the landscape, forming a bridge between a rocky outcrop (the arch) and the decrease guest part of the house (the square).
RUFproject
The 5,600-square-foot house mirrors the first concept drawing; it hovers above the rocky terrain and contains glass walls that catch ocean views. “Drawings and models are tools to take abstract things in thoughts and start to test them,” Pearson says. “You then reevaluate those and show them to the customer. What people see from architects are the distilled, simplified variations of the design process.”
RUFproject
Pearson’s customer was torn between wanting a traditional log cabin and wanting a modern design. Pearson tried mixing these theories by incorporating enormous wooden beams. He worked out how the beams would be configured to form the top section of the house.
Because each of the materials would need to send to the website via ferry, Pearson had to design the home approximately 108-foot-long beams, the maximum allowed to a ferry.
RUFproject
Alaskan yellow cedar beams lend log cabin style to the final design. “The job of an architect is quite complex,” Pearson says. “You have to be cost conscious; comprehend construction, materials, design; and combine all that into something you really can build. There’s contracts and structures around a project. Then you need to balance the criteria of what a customer needs, the website, the regulations — you need to solve that mystery.”
Thinking up the first sketch, Pearson says, can take a week to 3 weeks.
Caleb Johnson Architects + Builders
Architect Caleb Johnson sees sketches as a means to help promote his idea and let the customer know what he or she’s getting into — even if this customer is his wife. Johnson used his artistic skills to demonstrate his wife the design he intended to build to their new house in Portland, Maine.
Caleb Johnson Architects + Builders
“She must agree with what I am going to build,” he states. For this project he made a drawing drawing on the computer, then printed out that and used tracing paper to include more detail. “It is absolute simplicity and getting down to the bare essentials,” he states.
Architects: Please show us a favorite preliminary sketch!
More: 6 Sketches on the Way to a Dream Home