Explore a further 25 extraordinary architectural drawings, each one a Finalist in the 2022 One Drawing Challenge. Let us know which are your favorites on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #OneDrawingChallenge!
“With this ink on paper drawing I explored the relationship of narrative and drawing. Drawn images often tell stories: the strongest stories often create imagery. The imagery I created is about, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a book that I associate strongly with my own life. Jonathan is a seagull who leaves his flock to fly higher, explore, and learn new things. In the end, he finds his freedom and escapes from the cage where the cage represents limitations and a reality that was told to be the only reality. For me, the best way to realize that there are other realities is to travel and see people born and raised in different societies and cultures. The more I explore, the more I become free.”
“iliCity: The Vertical Fantastical” by Anna Kondrashova and Mariana Orellana
Pratt Institute
“The tower of ilicity is an exquisite corpse that explores the duality of urban city life. Similarly to the SoHo block, the tower stitches together familiar, essential and mundane elements into a randomized agglomeration of components that follow a Truchet aperiodic tiling composition. This stitching together of random parts is a social and spatial condition, that challenges the occupant as they experience the assemblage through the lens of dirty realism.
Our project seeks to understand the conditions of the SoHo block, extracting the dynamics of overlayed and adjacent programs, functional elements and remainder spaces. By acknowledging grey zones as essential elements in urban conditions, the tower of iliCity integrates remainder spaces as symbiotic and non-detachable element of its composition. The project blurs the line between built, social, and even political grey zones that exist as a reality within contemporary life, and will continue to exist and grow as humanity evolves.”
“Quiet River – China” by Thomas Schaller
Schaller Architectural Fine Arts
“A semi-fictional view of an evening in Fengjing, China. All hand-done graphite pencil drawing with watercolour wash.
76x56cm”
“Aqueous Rhizome” by Sam Wu
University of Queensland
“Monsoon arrives misery every summer in the City of Chandigarh, Le Corbusier’s modernist metropolis. How does a landscaping intervention protect the city from inundation caused by climate change? Rather than obstruct the water, a network of sunken landforms and water-purifying facilities invites water into the city fabric. Waterscapes are juxtaposed against Le Corbusier’s greenery fingers across the city. Purified water will recharge the deep aquifers, an indispensable water source for commercial and domestic use.
This drawing cuts a section through the main street in Sector 17, which is the centre for street vendors, hawkers, entertainment, and various commercial activities. The red element indicates the new intervention in the city. Stairs and Ramp connect the sidewalk to the canals, which act as an open space and bikeway in the dry season. Pocket open spaces and bridges above water channels allow residents to cross the water after adverse weather.”
“Alzheimer’s. Stage 4.” by Brent Haynes
“Alone. Confused. Frustrated. The more I try to hold on to memories that are slipping away from me, the more afraid I am that someday, there will be nothing left at all—nothing but a memory that has been forgotten by time itself.
I walk through the city, trying to balance what I think is true with what I’m sure I don’t know. As my surroundings disappear, I try to remember what they used to be like. But as time goes on and my mind gets weaker, it’s harder and harder to remember the details of the past.”
“In between” by Anastasia Fedotova
Architectural Association School of Architecture (drawing submission from the final year work 2021-2022), currently employed by Foster and Partners
“Nowadays, demolition waste creates the most significant waste stream in the world. By considering cities undergoing renovation, the author proposes a physical dissection of destructible buildings, their dismemberment and recycling through robotic automation according to their structure, material and condition. Specially designed machines curate and organize virtual and physical (“theatre”) archives of the targeted buildings under the demolition plan. Newly developed tectonic systems and spaces created in this way can be integrated into the urban fabric in close interaction with the existing landscape. In this way, the connection between the past and the future is built, and the identity and memories of previous generations, which are hopelessly erased in modern society, are preserved.”
“Windows to the Future” by Nir Levie
Kloom Studio
“I imagine a future where the only boundaries of architecture are creativity and physics.
The image is a combination of 8 A3 papers.
Ink on paper”
“DELIRIOUS COFFEE PALACE” by Pengcheng Yang
The Melbourne University
“Cafe Palace selected a series of plans of landmark buildings with different cultural backgrounds according to the composition of immigrants in the block, which served as the inspiration and design starting point of the overall underground space layout. Through the redefinition and blend of different architectural styles, an architectural atmosphere similar to the situationist concept was created.
At the same time, the coffee underground palace introduces phenomenological concepts and guides and creates underground circulation ideas from touch, hearing, smell and taste. This architecture can also be seen as an experiment in phenomenology. Elite food etiquette is often quite luxurious, and this program not only summarizes the traditional coffee washing process, but has deliberately designed these machines to be overly fussy in order to satirize the pursuit of the ultimate in coffee culture.”
“Galveston Bay Park” by Robert Rogers, Tyler Swanson and Alex Warr
Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers
“The Galveston Bay Park Plan (GBPP) project is a surge flooding protection, navigation enhancement, public recreation and environmental enhancement project that is unique in its scale, impact, innovation, and long-term adaptiveness. The GBP approach will be transformative to the Galveston Bay region by creating a permanent thirty-mile landmark that is central to the region’s resiliency strategy, economic vitality, habitat preservation, and standard of living.”
“The city drowned by coffee” by Pengcheng Yang and Zirui Wang
The Melbourne University
“This is a painting about the concept of architecture expressed through images in a dream world. The theme of the painting revolves around the culture of coffee and the society that is triggered by coffee as a sober dependency of people.
1. A distant coffee factory produced an explosion, and the excess coffee caused great pressure inside the building.
2. The origin of coffee often comes from relatively poor countries, such as Brazil, Ethiopia or Colombia.
3. The shepherds mingling in the line represent the story of how coffee was first discovered by the shepherds of Ethiopia.
4. The fragile console tries as much as possible to hold the balance of people’s coffee intake.
5. There are ads and signs like iLLY and Nespresso for capsule coffee everywhere.
6. The mountains of waste formed by coffee consumption.”
“KEEP OUT” by Alain Linck
Linck
“A new stage in urban sprawl in a context of physical, environmental and energy insecurity: a pioneering and vertical colonization of abandoned places in urban or industrial centers. Of course, properties are being protected and mobility is being adapted, far from the architectural utopias. Factories are still running, weighing down a starless sky that vanity jets cross, each for himself, more than ever. After all, the garden is not doing so badly; as for the fauna, it is less certain.”
“‘Interior Late Afternoon’” by Alan Power
Alan Power Architects Ltd
“This work depicts an interior view of a house we built in Whitechapel. The view is of the main ground floor living space, looking south to towards the courtyard. The space has contrasting volumes, with the large diagrid lantern light glazing contrasting with the lower perimeter spaces. I was interested examining the way in which the space is lit naturally, and how the fall of natural light affects the volumetric impression of the space. I felt that this required an image of high contrast. I tried to depict that wonderful time of day in early summer, when the sun has almost disappeared, but where the light remains vivid, and where the areas of the interior not directly lit recede into the increasing darkness.
The approach to creating the image was reductive, rather than one of architectural detail, and the tones and colours are pushed towards a sense of geometric abstraction.”
“Vanity Fair: Architectural Icons Issue” by Ben Friesen
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
“Iconic architecture enjoys celebrity status, a fame generated by the dissemination of glamorous images presented to the public for admiration and praise. While the formal language of this “star-chitecture” varies widely around the world, these static icons share rarified air in the top-ten lists and google searches where their images are most commonly consumed.
In ‘Vanity Fair: Architectural Icons Issue’ these buildings are collected for a group portrait worthy of their shared esteem. Still as they are, they perform for their audience. Their vanity is apparent. The issue is not.”
“Palimsest_Ghosts + Reincarnations” by Steven Quevedo
School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Arlington
“The process of this drawing relies on previous reiterations from an earlier collage of building constructions, which fragmented into an imaginary landscape of ruins. Using a Xylene transfer of a black and white copy onto plaster, the ghostly images provide a ghost in which new constructions can be developed. The idea of the city as a continuous palimpsest evokes the nature of how cities transform throughout time by demolition, re-use or new construction. This additive transformation builds on the old to re-invent the composition. As an architectural speculation, the generative process of drawing yields new spaces and forms influenced by the pre-existing context of the ghost collage. These graphic ponderings stitch together the fabric of the old and new, complimenting and contrasting the organic and the man-made.
This world is nowhere yet acts as if it has always been, masking behind a fragmented façade, a darker and deeper space.”
“Everything in Between” by Zeb Lund and Samah Al Sarhani
BVH Architecture
“The head, the heart, and Everything In Between. A Charlie Chaplin experience provides us humor, joy, and purpose connecting senses, feelings, and thoughts.
We consider perception as an experience transmitted from a physical world through the lens of an eye. We consider cognition as qualities experienced in our past pitted against the moment in our head. We consider feeling as our soul understands gravity, emptiness, boundaries, and so much more in our heart. Intuition, emotion, and Everything In Between here is illustrated as recollections of the Pantheon.”
“”Every Bud can be Revived”- The Complete Narrative of Burt Hall” by Aman Tair
“Tied to its age-old exclusion of a ‘Colonial Party House’ Burt Hall reminiscences to days that now are gone. The drawing imagines an Adaptive Habitation future, breathing life into this melancholic giant. Home as an ever-evolving skin; shedding yet rejuvenating.
THEIR House now begins to breathe all…
As they chatter and sip tea at the barber’s Sunday visit.
As sun pierces atop saturated May skies,
they find relief midst moss-covered pools.
When monsoon becomes laden with dew & stardust,
they crawl atop towers to see mid-summer lights.
As clouds downpour along rusted roofs,
children dance in watercolor puddles and sail paper-boats.
And when North wind blows loud in cold dark Decembers,
menfolk gathers at the peanut seller, listening to crackles of wood and salt.
As spring glides in her all-bejewelled beauty,
terraces bow heavy with clusters of jasmine
THEIR House now feels the same, that every bud can be revived…”
“Pakistantecture” by Zeeshan Javed
Elisava Escola de Disseny Enginyeria de Barcelona
“Human race is living in the world which has all the impact of socio political, chaotic crisis and environmentally modified world. Weather its pandemic or any other natural disaster which is shaping up our society and climate. It’s the spirit of time which bring the evolution to any entity. No vision can be drawn by itself, it needs to have a situation, which brings the desire to accomplish absoluteness.
Current scene is set in Karachi city,where gravity is effected by climate change hence this organic form of architecture has all the advance properties in terms of materials and technology which is embedded in its soul dna.Pakistantecture is the depiction of well advance highly technological nation striving for the betterment human society giving hope towards perfection. Its communication mediums are the state-of-the-art engineering marvels, buildings are organic living beings, Keeping its traditional and monumental value alive.”
“The 42’s Cradle” by Jason wang
“Humanity has resorted to forsaking their flesh for the planet’s survival, and thus exists as immortal, machine lifeforms, as virtualised consciousness within vessels.
This is a glimpse of a world where materialistic obsessions and temporal limitations are irrelevant. Yet, the environment and the architecture have evolved into cradles, to nurture the non-corporeal inhabitants even though they have forgotten what they once looked like.
Will the humans then debate their philosophical and intellectual fulfilment without bodies and limbs, whilst bathing in existential despair? Will they attempt to search for mortality due to the lack of value in eternity? Are there pleasures to explore without fragility? Or will they transcend beyond dimensions?”
“The Stamper Battery” by William du Toit
Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
“Drawing from EM Forster’s 1909 short story “The Machine Stops”, this allegorical architectural drawing re-presents a seminal tale of environmental devastation caused by the 1860 New Zealand goldrush. Propelling the Otago region into economic prosperity, the mining operations were abandoned once the gold dried up—the forgotten industrial artefacts, environmental scarring, and their historic narratives slowly decaying over time, destined to be lost forever.
The Stamper Battery is the final drawing in a series of 7, each preserving the narrative of a different artefact of the historic goldmining process. It combines orthographic, notation and layering techniques to compose a drawing that shifts restlessly on its page—depicting fragments of architecture as they transform and decay over time. The drawing is intended to be exhibited in sequence, avoiding direct intervention on the site while preserving a national heritage story of place identity—acting as a lesson for future generations to learn from past mistakes.”
“Night City” by Peter Wheatcroft
10 Design
“A Dystopian metropolis constructed with on top of multiple levels of roads, Buildings and Structures. Sky ships deliver cargo from the air, while logistical lorries, tucks and cars services the city from the complex network of elevated highways. A place to explore endlessly.”
“The Choice” by Rachel Powers
Red Rocks Community College
“The Choice” portrays a person standing on the brink of decision. He or she began life in today’s world, which is pictured behind them in a dim cityscape. The reason for the landscape tilt illustrates the uneasy feeling that we often get in life that things are not quite right. The personal decision that every human faces is represented: joining either utopia or dystopia.
Utopia is a future dream where technology, environment, and beauty coincide with people and are fully represented by architecture. Dystopia appears as a blistering, torturous, bland place. Overall, the picture shows a broad timeline of the past, present, and future. The past started wonderful, a lush green place. The present presents the choice that we implement everyday in our own actions. The future is a result of these choices. May we all choose to work toward the utopia rather than the dystopia in our world.”
“The wall. 2021-2022” by Anton Markus Pasing
“The wall wasn’t just there, it was everywhere. My gaze wandered endlessly and yet the wall seemed to move. What did you separate me from? The deeper I looked into it, the less I could grasp it and the more complex its structure became. It seemed to me that the wall was looking for a counterpart. She was a surreal lonely reality and my soul could see no beginning or end. Unlimited truth and infinite questions.
But coupled with the certainty that she was as real as my dream. In some places she reflected, and what I saw, I wasn’t me. It was her almost endless projection of everything I was longing for…it was starting to happen raining.. and I went inside. i am the wall And there is nothing else.”
“God is in the detail” by Farshid Amini
“Nature has always inspired architects. The famous architect Mies van der Rohe suggested that details are essential for architectural drawings as they are essential in nature. He used the term “God is in the detail” to emphasize this point. The infinite level of detail in nature is an abstract concept. In order to visualize this concept, I have drafted an architectural-themed cosmology drawing. This drawing is characterized by some scientific infographic about nature and an artistic interpretation of the universe.”
“Gate” by Naomi Sirb
POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY TIMISOARA-Architecture and Urbanism
“Art cannot solve humanity’s problems, but it can be a refuge from daily frustrations or make us temporarily forget about problems by visiting a gallery, listening music etc.
The volume offers a passage between everyday life and the world of art. This gate makes the connection between the world of creation that emanates a feeling of inspiration, hope and the urban world where we experience states of agitation, stress “darkening” our lives
The building is shaped like a hug that exudes the feeling of refuge. This offers a special view, having at the end of the perspective a cathedral that plays an important role in people’s lives.
The rendering expresses the difference between the outside of the art gallery (people “burdened” with problems, the congestion in the city) and the one inside it (when people approach the “gate” that opens to the world of creation, they detach of everyday life).”
“No Title” by Jane Grealy
“Observation and imagination. The white lines are a wireframe perspective of GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) which sits on the Brisbane River at Kurilpa Point (Queensland, Australia). Using early photographs of European settlement, explorers’, convicts’ and botanist’s’ accounts along with indigenous histories, I was able to site this existing building within a landscape which I imagine would be very similar to that the indigenous population experienced pre settlement.
The name of this work, “No Title”, refers to the contested nature of land ownership here in Australia as a result of invasion and colonization. The Native Title Act 1993 is a law passed by the Australian Parliament that recognizes the rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in land and waters according to their traditional laws and customs.”
