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!
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“Museum of the Extinct Seas” by Amir Hariri
Aestatix
“Due to impending climate crisis, my focus has recently shifted to consider how contagion, both external and self-inflicted, can turn familiar configurations into abstracted and, at times, alien depictions that highlight the intrinsic qualities of traumatic amalgamation. My submission channels a not too distant future where fresh water seas have all but disappeared and special ‘geo-museums’ have been constructed to preserve their memory. This abstracted elevation drawing is on wood panel and employs pen, ink, graphite and acrylic.
My ongoing theme of fatalistic inevitability in the face of existential threats is approached from a compromised angle: what happens when the devastating outcome of a catastrophic event can be forecasted? And does this understanding help or, counterintuitively, hinder our response by mythologizing this inevitability? By juxtaposing the effects of global warming with our tolerance for pandemics and war, the project will confront the viewers to awaken their sense of urgency.”
“Towards a new Venetian landscape – An inhabited linear infrastructure” by Nicolas Coppieters and Gabin Sepulchre
Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve
Detail
“Venice being one of the most famous city in the world, we are all aware of its biggest problems : the perpetual flooding and its exposure to mass tourism. But there is another considerable problem in Venice and its lagoon : an ecological crisis. During a year, we tried to find a solution to solve all its problems by creating an inhabited linear infrastructure. Its foundations were created like a dam to control the “acqua alta” phenomenon, its first floor used for the new seaweed production, and the upper floors to welcome workers and Venetians fleeing their overcrowded city.
We reviewed a lot of ancient linear cities to create a new ecological one (in its conception and purpose). We tried to find the right balance between industrialization and human happiness. Our handmade drawing, summarizing a full year of work, was made with the Pointillism technique and was 1788mm x 841mm.”
“The Outskirts of Tianjin” by Brent Haynes
“This is an illustrative depiction of one of many adventures Bella has with her imaginative canine friend, Adaclop, invisibly wondering in a whimsical version of her village located on the outskirts of Tianjin. Exaggerated local building typologies, indicative dense background, and carried out like a Beatrix Potter tale; this world is like no other.”
“Forests Reign in the Past” by Alan Power
Alan Power Architects Ltd
“With this drawing, I wanted to create a provocative image that described the importance of the relationship between nature and the city, and how, in future, and in order to survive, the city needs to become an ecological landscape, where there is a seamless integration between the built fabric and nature. Nature becomes the city and the city becomes nature, and the old historical divisions between the city and nature are dissolved and lost to time.
The title, which is taken from Gaston Bachelard’s ‘The Poetics of Space’, acknowledges that a truly natural landscape is in the past, and that the ecological landscape of the new city will be a construct, using natural forms and processes to define the new built environment.”
“A Week in Venice” by Barbara Brinkmann
Research Assistant at Technical University of Munich, Germany
Detail
“The drawing represents impressions from this year’s journey to Venice, Italy, from the Lido, where we stayed, and the city, where we did some sightseeing, to the Art Biennial at the Giardini and the Arsenale and trips to Murano and Burano. It’s a drawn diary of Venice’s architecture, waterways, vaporetto traffic, people and tourists, mobile phones, masks, art, nature and everything that caught my eye, often fleetingly.
Drawn on 25 connected pages of a folded Moleskine leporello notebook (“Japanese Album”) with an old fountain pen, it results in one single drawing (21×325 cm), sometimes blurred by drops of rain and lagoon water, sometimes smeared by my sweating hands. Spontaneous fragments of sketches, that tell a personal yet universal story of Venice. May it encourage artists, architects and students all over the world to never stop drawing by hand, whereever you are, and telling stories in the most universal language.”
“Magical night at the palace” by Piotr Chilik
Xavio Design
“This hand-sketched lighting visual depicts the exterior of the palace of Lourizan in Pontevedra, Spain being illuminated by various lighting techniques. The illustrated proposed lighting concept creates a magical atmosphere around the building and delivers an unforgettable experience to the viewer. When you look at the rhythm of lit windows, columns, pilasters and steps you can truly believe in Johann Wolfgang Goethe words that “Architecture is frozen music”. The striking impact of the lighting layout proves this point of view, delivering magical feeling.
Lighting is the most powerful factor which helps to admire architecture in its full glory. The moonlight travels along all shapes, touching surfaces and providing general light whilst the artificial lighting enhances the space, creating focus and accentuating the most interesting architectural features. The juxtaposition of moonlight and the proposed lighting provides this perfect combination and delivers the feeling of stepping almost into a fairy tale world.”
“skin index” by Patricia Vraber, Architect
“Architectural intervention includes skin, as we know it, as a connection between our inner and outer worlds and allows us to experience people, places, creatures, or things through it. One can see it as a constant element representing themes that cannot be expressed within a structure of a building. Skin is a screen on which we can watch the ability of change, healing itself while also witnessing its inevitable decay. It is self-replacing and self-repairing, but once engraved, it never reaches its clarity again. It is living and dead. While in touch with other elements, the envelope is linked with our environment. It is the site of connections and can be the screen letting things through.”
“WEEKEND IN THE CHALET” by Jeronimo Andura
Art and Architecture
“The Jura-Chalet
Green-yellow waves structured by meadows and wild daffodil pastures adorn the horizon. The air is carefree. The chalet where I spend my weekends is located between groups of local fir trees. For some years now, however, it has become difficult to find tranquility. The naturalness of living on the ground has been taken away from us. In the media, we are told every minute about the dangers of the soil. Isolated lonely souls remain unmoved and surrender to their fate. Here in the chalet, our neighbours climb the remaining tree trunks. Meanwhile our plots are covered with the latest high-tech tarpaulins. They give the feeling of protection, but I miss the sound of cowbells and working in my Japanese garden. The view from the treetops is our only consolation.
I don’t want to complain. Chaos reigns in the cities.
• the silent place where one studies the path.”
“Mycelium Modularity” by Dustin Wang
Young Guns Studio
“This drawing illustrates a forest that has been populated with housing pods made out of mycelium, conceptualizing the utilization of this material in modular architecture.
Mycelium, a natural fungi found in forests, can form rigid, water-resistant structures when molded and grown. Possessing a flexible form, this allows for the creation of these pods around trees and hills – existing in harmony with nature, rather than replacing it. The resulting effect are teardrop-like structures, differing in shape as each is hand-built.
In this scene, pollution is the origin of the hazy, grey sky. With plastic and waste reduction having become an everlasting consequence, mycelium is used in this small community of hopeful outliers, being a last ditch effort to slow down the deep-rooted repercussions of the changing climate.
In an inevitable future where the natural lives in the artificial, the increased awareness of the benefits of mycelium, will aid in revitalization.”
“Into the Void: Fragmented Time, Space, Memory, and Decay in Hiroshima” by Wing To Victoria Wong
University of Michigan
“Suggested by Lebbeus Woods, architecture is essentially an internalization of society yet an externalization of ourselves. This triptych adapts Japanese aesthetic theories of transience & imperfection, and applies them to the city of Hiroshima. Through investigating the decay & death of artifacts and events, Into the Void illustrates the new collisions of regrowth and reshaping our relationship with different agencies.
The three selected locations are experimental adaptations to the spatial and environmental challenges that facilitate ‘changes’ according to our mental statuses and behaviors. Through displaying site-specific elements, Into the Void captures the heterotopia voids in time, culture, and nature. The over-saturated sites are witnesses and flaneurs through time that capture the architectural scars in the parallel universe where the past, present, and future coexist simultaneously.”
“URBAN NET” by Alena Dolzhikova
A4 Studio
“The drawing is a vision of a future city based on the building project design of the A4 Studio.
What if the Architecture we build today would be able to proceed developing into entwined bodies, uniting buildings of the past with future forms? What if buildings could be inhabited with a living organism that flourishes into new forms while adapting to the shape of available structure? What if the livable organism constructing future environment turns the building into so-called a neuron cell? It would contain all the valuable information, DNA of a particular building. The city organism consisting of cells would create connections – bridges between each other, for a mutual exchange of information. Some their bridges will be thicker, some thinner – depends on the amount of information transporting trough it. The overall connections create an URBAN NET – final but never ending evolving version of the future city.
“The Impermanent Collection” by Morna Hu, Megan Chen and Yuyang Liu
University of Melbourne
“The Impermanent Collection imagines an open storage facility for the conservation and development of performance art on the site of the existing Clifton Hill Shot Tower. Our proposal is the next chapter for an otherwise abandoned industrial site and aims to create a 21st century landmark while honouring its 19th century heritage. Conceived as a campus or complex, the design celebrates both functional and conceptual plurality within a unified space.
It challenges the notion of visual art having a singular, superior cultural system by embracing and broadcasting multiple understandings to artists and the wider community. Following Orcutt’s lead in ‘The Open Storage Solution’, our institution aims to democratise knowledge, and to share curatorial authority with the viewer by allowing meaning to accumulate through profusion rather than isolation. It broadcasts to the public, what the power of a non-discriminatory, inclusive, unsegregated art industry can do for a community.”
“Subterra” by Gregory Klosowski
Pappageorge Haymes Partners
“This drawing was generated by inputting a scan of a sketch into an AI algorithm to create a variant that was further modified and then redrawn on paper with ink pen. I have previously used a technique starting with a hand sketch, digitally scanning and further manipulating the image, printing the iteration, redrawing it as an overlay, and starting the cycle over again. As an alternate to this process, I am excited about the potential for using artificial intelligence as a new tool in my arsenal. This drawing is from a series of studies that playfully imagine a reality that is nonsensical to our contemporary condition, defying gravity and economic conventions to create immersive visions to evoke certain atmospheres and spark imagination. The looseness of the hand sketch intentionally invites, and really requires, a certain degree of interpretation.”
“Beauty from catastrophe” by Eric Larsen
Empire Architectural Design
“The original Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco was considered a celebration of rebuilding after the earthquake of 1906. The Panama–Pacific International Exposition held in 1915 featured the Tower of Jewels and the Palace as center pieces. It was built to be a temporary structure and was left to decay. The weeping women of the site were set atop what were to be planters. It was hoped that redwood trees would take root and that as the structure decayed, the trees would fall. The weeping women were to reflect sorrow in watching the structure and trees fall away.
Many people that visited the site wanted to keep the Palace of Fine Arts from decay as it was planned to do as per the vision of the architects. It was rebuilt from 1964 – 1974.”
“Labyrinth” by Eric Pham
University of Texas at Arlington
“This piece recounts a childhood memory of playing video games without being able to understand english. It recalls not being able to read directions, being locked from progressing, and yet never feeling frustrated. Instead, simply playing games deprived of narrative context, viewing them purely as representations of spatial conditions. In the same way, this piece was made entirely in the video game Minecraft, a game that defined a generation by acting as virtual legos. Any child with a copy of this world can explore in an intuitive first-person experience. It is architecture without language.”
“Le Corbusier’s Dream” by Jennifer Steffek and John Lynch
studio J2 architects
“Le Corbusier’s Dream
(15″ x 23″ mixed media collage)
This project explores the interplay between art, emotions, dreams, memory and architectural design.
When Le Corbusier was a young art student, he was fascinated with Japanese Woodblock Prints. What follows is an imaginary tale:
On one of Le Corbusier’s trips to Japan, he fell asleep under a tree by the ocean. He dreamt he was swimming in an aqua sea when a tsunami hit. While turning around to head back to shore, he thought he caught a glimpse of a house perched on an island. As the water swirled around him, he tried to get a better look, but the waves were too high and the sea foam too thick. When he awoke, he struggled to recall the design of the house, but it was impossible to disentangle from the images of Japanese prints and the ocean in his mind.”
“Dekkene in the Daoura Neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon” by Stephanie Tager
“This watercolor sketch is of a “dekkene” (the Lebanese word for “bodega”) found in the Daoura neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon. Daoura is a neighborhood where mostly Syrian and Armenian refugees live. These little dekkenes are the quintessential mini-marts that populate the streets of Lebanon. Unfortunately, the future stability of Lebanon is unknown and the 2020 port explosion caused a negative chain reaction that seems to be showing no signs of improving.
Lebanon is currently suffering from a dire political situation, an electricity crisis, inflation, corruption, nepotism, and elitism, among other things. But aside from all of this, these are the storefronts of the hardworking and untiring Lebanese people (and those of the refugees there, as well) that continue to try to work and provide despite all the grim circumstances.”
“Lost to the City” by Alex Hoagland
Boston Architectural College
“Depicted is a city that has yet to exist, one where passion, freedom and love fill the towers that rise above, an example of the pleasures art can bring, the idea that like people buildings represent individualism. What is depicted in drawing is a world where art, math and science become the forefront of the built environment and humans are able to liberate themselves from the natural world.
In this city scape the understanding of raw emotion and how that correlates too the work we as humans produce and environment we surround ourselves with is the key to understanding the longevity of our own mentality and livelihood. This cityscape represents the separation between ones self and the greater good of the others around, it signifies a liberation of the human conscious.”
“Metaverse Getaway” by ShihHwa HungYI-XUAN DUNG Phoebe Wen
PHOEBE SAYS WOW ARCHITECTS
“Reflected upon the impact of massive lockdown scenarios brought by pandemics and global tensions, how about a getaway trip into the metaverse indulging in one’s own intimate planet dwelling? Inspired by the asteroid home planet in Le Petit Prince, to pursue pure relaxation and weightlessness, we created self-sustained living satellites hovering in space as an emotional and humane architectural fantasy for hermit’s mind.
These satellite dwellings took the shape of a spherical mobius strip which forms an internal capsule where user-defined domestic programs are curated along the strip for dwellers to maneuver accordingly towards either the sphere garden and farm which sustain the supply of fresh air, food and water from its micro ecosystem. The outer skeleton shell serves as an autonomous structural system utilizing self-aggregated construction technique housing necessary infrastructures for waste exchange and environmental purification as well as climate control for optimized moisture and temperature.”
“The Archivist of Emptiness” by Jeronimo Andura
Art and Architecture
“Technological innovation was our only solution for a long time. The knowledge became more and more in the world. But no matter how groundbreaking any innovation was, it was only a matter of time. Letting go was not an option while scarcity proceeded. According to the common law of the powerful, resources have been redistributed and our metropolises dematerialized. Even the idyllic peripheries are fading with time. What will be the last thing that we bind to us?
Our livelihoods are becoming dissolved, while emptiness is once again taking over. There is little left to remind us of the abundance that poured over us. Images of our contemporary history are preserved on hard drives in secret archives.
If you look closely, you can see beauty in the dust-filled light that fills the new void. Is it freedom that no one anticipated?”
“The Modern Architect” by Jeronimo Andura
Art and Architecture
“Unaware of his own loneliness, he observes world affairs. Distracted by the overstimulation and complexity of information of whatever genus. In the process, the individual becomes a construction full of prejudices. Nothing more than an innerly torn creation formed by the systematics of the modern city. With the growing complexity of the last decades, the modern architect became anxious and cozy. We have lost the responsibility to stand up for our environment. Freedom of creativity has been abandoned.
The service that remains is occupied with executing number games which result in increased ownership. Those efficient results reflect the truth of our coexistence.
Archived was the special gift to respond to the needs of society with idea and realization. Today they comfortably endure and let themselves be driven by the storm. The modern architect is a petrified observer in his own cosmos.”
“A Space That Is Other: What’s a “Camel?”” by Ghassan Alserayhi
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
“In relation to the schema of knowledge construction, considering that everything is connected in our world, according to Foucault’s philosophy on life and time, animals generally and camels specifically are considered as knowledge devices, in which they played crucial ale in delivering different types of knowledge worldwide in the past. One might argue that without them, we wouldn’t reach the same level of technology. Representationally and conceptually, reducing the gap between camels and a critical achievement in the history of humanity, as one of what they led us to, landing on the moon, evokes not only discussions of the validity but also discussions of who has access to knowledge and technology that automatically translated to power and control, both of the past and the present and why. It also empowers these devices and allows them to present themselves as contributors to the world. Therefore, what are these entities/devices?”
“PlayHouse” by SOK HO
University of Pennsylvania
“PlayHouse incorporates inspiration from micro and macro-scale imagery of nature and non-prescriptive styles of play. The gabled module presents a comfortable and familiar form and entry, while aggregation and intersection of the modules create spaces for discovery, exploration, and seams to connect and distinguish.
Bringing the gable from the residential to the institutional scale begins to bridge the disconnect between the smaller residential neighborhoods to the West and larger downtown buildings to the East.
In this playhouse, children can feel comfortable and familiar, but the play with the gable form brings the playfulness of exploration in the space.”
“FAMAZON” by Philip ShenHieu Phung Jiawei Ji, Architectural Designer
“To improve the efficiency of the global supply chain and logistics, the leading international e-commerce company, FAMAZON envisioned its own super warehouse system in the middle of the ocean. As an interchange station, FAMAMZON TOWER is run entirely by AI. Merchandise from all over the world enters the architecture from the bottom of the tower, on cargo ships. Goods are then unpacked, sorted, and delivered in a vertical fashion as they reach the top of the tower.
FAMAZON TOWER is also a city for robots, and the ‘residents’ don’t shy away from treating it as such. When AI gains more freedom from humanity, they start to modify the tower, adding elements they found elsewhere that eventually change the architecture of the structure. Consequently, the tower becomes a spontaneous mega-system that runs only to maintain the fluidity of the global supply chain, even without the presence of humans.”
“The Collective Vein” by Pariya Mohammaditabar
deNorm Labs
“Once again in the history of Iran, people of the nation have become united, all with one voice fighting for their freedom against the totalitarian regime.
Historically cities flourished in proximity to bodies of water or rivers, where they prospered into metropoles. The cities of Iran depicted here in monotonically derelict ruin resembles the vision of the tyrannical regime of its black and white rule over the citizens. The 50-year long oppressive shadow of the government who has tried to segregate Iranian cities and their civilians from each other.
Today, through their blood, the many brave iranian women have portrayed a new landscape for the evolution of cities. Their blood has formed a collective vein that runs through the borders of Iranian cities, uniting the people of the nation into one again, whispering hope into the horizon for Iran’s freedom.”
