Given the proliferation of digital tools and time-saving software now available, some believe architects no longer draw or sketch as they used to. With this visual series, we are out to prove otherwise by delving into the sketchbooks of designers, revealing some hidden gems in drawing, painting and sketching along the way. To be considered for a feature, send your own sketches with a description of your design process to editorial@architizer.com.
First up on “Architects’ Sketchbooks,” we venture into the studio of renowned American architect Steven Holl, who is particularly renowned for his use of watercolors at the early stages of the design process.
The architect said of his hand-painted works: “I used to do pencil drawings. Those took eight hours. Around 1979, I streamlined it to 5-by-7-inch watercolors. With the watercolor, in the quickest way, I can shape a volume, cast a shadow, indicate the direction of the sun in a very small format. And I can carry these things around because I am always traveling.”
Via Vladimir Paperny & Associates
Check out this amazing array of watercolors, many of which went on to inform some of the firm’s most well-known buildings.
Above images via arcspace.com
Above images via The Chromologist
For more on Steven Holl’s process involving watercolors, check out our more in-depth feature, “How Architecture Is Born: 7 Fluid Watercolors by Steven Holl and the Buildings They Inspired.” If your firm has sketches you would like showcased, send them with a description of your design process to editorial@architizer.com, and who knows, maybe you’ll be featured next!