Workflow for Architectural Design – 1970s

A design project is introduced.

Student has to identify a similar project in the immediate environment which may or may not have been designed by an architect, but is in use for some time.  

Student has to do a live case study which involved talking to the users and recording their experiences, preparing a measured drawing of the building and its details, presenting through sketches done on site and photographs if a camera was available (which was rare).

Make a critical appraisal of the building highlighting problems with the user’s perspective.

Use the above study to create an architectural program for design, in the form of built up area requirement chart, site analysis and zoning of facilities on the site based on desired orientation with respect to approach, climate and services.

This zoning was also loosely called a bubble diagram which had to be to scale with reference to the plan of the site. Several alternatives were to be made for discussion with design teacher to arrive at a final solution, the decision left to the student’s choice which he or she would be able to defend in jury.

Please note that there is no reference to the ‘Form’ of the building. Just function.

If anybody questioned, the teachers would just say, form will follow the function and it will be appealing if the right material is used to create an efficient structural system as a response to the climate. Simple. Even if a student broke the rule and spent sleepless night trying to figure out a fantastic form, one had to prepare accurate drawings, plans, elevations and sections which could justify the function and the desired circulation for functional efficiency.

This approach was quite simply ingrained into our minds right in the first year. Thereafter making accurate drawings of your ideas was the most important objective of a design presentation. Even if your design was good, if there were mistakes in the drawings your marks were reduced. And teachers as well as jury members had hawk like eyes to detect mistakes in drawings.

Fast forward to 21^st century of digitally enabled architectural design environment of any studio in any school of architecture…

I rarely see a single accurate drawing, in the most beautifully presented portfolios.

Plans don’t show level changes, plinth is just a continuum of land around, staircase plans and sections(whenever done and shown) do not match, there is never a water tank on roof top of any building which though has several toilet blocks, even staircases stop short of the roof line, with no access for maintenance… I lose interest in looking at so called wonderful portfolios showing great forms when my common sense is tested… the most uncommon quality in most present day architecture students…

But I am told that the process is more or less the same…

Case studies, real and literature…both exquisitely presented

Site analysis with all year round data charts…

Single line plan… manual

Double line plan… manual

Then AutoCAD takes over along with Revit, often assisted by 3DS Max, SketchUp, Rhino, Grasshopper and more performance analysis with Ecotect and what not…

Yet, I miss the level difference between the outside world and the plinth, I miss the section of the lid that covers the water tank on roof top, and most of all I miss shadows on the built forms full of glazing… shadows, the blessings of the tropical world that we learnt as sciography…

Sometimes I doubt myself and my caliber, simply because I could never make such attractive drawings, not even today. Sometimes my mirror image tells me you are old… stop worrying where the world is going, you will not be here anyway…

When will the bubble of the bubble diagrams burst…

---------- Dr. Harimohan Pillai