learning to draw places
Paul Ostergaard, FAIA
Drawing is the language of architects and urban designers, distinguishing these professions from all others. Understood by the viewer regardless of who they are and what language they speak, drawings can explain complex physical environments more easily than words. Perhaps most importantly, drawings have the power to inspire action because they place a picture in the minds of those who want change, who want to improve their environment. Those pictures linger in the mind longer than numbers, sentences, and paragraphs.
UDA places a high value on drawing as both a design and a communication skill. Because of this, our staff of architects has remarkable drawing skills that enable them to think, design, and communicate effectively. We are taught to translate the path our eyes take across an object through our mind and into our hand by moving a pencil across a piece of paper. With continual practice, we develop muscle memory of drawing buildings and spaces we admire, and later in practice, we use this muscle memory to draw new places. An example of this is the lifelong research of Ray Gindroz, as seen with his line drawings of urban spaces in Italy, France, and other places he has visited. His lines create a depiction of urban space by emphasizing those features that most interest him and offer a lesson for others. He has applied these lessons to his urban design projects.
Perspectives are the most legible drawings to the layman because they immediately convey the character of a proposal and are less abstract than orthogonal projections such as plans and elevations. Perspectives constructed properly allow the viewer to occupy the place as if it was real. Many perspectives are taken at eye level to give the viewer a sense of being inside an urban space. These views are often intended to convey the room-like nature of city places and capture key vistas that make them memorable. They convey the importance of buildings and landscapes as components of those places, providing guidance for their design later on.
Perspectives are not just a presentation tool — the staff at UDA designs in perspective, adjusting buildings and landscape to maximum benefit. Computer modeling has greatly improved our ability to manipulate urban space. Before the personal computer, we would manually construct one and two-point perspectives, a laborious process essentially unchanged since the 15th century. We now use 3D modeling as an underlay to construct hand drawings on trace. The drawings are then elaborated by the designers, informing changes to the computer model. This is an iterative process of design combining an ancient art form with modern technology. Hand drawings are scanned and rendered with color to create vivid depictions of a future place. They are used in presentations to communicate the essential qualities of the proposed physical environment and used as early marketing imagery. We typically eschew computer-generated imagery early in the design process because we wish to emphasize certain planning principles and concepts, most easily conveyed by hand drawing.
Aerial views are effective at explaining the proposed urban form of a city. Views from the air not only show the organization of urban space, as in a plan of the city, but convey the character and scale given to those spaces by the buildings that create them. By emphasizing particular design features, the aerial perspective can be an extremely effective tool for describing urban planning issues that are broad in scope and impossible to see from the ground. The advantage of hand drawing over computer-generated photorealism is the ability to emphasize aspects of the urban form with line and color that are most important to the project. Aerial photos and photorealism show everything. Hand drawings have the immense power of focusing the message as a diagram, often of great beauty.
The planning charrette is live theater. We rely on our previous experience with charrettes to proceed with a degree of comfort. However, we go into every charrette with some uncertainty. We try to imagine a solution before drawing, but no progress can be made until we begin to draw. Once we are ready, we follow the path our drawings take us on. We think using drawing as our language allows our client to see ideas unfold before them that were never contemplated. Citizens who join us in charrette love to sit beside our designers and illustrator and watch, sometimes offering their ideas. They see their ideas drawn on paper, and later if they have merit, their ideas embedded in drawings are presented to the community.
Drawing at UDA has evolved, but many aspects remain the same. While we prefer the ink line to other media, we continue innovating our output and means of communication. We have thoughtfully combined hand drawing and 3D modeling, connecting our past and the future in our timeless UDA process, allowing the voices of the community and our clients to grow in our designs in real-time.
Paul Ostergaard, FAIA, joined UDA in 1977 after graduation from Carnegie Mellon University. During his time at UDA, Paul used his outstanding drawing skills to help communicate a design proposal in a thoughtful manner. In particular, his use of hand-drawn 3D perspectives initiated these drawings as a standard part of the UDA process in perpetuity. Paul retired from practice in 2019 yet continues to consult on projects.
