Visual Notes for Architects and Designers (Second edition)

383 Pages·2011·35.67 MB·English

by  Norman Crowe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Preface to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Uses of Visual Notes

Visual Literacy

The Notebook

Using this Book

Getting Started

Chapter 2: A Guide to Note-Taking

Recording

Analysis

Design

Chapter 3: A Journal

Exploring a Place

Understanding Order and Disorder

Solutions to Common Problems

Focusing on Details

Design Study: International Center
Chapter 4: A Collection of Visual Notes

Thinking and Creativity

Visual Note-Taking

Examples

Chapter 5: Transitions to Design

Visual Notation and Design Process

The Impact of Digital Technology

Digital Design Media

Examples

Conclusion

Appendix

Equipment

Basic Drawings

Drawing Conventions

Symbolic Drawings

Endnotes

Illustration and Photo Credits

Bibliography

Index

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under
Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the
prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of
the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222
Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax [phone], or on
the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should
be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River
Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax [phone], or online at
www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author
have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations
or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this
book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales
representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained
herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a
professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable
for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited
to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services, or technical
support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States
at 800-762-2974, outside the United States at 317-572-3993 or fax 317-572-
4002.

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-
demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may
not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media
such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may
download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information
about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Crowe, Norman.

Visual notes for architects and designers / Norman Crowe, Paul Laseau.--
2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-90853-2 (pbk.); 978-1-118-12295-2 (ebk); 978-1-118-
12297-6 (ebk); 978-1-118-12932-6 (ebk); 978-1-118-12933-3 (ebk); 978-1-118-
12934-0 (ebk)

1. Communication in architectural design. 2. Visual perception. I. Laseau,
Paul, 1937-II. Title.

NA2750.C76 2012

720.28--dc22

2011016228
Preface to the Second Edition

When we completed Visual Notes for publication in 1984, hand drawing with
drafting instruments was still the customary practice at the drawing board for
most designers. Cameras, however, had virtually replaced field sketches for
gathering information in the field. We recognized that something was missing
and so we wrote Visual Notes for designers—especially architects, landscape
architects, planners, and engineers—to reassert the value of visual notation. The
book proved to be remarkably successful, indicating that many agreed with our
assessment. Since that time, digital cameras, computer aided design software
(CAD), hand-held digital sketchpads, the Internet, smart phones, fax machines,
and scanners have become just about ubiquitous. While the aim of this edition is
to continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of gathering visual information by
means of freehand notational sketches, ways of incorporating today’s available
technologies, we believe, have become too important and effective to exclude.
Thus, the objective of the current edition is two-fold: to provide further
instruction on visual notation, and demonstrate how new graphic-oriented
technologies may expand the efficacy of gathering visual information.

We noted in the first edition that sketching and keeping notes was once the
mainstay of a traveler’s skills. Recording visual information alongside verbal
notes—in forms that are diagrammatic, abstract, pictorial, and realistic—was
simply a part of how one “took in” the important qualities of a place, as well as
to reinforce the memory of that place for a later time. But there is more to
sketching in the field than meets the eye, so to speak. While we engage in
sketching for purposes of capturing information, we tend to forget that an
important effect has to do with truly seeing things in their deeper complexity,
thereby heightening a fuller and at the same time more subtle understanding of
our environment. And this effect increases, becoming more efficient and useful
as one’s habit of sketching stretches over time.
We are told that sketching engages a different part of the brain than, for
instance, taking photographs. Comparable research in 2003 by neuroscientist
Eleanor Maguire of University College London, though not focused directly on
sketching, seems to emphasize the point. She discovered that spatial
understanding is enhanced by direct and intense experience with something in its
true three-dimensionality, versus viewing it in two dimensions as a photograph
or other abstract representation. In particular, her research involved London
cabdrivers, who it turns out have a larger posterior hippocampus—the region of
the brain that files spatial memories—than the average Londoner. Of course
today, one could negotiate London’s complex street network with a GPS
navigational aid, but because it does not engage spatial organization in the same
way as a series of related, consecutive active spatial experiences, the brain is
deprived of developing more subtle and refined spatial understanding. It would
follow that operating computer graphics, for instance, like negotiating the streets
with a GPS device, short circuits the fuller neuronal involvement of drawing by
hand.

Since the first publication of Visual Notes, an inadvertent discovery involving
the application of computer graphics versus hand drawing emerged in response
to a decision made by the professional degree architectural program at the
University of Notre Dame. After considerable evaluation, it was decided that
students would be prohibited from using computer graphics in the design process
until they had reached their fourth year of architectural studies. The reason had
to do with the observation that hand drawing required a much greater conscious
understanding of how things go together—in constructional, architectural, and
general spatial terms—than simply selecting a detail or element from a digitized
plan file in a CAD program, then modifying it to suit a particular application.
What happened, in addition to ensuring a greater understanding of architectural
form, was that when architecture students who began with hand drawing finally
transitioned to the use of computer graphics, their computer drawings were
noticeably superior to others who began with computer graphics in the first
place. That was a surprise. It turns out that the use of line weight, perspective
devises, color, and the like to clarify formal-spatial understanding were more
fully and effectively employed by those who began with the development of
hand drawing skills before they learned to use computer graphics. It would seem
that the abstract understanding of spatial form gained from computer graphics, as
in the situation of photography versus sketching or negotiating London streets
with a GPS device, something is gained while something else is lost. But if both
are brought to the fore, each in its appropriate place in the larger scope of
effective communication, the result is greater breadth of useful understanding.
We believe that encouragement to use hand drawing in its many forms is more
important now than ever. The temptation to bypass engaging our environment in
all its richness and complexity has become greater than ever.To truly see, as
opposed to merely record, enriches our understanding and enhances our ability
to remember and to use our knowledge to better facilitate the act of designing.

The act of drawing, like writing, is an integral part of developing thought.
William Morrish, whose drawings appear in this addition, demonstrate that
point. As he sketches unseen relationships—for instance a landscape of distant
features that cannot all be seen at the same time from a given place—he
discovers meaningful associations between things that become integral to a
broader understanding that cannot be revealed by the eye on its own. Or the
drawings by Leon Krier in this edition, which develop a link between the
memory of an object or place and its role as an idea that can inform design.
These tangible connections between thought, memory, experience, and design,
further develop the original theme of Visual Notes.
We believe that engaging hand drawing in its many forms is more important
today than it ever was. The temptation to bypass engaging our environment in all
its richness, meaning, and complexity has become greater than ever.To actively
see, as opposed to merely record inert data, enriches our understanding and
enhances our ability to remember and to use our knowledge to more effectively
and responsively facilitate the act of designing. NC/PL