Architectural Drawing: Exercise 1 - A Tale of Skydiving

Welcome to a new series called Architectural Drawing, where I share with you what I have learned in regards to drawing in architecture. As of right now, each installment will feature an analysis and brief overview of my weekly homework assignments in my Intro to Architecture class, as well as my thoughts on it.

Before I was handed my class syllabus for Intro to Architecture, I had no clue what to expect. Very
briefly I imagined it being mostly classroom and lecture based. That initial thought turned out to be wrong--extremely wrong. In this class, we jumped right in to the practice of architecture. Actually no...let me give you a better analogy. 

Imagine you are 15,000 feet above the ground inside an airplane. Now imagine somebody has strapped a parachute onto your back. At this point, it's important to clarify that you've never gone skydiving. Ever. Sure, maybe you thought to yourself, "Hey, at some point it would be kind of cool to go skydiving." But you never thought you would be doing it very soon. 

In fact, you were doing it the next day. 

As the instructor goes through the very basics of what to do once you were out of the airplane, your heart pounds so hard you think you can hear it. You're not sure what to expect. As he continues on, multiple questions pop in to your mind. Yet there's no time to ask him. Before you can even say a word, he opens the airlock, and in comes the rush of air. The wind is so loud you can barely hear. The instructor grabs your shoulders. 

"You ready?!" yells the instructor. 

Your mouth opens slightly to try and get a word in as a look of concern comes over your face.

"Good! Have fun!!"

And out you go. You better have the skills to figure the rest out on your own.

While it's not a perfect analogy, I think it encapsulates the feeling everyone had the first few weeks. Most of us are now starting to get the hang of it. Expectations have been set. 

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The first six weeks are focused solely on architectural drawing. Drawing is foundational to architecture. If you can't express your thoughts through drawings, you future as an architect is almost non-existent. This does not mean you have to be a great artist when you first start out. Drawing, especially drawings of buildings, takes dedication and practice to perfect. 

Before we began drawing buildings, our first assignment was centered around introducing us to how architects write. Now writing in architecture is just as important as drawing. Communication, after all, is at the forefront of an architect's arsenal. It's what makes architecture possible. Bad communication can have some awful and even deadly consequences when it comes to spaces people live, eat, and work in. Therefore, the first thing an architect must know how to do is write--and write well. I'm not just talking about grammar. I'm talking about legibility and the quality of the penmanship. 

In diagrams, explanations, and other textual elements of architectural drawings, the penmanship has to be extremely legible so that anyone can easily read it. More than that, the spacing between letters, words, and lines has to be consistent as well. Once again, any chance of miscommunication should be avoided as much as possible. Through architectural lettering, miscommunication due to poor writing will never be an issue.   

For our first assignment, we had to write a full page of this type of lettering and copy the font type that was given to us. The process of architectural lettering involves a ruler, a sharp pencil, and a straightedge. (Most professionals don't use straightedges. Instead, they do it freehand.) The ruler is used to create guidelines. We had to make them 3/4 the height of a grid square so that each line would be spaced appropriately. The straightedge, or triangle, helps make the vertical lines perfectly vertical and the horizontal lines perfectly horizontal. The tool also helps train your hand, so that eventually, you can ditch the triangle and write freehand! 

My first time writing a full page took me many hours to accomplish. Here is most of my first assignment.

As you can see, the consistency in the curves is not perfect. In fact, it still needed a lot of work. But most of the spacing between letters and words is consistent. As people always say, "Practice makes perfect." Each assignment we have done in the past month has included architectural lettering. Whether we are drawing a structure or creating a floor plan, architectural lettering is used to describe what the drawing is about. So, we were able to get more and more practice with each assignment. And sure enough, the quality of the lettering has been improving. Take a look at my lettering just five weeks after that first assignment.

A paragraph of architectural lettering about a specific building's rhythm, or repetition.

The consistency of the curves has improved significantly. I'm also beginning to shorten the spaces between letters while providing ample room between words. Furthermore, the width to height ratio of each letter should be about 1:1. In other words, the letter C should be just as high as it is wide. I am beginning to improve on that as well, compared to assignment one.

And finally, the most recent example.

A near full page of architectural lettering, describing the hierarchy and datum of a building.

 Don't get distracted with the drawing of the building. We'll get to that eventually!

Architectural lettering, like drawing, is the backbone of architecture. Both involve communication and the expression of ideas into physical reality so that others can understand it. As I get more and more practice with lettering, I want to eventually lose the straightedge and write freehand. I tried doing that for my last assignment, but it didn't last long!

As we go through each assignment in the coming weeks, you will notice that these assignments are cumulative. For instance, the project last week involved all the things we had learned in our previous five assignments put into one assignment. Because of this, we are constantly improving through doing similar work in new exercises.

As of right now, our class has reached the sixth week of architectural drawing, and I am starting to get the feel for it. I never would have thought we would be doing so much drawing so early. This is not at all like art class. They do not teach you to draw here. We were shown the fundamental techniques, but not much else. Even though I had multiple questions throughout my assignments, I was usually able to answer them thanks to my classmates, teachers, and the internet.

But when it really mattered, at least I knew how to open my parachute.


Now time for an easy glide back to Earth.

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Want to know how I got into architecture? Check out my earlier post.