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Hand Drawing Fights Back

Before arriving at architecture school I was encouragingly informed “you’ll spend every minute on a computer.” Just what you want to hear before starting 7 years of fun and learning (I was so much more optimistic back then). Fortunately on arriving at Dundee an enthusiastic first year tutor sent us on life drawing classes and made us draw our shoes, not a computer in sight. Once I had mastered these basics of architectural drawing I returned to AutoCad to do what I thought was 'proper' architectural drawing of an entirely questionable scheme.

Four years later I have returned to the drawing board, shut down my laptop and realised how much I have missed. If only I had listened to those first year tutors at the time not only would I have some excellent drawings of all my shoes, I would also be a far more proficient draftsman. For my first semester of work since abandoning my laptop I have a sizable stack of tracing paper showing the evolution of a project rather than one CAD file stored safely on one of those trusty hard drives.

The fixed scale of manual drawing makes me focus on all the elements that concern themselves without getting lost trying to bring together every element and scale at once. I start by drawing at 1/20 and 1/500 before working into my 1/200 drawings and so forth. I no longer spend weeks of frantic zooming in and out to realise at my pin-up that my building is huge. Computers are without doubt a great tool but in my case they made my first 3 years at architecture school harder rather than easier.

Computers also have a clever way of taking up a great deal of time and making you feel like you are working very hard when in fact you have been on Facebook and reading Blogs, not to mention the frantic zooming. Perhaps on reading this many of you will realise you are in fact meant to be doing something else and return to that, and quite right too. A few days ago a fellow student was telling me he has installed a programme which blocks him from the above mentioned procrastination sites for an entire day with no way of undoing it. Surely if ever a sign was needed to shut down your computer this is it.

Perhaps I just suffer from the concentration span of a child, but even for those of you who can focus on a CAD drawing for hours at a time, hand drawing could still make your life easier and at the end of the day the result of your hard work is a piece of paper in your hand rather than sore eyes and a headache.

Fortunately Dundee University is starting to see a resurgence of hand drawing, particularly amongst its more senior students; it seems I am not the only one learning the values of hand drawing. Many of us have shut down our computers and picked up a pencil, perhaps a revolt against the tyranny of the computer is under way. Here’s hoping it picks up steam.

Jamie Ross is from North Berwick on the East Coast of Scotland and is in his 4th year at Dundee School of Architecture. He is also an active amateur photographer.

Main Image: Jamie Ross