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Despite the obvious diversity in the ideology, materiality and character of architecturalproduction, here it is argued that the way we (architects) draw is surprisingly uniform.One reason for this might be the limited range of materials and tools we draw with,and their generic qualities. Architect, researcher and maker Nat Chard revealsrelationships between acts of drawing, making images and making ideas, by taking us through the design and manufacture of a series of analytical drawing instruments and contingent works.

Night-time drawing instrumentDrawing instrument showing picture plane (top left) and control surfaces.

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processes. Yet the way we draw is surprisingly uniform. This is inpart due to the need to have generic notation that is understood inthe same way by all of the agencies involved in the realisation of aproject. However, the exploratory drawings that are made in orderto establish what the building should be are not subject to thisdiscipline, and yet remain surprisingly consistent with the work ofother architects working with distinctly different ideas. One reasonfor this might be the limited range of materials and tools we drawwith, and their generic qualities. At architectural school we learnhow to use given tools, but I was inspired to learn from two of mycousins who undertook engineering apprenticeships that theystarted their education by making their tools themselves.

At first these tools were measures, a ruler and a square,followed by tools to assemble and then to manufacture. The pieces

We were talking yesterday at the studio about the picture plane, and to me theres some mysterious element about the plane. I cant rationalise it, I cant talk about it, but I know theres an existence on this imaginary plane which holds almost all the fascination of painting for me. As a matter of fact, I think the true image only comes out when it exists on this imaginary plane. Philip Guston1

We draw for various reasons, and the tools we choose towork with have many capabilities. At one end of the scalewe have the hope of a transparency between a thought andits projection on to a picture plane. In this case, the facilityto draw and the capability of the tools must have somesympathy with the intention. Generic drawing tools forarchitecture try to establish this sympathy (through horizonand gravity, for instance in T-squares and set-squares)without prescribing too far what will be drawn. In themiddle of the scale, the idea is not so complete before itmeets the picture plane, and the media used offer someresistance (perhaps critical) allowing us to question orreflect on the intention. Greg Lynns observation that in thework of certain architects the types of forms they designreveal the (different) software packages they draw withwould suggest that even in the computer, which tries to beas ubiquitous as possible, the medium is in some way acontributory factor, not just a transparent translation.

The other end of the scale is where we know somethingabout our concerns, but do not know how they are formed,and need the media we use to be more active in developingour ideas. It is here we come across an apparent paradox inthe relationship between intention, facility and media, for itwould seem that the simplest, most generic medium (letssay, pencil on paper) would offer us the widest range andmost open means of expression. Though this appears toafford the most indeterminate condition within which towork, it is one that is at the same time very restricting. Themedium is well known and has a deeply entrenched set ofprecedents, and every mark we make has to be understoodfrom every aspect of this medium.

In a small retrospective at the Tate, an early sketch wasaccompanied by an explanation that Cy Twombly had difficultyin developing his early scribbles on account of his facility atdrawing and his highly developed eye. To overcome this hehad to first draw in darkness to free his drawing from hisintuitive aesthetic concerns. Here, the familiarity with themedium and the reflective critical process of workingthrough it made it less available for ideas outside its normaldomain. If we were to make a drawing not with a pencil butwith a stamp, for example, the figures content in that stampwould load or prescribe some of the drawings content, yetalso allow the author to use it with great freedom, withouthaving to worry about the aspect of the drawing covered by the figure in the stamp. Although the tools are moreprescribed, perhaps the person drawing has the opportunityto work more spontaneously, knowing that some aspects ofthe content are inherently discussed in the stamp. It is thisend of the scale that I would like to discuss here.

Architects built work is very diverse, and made frommany materials that are formed and assembled by many

Cold Bog cameraThe curved film plane is an exact scale model of the diorama shell. The pinhole is(upside down) in the idealised viewing position. The winding mechanism prevents thefilm leaving the curved plane when winding on.

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were, I admit, generic, however they suggested the ideathat we might both learn and practise through tools of ourown making, related to our specific concerns. By makingthe tools, my cousins learnt about their capabilities andlimits for example, the tolerances of the square or rulerand how these relate to the materials and processes theyuse. For a number of years I have been testing therelationship between drawing tools2 and what they draw,both in teaching and in practice. The aim of developingtools is to make the medium active in the design process;to provide something to think through (in its invention anduse), and to provide a critical resistance that is particular tothe concerns under discussion. One of the most importantopportunities of this process is that in designing the tool to discuss an idea, the idea might be clarified or revealed.

Normally when we draw, an idea is projected on to apicture plane. The tools that are active are the ones thatproject, while the surface that receives tends to be morepassive, often chosen for its ability to be submissive to thequalities of the tool that draws. The projection made by thetool is most often an intention that is collected by the pictureplane. However, in the examples I will show and discusshere, it is the picture plane that is active critical in theway that it accepts, modifies or rejects the projection uponit. When we draw with a pencil our hand movement is thesame as the figure of the drawing. Our actions and intentionsare tied to our image like a shadow. When we modify thepicture plane our actions and intentions are reflected by the consequent image, but are not apparent in it. I couldsuggest that the act of drawing in this way can therefore berelated to making the idea, more than making the image.

The picture plane has been the site of many attempts tomake picturing empirical, and is the surface on which thesilent structures of measured perspective are constructed.Since Leonardo, the imaginary plan of the picture plane has been under discussion, with many proofs and counter-proofs of the ideal surface. If the picture plane can befolded to make the image more true, then of course it canalso be folded to question the image; the possibility of thefolded picture plane is not restricted to perspectivalprojection. In my two examples below, the first is completelyheld by perspective, while in the second it is hardly present.

Photograph of original site taken on 17 June 2001 with the Cold Bog camera. Thisimage makes all the anamorphic corrections necessary to become the surface of thebog diorama. As a consequence, the horizon is horizontal rather than curving up atthe edges, as is the case at the real place or when viewing the diorama.

Cold Bog camera photograph of the diorama the left-hand image of a stereo pair that effectively unpeels the painted background.

Right-hand image of stereoscopic pair. Pattern for Cold Bog diorama camera. The left-hand side is the top, andshows the plan of the film plane. The underside is on the right where thewind-on film-holding-mechanism pockets are visible.

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To illustrate some of the work we have done in this areaI have included an example of a student project by BerndFelsinger (see page 28), and will here cover two drawinginstruments of my own in a little more depth. The first is asimple analytical tool that is particular to its subject matter.Apart from a few panoramic examples, most cameras havea flat picture plane; the lens is designed to resolve theimage on a flat surface (the emulsion of the film or a light-sensitive chip), and this makes it difficult to manipulate.The camera does, however, provide the means forcapturing a projection to work on. The pinhole (working asa lens) offers us much more than the glass optics of atypical camera lens, as the extensive depth of field allowsus to form a picture plane and still capture a reasonablysharp image at many depths (subject to varying exposuretimes for different focal lengths). This makes it a favouritemeans to manipulate a projection and the first of myexamples illustrates the control that is possible in usingsuch a medium.

Cold Bog CameraThe Cold Bog camera is a reflexive tool, for the subject itstudies is the spatial potential of the picture plane. In themiddle of the 20th century, diorama painting reached itspeak in natural history museums in the US. The most rigorousof these painters in projecting the geometry of the imagefrom the site into the background painting was JP Wilson, whoworked mainly at the American Museum of Natural Historyin New York and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural Historyin New Haven, Connecticut. His work is interesting in thisarea for many reasons, but for the scope of this paper I will contain the discussion to his projection techniques.

Wilson trained as an architect at Columbia3 and workedin the office of Bertum Goodhue making fastidiousperspective drawings. When he became a diorama painterhe transferred this attention to detail to the geometricproblem of relating an image captured on site on flat pictureplanes (photographs and paintings) to the curved backdrop.His method involved oil paintings made on site to capturethe colour and a series of Kodachrome slides taken aspanoramas (as in join-ups).4 These were taken at set angleseither side of centre, one set horizontal and others aboveand below. If prints from these were assembled, theywould make a faceted picture plane with the centre of eachfacet equidistant from the centre. His process of translatingthis image on to the curved backdrop so that it looksnatural and in scale with the foreground to the observer isclever but also complicated. In trying to understand hismethod, I developed a camera that could make all thenecessary transformations in a photograph of the site.

The Cold Bog camera is specific to the Cold Bog dioramaat New Haven, chosen because Wilson scholar MichaelAnderson from the Yale Peabody could arrange for accessto the diorama and the original site, and could provideaccurate drawings of the diorama shell. Three identicalversions were manufactured, to allow steroscopicphotography and also to provide a back-up. The pictureplane in the camera is a scale model of the diorama shell,with the pinhole located at the ideal viewing position. Thesite is remote, so the cameras have wind-on mechanisms

Night-time drawing instrumentPatterns for the drawing instrument. The parts shown here include the legs (top), subframe (above), main chassis top (below), and and undersideof the main chassis (bottom). All are machined on a three-axis CNC mill.

so that several shots can be made without reloading. Asthey have to work stereoscopically as a pair in front of thediorama (partly as a check on their accuracy but also relatedto Wilsons use of stereoscopy), the cameras had to be asnarrow as possible to achieve a 65-millimetre separationbetween pinholes. As a consequence the roll film spoolsare located behind the picture plane. Three rollers pullback when winding on to keep the film on its intendedcurvature and ensure it does not pop out of its runners.

So the camera is specific to the content that it willphotograph, yet also to the circumstances in which thephotograph will be taken and the method of testing theresults. The original survey was made on 17 June 1949 andmy photographs were made on 17 June 2001. A normalcamera was used to compare the results. In the stereoscopicpair of photographs of the diorama taken by a normal camera,the diorama shell appears curved as in reality. In the ColdBog cameras stereoscopic versions the shell appearsperfectly flat confirmation of the accuracy of the tool.

As a tool, the Cold Bog camera is both particular to its task but also completely prescriptive as to its content. I learned almost everything I needed to know by designingand making the camera rather than using it (although thiswas revealing in other aspects of the work). However, it

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A folding picture plane of the Night-time drawing instrument supportsfigures with variable colour and illumination. The variations in the foldschange the nature of the image. The observer is implicated in the image byhis or her position.

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offers the means by which such a camera can also be more speculative, and several variations on this have been made in the studio.

Night-Time Drawing InstrumentThe Night-time drawing instrument is much morespeculative. It is made to draw the consequence of aproject where there is a degree of separation between the apparatus and the architectural consequence. Askingquestions about the programmatic relationship betweenarchitecture (or the city) and the body, new syntheticorgans are added to our original ones to change ourperformance. The new apparatus5 focuses on those siteswhere architecture claims to have the most straightforwardrelationship with us: for example, hygiene, waste disposal,digestion, heating and cooling. The new equipmentmodifies these so that if it is true that architecture and the city have such a tight relationship with our bodies, bychanging our performance we should therefore change the city. By changing our performance in different ways wecan change (or take possession of) the city for ourselveswithout changing it for others. Drawing such an apparatusfor the body is quite straightforward, and to some extent so are other aspects of its consequence, but there is aproblem with the project in that at night the programme ofthe city partly dissolves, or at least changes. The drawinginstrument was made to find out about this condition where the consequence of the body apparatus fell betweenintention and more sublime spatial effects.

Layer 4 and layer 6: internal architecture project three. If it is true that architectureand the city provide a tight programmatic relationship to our bodies, then bymodifying those performances of the body that are related to those programmes weshould necessarily modify the city.

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The range of performance is always the same. It is how it isused and how much of it is used that modifies our experience. A set figure of dashes is cut in the picture plane to discuss thisperformance. The instrument is interested in discussing theperiphery, as there is an inversion of interest from the focus of theprogramme of the day to the margins of the evening. Behind theslots (some of which can be blanked off just as some of theapparatus can be dormant), are pockets that contain two different-coloured light bulbs, each of which can be turned on or off ordimmed anywhere in between. The settings on the instrumentrelate to settings on the body apparatus. It is a night-time drawinginstrument and it draws in light. Each pocket is held on a mechanismthat can adjust its position with intention by a sliding element thatraises or lowers the pocket and a rotation that is connected to abroader context (outside our intention), which also adjusts theattitude of the pocket due to the eccentric location of the support.The instrument is connected to a reader that translates theexperience of the city when using the body apparatus.

A normal camera takes photographs of the seven connectedleaves of the picture plane. The obliqueness and position of theshot relates to the situation in the city. The nature of the imagedepends on the lighting of the slots and the folds in the pictureplane with respect to the camera position. The wires that lead tothe bulbs have stripes on them so that they register in the seamsbetween some of the pockets. This noise is reminiscent of theinternal experience of the apparatus as some slight differencebetween the natural and synthetic systems is perceived, forinstance a temperature divergence as one system works moreefficiently than the other. A series of photographs is taken forparts of the journey and then assembled on a picture plane that is particular to that journey or place. That picture plane is alsofolded so that the observer has a spatial relationship to the image.

Both of the drawing instruments described above were drawnusing highly conventional drawing tools, a mixture of architecturaldrafting, 3-D modelling and CNC milling applications as the pieceswere manufactured on CNC milling machines. To different extentsthey had known intentions that were translated with varyingdegrees of transparency on to the drawing. In using both of them,the act of drawing (or photography) concentrates on the precisionof the idea rather than the construction of the image. 4

Notes1 David Sylvester, Interviews with American Artists, Pimlico (Yale), 2001, p 87.2 I use the word drawing to cover the activity of proposing an idea on a flat or foldedsurface, and not just to include delineation. When we discuss architectural drawingswe often refer to images constructed through various media and processes. 3 Michael Anderson, Raising Standards In Natural History Dioramas: TheBackground Paintings of James Perry Wilson, Curator 43/4, October 2000.4 Ruth Morrill, A Dual Grid System For Diorama Layout, Curator 39/4, December 1996.5 This project is a development of one described in Peter Cook and Neil Spiller (eds),The Power of Contemporary Architecture, Academy Editions (London), 1999, pp 2831.

Detail of drawing and sensing elements.

The drawing instrument ready to use. The cast from the previous siteis seen at the bottom. The drawing instruments that register thecurrent condition are in the middle and the casting plate is at the top.

Bernd Felsingers Anticipation NavigatorThe aim of the preliminary study at the Bartlett was to construct a 'drawing instrument' that operates as an interface betweenthe observer and the city. The drawing instrument is essentially a recording device that constructs 'informed surfaces' onplaster casts by providing 'access' to a printing mechanism, which in turn produces the cast's surface condition. For eachsuccessive cast the previous plate is fed back into the production process and takes on the role of a latent memory, subject tore-evaluation by the user. As the observer filters through the city, 'recordings' in the form of plaster casts are produced alongthe journey. This journey through the city is finally drawn out in the form of a series of interrelated casts, unique to the locationof where they were made and prescriptive of the journey once they are seen in relation to each other.

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One of the casts being read by reader under building model.