Drawings are the first stages of making. Architectural drawings, as artifacts, evolve to describe light, color and material surface. "Rendered" drawings are vital, intermediate stages between the creative imagination and built space. Collections of lines can describe light and shadow; areas of color, texture, and even material fragments can, collage-like, bridge the gap between strategic thinking and material realization. Rendering transforms an abstract drawing; light, texture, and color, both real and fictive, combine to speak of a possible materiality and give a concreteness to the imagined place.
Rendering of this kind is often partial or incomplete. Like a half-finished sketch, the resulting image bears an openness that is as engaging to the viewer as it is integral to the creative design process. This kind of rendering is a natural extension of the line drawing as a process of thinking: exploratory drawings, and to a certain extent sketch models, uncover ways to engage with craft, making, and processes of fabrication. Later in the design process, rendered drawings can clearly articulate ideas of material and light in order to facilitate detail decisions.
These kinds of rendered drawings are done as the design is in progress. By contrast, a "final render" has long played an important role in the communication of an architectural proposal. Final renderings are often the most celebrated kinds of architectural drawings and have, through history, used a whole range of techniques. Early renderings ranged, for example, from precise pen-and-ink washes to tempera paintings to frescoes and oil-based paintings. Later, techniques such as watercolor, charcoal, and pastel facilitated a more expressive rendering of light, detail, and material surface. These images were originally the work of artists and illustrators, but more recently techniques have moved away from such hand-rendered "artists’ impressions," through collage and photographic montage, to computer-generated images (or CGIs).
Peter Sparks’ simple pencil and watercolor sketch brilliantly captures the scale, light, and materiality of the streetscape. This kind of sketch requires careful adjustment of the amount of water on the page to vary tone between washes and sharp edges.
Sound Travels, Archi-Tectonics. This study shows how effectively form can be described using line, light, and shadow alone (for another image in this study, see page 20).
CGIs vary in character and complexity but this technique is now used for the vast majority of contemporary architectural renderings. More often than not, the final image is a made by working in a number of different software packages. Invariably these programs support a formal imagination and are at their best when describing complex forms, structural detail, and photorealistic lighting that would otherwise be difficult to represent.
On the one hand, the photorealism of CGI is something relatively new, and using a handful of software packages, the super-realistic render has become a global standard. On the other hand, however, these drawings can often be less than convincing; somewhat formulaic, and even unnerving in character. They are not the "intermediate drawings" that are integral to the creative design process; rather they have a more authoritative character all of their own that represents the building with unerring certainty. Ironically, although graphically almost anything has become possible, there is, at the same time, a level of predictability that means that even the most sophisticated renders can resemble illustrations that lack the engaging capacity of richer drawing forms. A modest idea can appear super-real, and well-tried visual effects can supplant architectural intention.
Rendering is underpinned by an understanding of chiaroscuro, or how light and dark structure a drawing so as to find and define form, and also to build depth into an eventual color or tone. In architectual drawing the discipline of "sciagraphy," or shading in drawings, is the touchstone of many, if not all, representational techniques.
On the following pages two works by the artist Anne Desmet, Poolside Reflection and Domus Aurea II 1991, explore the play of light in space with a particular assuredness. The effectiveness of Anne Desmet’s work lies at least partly in her imaginative use of technique and the way in which it connects to the content of the spaces depicted. The purpose of these rendered artifacts is to capture the viewer’s imagination; a drawing is there to be explored rather than merely to illustrate; to trigger ideas rather than merely narrate.
The "presence" of a drawing will in part be a question of content and formal arrangement on the page, but it will also hinge on the way in which the drawing itself is actually made: the material qualities of its surface, its textures, and depths. While modern digital techniques tend to reduce surface depth, traditional techniques fundamentally depended on it. Exploiting the properties of natural pigments to have different levels of transparency, media such as tempera, oils, and watercolors all work with "layers" or "glazes" to create an impression of surface depth. Sometimes almost imperceptible effects—such as the presence of Armenian bole underneath a gilded surface—are part of the way representation has, until recently, captured the imagination of the observer through an investment in surface and light.
Computers present us with a large range of rendering tools and software. These range from basic modeling packages like SketchUp that incorporate an ability to render walls and lighting, to more sophisticated software, like modo, V-Ray, or 3ds Max, which is specifically designed to render models efficiently, dealing with complex texture, incident, and radiant light.
Photorealistic computer renders are often the result of working across software packages and can be a lengthy process. It can also be useful to develop sketch models digitally that are more quickly "rendered." In this sense SketchUp is a popular and useful tool. It is precise as well as being quick to use. Vector drawings from most platforms can be imported and the models can then be exported into additional rendering packages if necessary. Within SketchUp itself are useful guides to sciagraphy, material palettes, and components; within Layout, orthogonal drawings can be quickly set up from the sketch model.
Photoshop also remains a vital tool that enables architects to create a vivid impression of a proposal. Photoshop layers can be quickly mapped over views of basic models to effectively represent ideas and take designs forward. The featured interior of "Revolution Manchester" for instance (see page 31) was rapidly put together in Photoshop as a rudimentary collage over a basic model done in Rhino. This preliminary drawing initiated a design discussion, rather than being a final render. The drawing used obvious Photoshop tools that transform and warp material textures, demonstrating that this program, like other digital tools, is equally effective when it is used with restraint.