Daryl Johnson has carried the same leather bound sketch pad with him since 1984.
The founder of Johnson Architecture has hand drafted every project he's designed, rejecting more than minimal technology in his creative process.
He's one of few holdouts in architecture. And he'll go to his grave that way.
“Some of the things that the younger architects, and really some of the not-so-young architects, can do on the computer just absolutely amaze me," Johnson said. "But it’s not what I do."
A more personal design process
Sketching what a new home would look like at a meeting means the client gets to see Johnson's ideas right away, instead of waiting for a computer printout at a follow-up meeting.
Once the client likes the idea, Johnson passes the sketch to an architect who will program the design. He'll ask for printouts and tweak the design by hand throughout the process.
It's more personal and allows for more client input. A computer design has a look of finality to it, he said, and clients are less likely to be honest.
It's the process he used when designing the Wellhouse at Blackberry Farm and the Tiger Forest at Zoo Knoxville.
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He said most of the young architects at his firm could not roll out a piece of paper and immediately sketch something a client could understand. To him, hand drawing is a dying art.
An element of art
Johnson didn't start out with artistic ability. When drawing a house as a child, he would ask his parents to fill in the trees.
"It becomes easier," Johnson said. "You figure out the tricks. Two straight lines, a little squiggle up top ... and you’ve got a tree.”
While studying architecture at the University of Tennessee, he got an early glimpse into computer-aided design using programming languages Cobol and Fortran.
“That wasn’t artistic to me, and it wasn’t creative to me," he said. "So I really pursued the other avenues. I made my career based on what I could do graphically, or more artistically.”
Johnson has incorporated some technology into his work, using the program Morpholio, which allows him to sketch designs on top of a photo on his iPad. It's "progressive" for him, he said.
Today, he'll set up on a drafting desk in the middle of the office so younger architects can watch him draw.
"If I handed them a piece of sketch paper and said, ‘Draw this’ without going into the computer, it would be a challenge for them," he said.
The pros and cons of hand drawing
McCarty Holsaple McCarty senior architect Stuart Butcher also was not a fan of using Fortran while in school. He graduated from UT's School of Architecture in 1989.
When he started at MHM 31 years ago, the firm had two computers and most of the designing was done by hand.
It was time consuming. Changing something simple meant pasting over or cutting out changes by hand. Then the firm secured a major job in the mid-'90s and needed to produce more documents faster, so the transition began.
A massive building with hand-drawn designs would have had about a half-inch stack of plans, Butcher said. That same project done today by computer-aided design would have a 3-inch stack.
"It’s telling the story of how to build that building to the contractor so much better and so much more accurately," he said.
Evolved far beyond Fortran now, modern technology now enhances the creative process with more options, Butcher said.
There is, however, an increased pressure as a designer to generate concepts faster.
“It doesn’t give you as much of a chance to think and pause and ponder an idea or a thought as well," Butcher said. "If you’re drawing by hand, it’s a slower process. And that mind-to-hand thinking sometimes can develop a concept or an idea.
"The drawback is it’s (one) idea, whereas the computer can allow you to develop multiple ideas almost simultaneously.”
The firm still uses paper and pencil in the early stages of the creative process, but it's not something clients would see.
But still, Butcher said, there is something about hand-drawn sketches a computer can't replicate.
“You’ll pull out a sketch or a drawing and ... people stop and say, ‘That is so beautiful. That drawing has soul to it.’ You can almost see the personality of the person, almost like a person’s signature," Butcher said. "It says something more than the computer drawings can sometimes convey.”
For students at UT, it's a hybrid
Students come to class with laptops and sketch pads, said Brian Ambroziak, associate professor in the UT College of Architecture and Design.
The school requires hand drawing alongside its digital skill requirements.
“I think people have preconceived notions that perhaps drawing is fading away and giving up to the computer and digital forms of representation," Ambroziak said. "I’ve always resisted that. I’m certain that it’s not the case. It’s not purely out of nostalgia. It’s because we’re searching for a fluid process.”
He encourages students to use whichever method is the shortest distance between brain and hand, whether it's a mouse or a pencil.
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Mike Lidwin is in his fourth year of the five-year architectural program at UT.
He spent his first semester in the program exclusively hand drawing. He's currently interning in New York City and said he hand draws about 20% of the time.
Hand sketching is a foundation for creativity.
"It pushes designs further because you're not limited to the boxy nature of what technology would design," Lidwin said.
During students' mandatory trips abroad, they visit the great architectural sites of the world with sketchbooks in hand.
“That’s an active process that engages history in a way nothing else can," Ambroziak said.
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