Charrette Drawing
Charrette Drawing as Collaborative Ideation: Observations from 6 years on the road
I’m an architectural illustrator with 30 years experience working in traditional media. About 6 years ago while working in charrette in response to a client’s final hours plea for help I was thunderstruck with the realization that I should be working, whenever feasible, NOT from my studio but my client’s office.
My reasons were this:
1. Efficiency. So much easier, in particular when under a deadline, to get questions answered or to get feedback when the client is steps away. No voice mail messages, emails, texts.
2. Focus. You have my complete and undivided attention. Easier to stay in that “creative flow” state. Out of town charrettes even more so.
3. Educational benefits. Mostly I work in architecture offices and their staff will see someone actually drawing by hand. Sadly this an increasingly rare event. A young person watching me pull out my drawing gear (electric eraser, triangles, pens, pencils, etc.) asked: “What did you do, break into the Smithsonian?” Nevertheless, I am always, always, happy to share methods and process as I also teach drawing to design professionals. An unanticipated benefit: how much I learned by working in a broad range of offices and being exposed to an exponential amount of architects at work.
4. Collaboration. The opportunities to collaborate, possibly the greatest benefit of all and the real point of this article. Whether intended or not, there is a degree of collaboration in the final product that might not happen if I was working from my studio. The quantity of real time review and the increased access to more of the design team facilitates this. Chances are if we are drawing by hand it is nearer the beginning of the process: many details remain unresolved or are intentionally ambiguous as ideas are taking their “first breath”.
I have worked in all kinds of offices, including: a construction site on a folding chair at a card table with no heat, at public meetings with an angry mob on the edge of resorting to tar and feathers, at sessions where I did little more than listen and learn as brilliant professionals argued the merits of their ideas. I have been given verbal instructions and asked to design and sketch solutions myself. I have been asked to attend initial client meetings and draw, and to reverse engineer the primal design sketches at the end of the design process for a competition. And sometimes, it’s just create the rendering THERE rather than HERE, in Studio. I LOVE every bit of this. Maybe being tarred and feathered not so much.
It’s about the back and forth that is collaboration. Collecting the information necessary to have a contract illustrator can take a lot of time and effort. I hear of the “brain damage” factor frequently when work is farmed out. It’s just easier for everyone if I’m there: hand off, questions, review, course corrections along the way, inspiration can come at any point. I was at an office once where half a dozen people were contributing ideas (and changes) to the design I was illustrating. Yes, it meant altering work, but in the end the product was so much better (see color drawing below).
It’s not about the look of the drawing. They can take many forms. Look at these varied examples. A charrette may be a brainstorming session of a few hours or it may be me working on renderings from a client’s office over days or weeks. Quick sketch drawing in black and white, a frankly underused form, can be supplemented later with more elaborate drawing or by adding color at my studio. My advice to those of you drawing in charrette: work quickly, practice drawing in ink. Lots of repetition of simple shapes, in particular drawing axonometric 3D cubes in various positions. Sidestep drawing in perspective if you’re not really comfortable with it. Work over a photo or a prepared 3D massing model if that is practical.
It’s about documenting ideas. Whatever, and however that works given the situation. An observation here. Beginners try to transcribe what they see. Translation requires a deeper understanding and an ability to make value judgements: what is important vs unnecessary, etc. Photography is a great tool for transcription and photorealism is the language of most digital imaging. That’s often less desirable early on. Drawing is an entirely different language. A sketch from a place of understanding is a powerful tool of translation; capture the essence.
It’s about moving the project forward. One thing is certain: no one hires me just to make a pretty picture. ALWAYS it is for the purpose of moving the project forward in some way. That’s really why I’m there. To make a compelling case for their story and move the project to its next phase. Drawing has romantic, poetic qualities than can evoke an emotional response from the viewer. They can allow the viewer to participate in the drawing as they complete details in their mind.
All drawings done in charrette. If you would like to discuss this type of drawing or share any anecdotes with me please email me at bruce@bondystudio.com or call 847.421.6999. No tar or feathers were applied while making any of these renderings.