Notebook » RE view
Time for me to review one of my own favorite drawings or pieces of architectural design. Most of the time my ‘next’ drawing or ‘next’ piece of design is the one I’m really interested in. This piece of work is an exception for me. I still really like it 34 years after it was made.
Background. It was my final year at architectural school in Auckland ( end of 5 years study) and we were presented the design problem of designing anything we wanted on a small Ponsonby site. Anything we wanted……anything we wanted, that is difficult. Much more difficult than say designing a hospital, or a hotel etc because the guidelines for those kinds of buildings are clearly in place. (I’m talking at student level of course.) Just look at what others have done before, improve their weak parts, throw in a bit of individually or some sort of crowd pleaser and present in the most beautiful way you know how.
So I started designing flash cafes (cafe society hadn’t hit NZ in 1979) and made lots of “architectural” drawings. I was left unsatisfied…. they were just buildings. So what?
I didn’t want to waste this opportunity to design ‘anything I wanted’. My attention shifted away from a building towards relationships between people. Not just people in general but specific people. I had met a neighbour, a beautiful little 6 year old girl called Storm, who loved drawing. She was very full of life but also very ill. She was dying of cystic fibrosis.
My design was to create a place where Storm, who was about to die could meet my grandmother who had died some years previously. I hoped that the two would meet and that my grandmother would be able to help Storm on her journey. I put myself in the picture too as someone who could introduce the two.
Once I had worked out what I was trying to do, the architecture was simple and straightforward.
The scene was a playground with water and a cool really big blackboard to play with. The blackboard was so big that you needed a ladder on wheels to reach up to the top. The blackboard doubled as a screen.
The light weight yellow canopy had a pop up clerestory in it to let the light in. Storm had told me she liked roofs like that.
I still like this proposal years later because it still feels fresh to me, still alive as an idea. It carries none of the trappings of 1970s fashion or references to other 1970s architects. It deals with something outside time.
I love the way it was drawn with crayons, strong, purposeful and colourful. A million miles from today’s ubiquitous uniform computer renderings.
It’s strange that I could never have written about this piece of work, like this, at the time. It is in review some 30 years later that I’m able to disengage from my self criticism and really enjoy the idea for what it is.
This drawing represents a little world that is still alive for me. Building regulations, money and “look mum, no hands” type of architecture have no place
in this world.
This is a creation of mind, complete and subservient to itself.
Reflecting back on the work years later I wonder why the presentation was so innocent, so child like and I think there are a couple of reasons. Firstly the ‘client’ in this project is 6 year old Storm so the drawings had to be done in a way that she would understand the scheme. Secondly, often children’s drawings have a directness about them, a clarity about them and a simplicity about them. These were the qualities I was trying to capture.
June 7th, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Thanks Richard,
It make me think that Architecture can be more than “functional” in the direction of storytelling.I mean a space in which you can play with a plot.
what a great drawing