Architecture Graphics
Architecture graphics are the visual tools of the discipline of architecture, the drawings, the diagrams and the presentation images that communicate the design of a building to the people who will build it and the people who will use it. The term covers the whole visual language of the practice, from the technical drawing that is built from to the rendered image that sells the idea, and it is the means by which the design is made clear. This page defines the term and covers the drawing, the diagram and the presentation graphics used in the field, and it explains how each one communicates a different part of the design.
What architecture graphics are and why they are the language of the field
Architecture graphics are the visual documents of the discipline, and they are the language of the field because the design of a building is too complex to be held in words, and it has to be drawn to be understood. A building has a layout, a structure, a skin and a set of details, and each of those is a different kind of information that needs a different kind of graphic to carry it. The technical drawing carries the exact information, the dimensions and the joins, and the presentation graphic carries the experiential information, the feeling of the space and the quality of the light. A set of architecture graphics for a building runs to several hundred images, the drawings and the renders together, and the reader of the set reads the building from them. The graphics are the language of the field because they are the only form in which the design can be shared, checked and built, and the discipline is as much a visual practice as it is a technical one.
The drawing, the diagram and the presentation image
The 3 kinds of graphic in the field are the drawing, the diagram and the presentation image, and the table gives the kind, what it communicates, and who reads it.
| Kind | What it communicates | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|
| The technical drawing | The exact dimensions and the joins | The builder and the code reviewer |
| The diagram | The idea, the concept, in one image | The client and the team |
| The presentation image | The feeling of the space, the light, the material | The client and the public |
The technical drawing is the graphic that is built from, and it is the drawing of the floor plan, the section and the detail. The diagram is the graphic that states the idea, a simple image that shows the concept of the building in one view, the massing, the flow, the relationship to the site. The presentation image is the graphic that sells the design, a rendered view of the space that shows the light and the material and the feeling of being inside. The 3 kinds answer 3 questions, what is to be built, what is the idea, and what is it like, and a complete set of architecture graphics answers all 3, which is why the discipline trains its people in all 3 and not just the drawing.
How the graphics communicate the design to different readers
The graphics communicate the design to different readers by carrying different layers of the information, and the reader of the graphic reads the layer they need. The builder reads the technical drawing, and they need the exact dimension and the join, so the drawing carries the measure and the note. The client reads the presentation image, and they need the feeling of the space, so the image carries the light and the material and the view. The team reads the diagram, and they need the idea, so the diagram carries the concept in one view. A building is designed for 3 readers at once, and the set of graphics is the set that speaks to all 3, the drawing to the builder, the image to the client, the diagram to the team. The discipline's skill in the graphics is in making each kind carry its layer clean, so that the builder is not confused by the feeling, the client is not lost in the dimension, and the team is not buried in the detail.
How the graphics move from the hand to the screen
The graphics moved from the hand to the screen in the 1980s and 1990s, when the computer took over the production of the drawing and the rendering of the image, and the shift changed the making of the graphic without changing the purpose. The drawing is now made by a computer aided tool, and it is sharper and easier to change, and the presentation image is now made by a rendering engine that turns the 3 dimensional model into a picture of the space. The diagram is still often drawn by hand, because the hand is faster for the quick idea, and the hand diagram is still the standard of the early design. A set of architecture graphics today is a mix of the digital and the hand, the drawing and the render on the screen and the diagram on paper, and the term still names the visual language of the field, because the language is in the form of the graphic and not in the tool that makes it, and the discipline's skill is in making the form carry the design clean, whether the form is drawn by hand or by machine.