In this episode of “Behind the Scenes”, where we showcase the work of visionary artists and ask about their experiences beyond what is seen by the public, we are presenting Nicolás Sánchez: a designer from Pehuajo, Buenos Aires (Argentina). Nicolás defines himself as an eccentric person with a strong obsession with symmetry and mathematics applied to the objects and spaces that surround him, which awakens in him the curiosity of wanting to understand everything and to find the reason for things. Through his illustrations and animations, he transmits and shares everything he perceives and feels with playful, surreal, and impossible spaces.
Design projects rely heavily on visual tools that illustrate the project's features and overall atmosphere, and whether you are an architect, interior designer, furniture designer, or engineer, the term 'mood board' has definitely come up at some point during the early stages of the design process. Generally speaking, images have immense powers of influencing and inspiring their viewers, so putting together a powerful mood board can be a game changer for the architect, the visual artist, and the clients, and can amplify the project's story telling process. So what is a mood board and how can you create one?
Videos
Mariapia di Lecce (commended, Hybrid category): Reconstruct with drawing. Hand drawing for graphic analysis.. Image Courtesy of Sir John Soane's Museum
If there is any word that describes what architectural renders look like nowadays, it would be: impressive. The immense world of rendering has allowed people to engage in virtually-built environments, exploring each space and experiencing what they might hear or feel as they walk by one room to another without being physically present in the project.
The main purpose of a render is to help viewers visualize what the final result of the project will look like. Whether it is for presentation or construction purposes, architects need to translate their visions in a way that helps people who were not involved in the ideation process understand the space and the experiences that come with it. However, not all architects have the proper skills or the time to create such hyper-realistic environments, but with the exceptional quality of visuals being produced nowadays and the rising demand, it has become somewhat mandatory for every project to be presented as a realistic 3D render. So if you are one of those architects who don't have the skills nor time, here are ways you can present your project as an immersive visual experience that translates its identity without resorting to 3D software.
Armenian graphic designer and illustrator Nvard Yerkanian has created a new series exploring modernist architecture in Armenia. The illustration series aims to reveal the beauty and value of modernism to the public through the power of colors that accentuate the simple yet fantastic forms of these monuments. The series is an ode to the architectural heritage that has been lost and undervalued.
Sala Beckett: Definición del vestíbulo central. Image Cortesía de Flores & Prats
When we approached the Flores & Prats firm, we wanted to focus on their precise drawing just as much as their detailed mock-ups. We wanted to see a project that not only "values the time invested and accumulated in it but also sees said time as a virtue and not a defect;" an indication of paying attention to the process as well as the unexpected. (In this sense, it reminds me of reading about how to draw a forest, among other things, in "Las tardes de dibujo en el estudio Miralles & Pinós").
We conducted a long-distance interview with the Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores studio for this reason; to get a better idea of their thoughts on the impact of drawing on architectural representation.Their input makes clear the "why" of their decisions, and explains not only how they operate in a contemporary context but also indicates their relationship with construction among other disciplines.
Drawing as an architectural tool serves not only as a means of communication, but through drawing we can also gain a deeper understanding of the subject. To this purpose, Alessandro Luporino has created the Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture. The series of beautiful and evocative illustrations serve as companions for the book “Dictionary of Architecture,” by Nikolaus Pevsner, John Fleming, and Hugh Honor.
Italian artist Federico Babina has published the latest in his impressive portfolio of architectural illustrations. “Planimal” seeks to convey the close link between architecture and the natural world, translating animals into architectural plans. Through his set of drawings, Babina reimagines the architectural spaces as “narrative subjects that host us and lead us into a fantastic labyrinth of a dreamlike reality, architectures imagined as allusively zoomorphic sculptures.”
Houses, museums, and churches are conveyed as roaring lions, crawling snakes, and swimming whales, with dynamic spaces formed from cocktails of asymmetries and symmetries, curves and straight lines, solids and voids, sounds and silences, lights and shadows.
As imaginative and hypothetical as their work may seem to some people, many visionaries have created admirable artwork that look beyond the ordinary and rethink architecture and urban spaces. Xinran Ma, the New York-based architectural designer and illustrator has visualized his architectural fantasies, and created numerous series of drawings, two of which were entries for Fairy Tales 2016 and 2017 by Blank Space."
Drawing inspiration from Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi, known for his imaginative etches of Rome, and the collaborative works of Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin, who produced avant-garde depictions of cities and landscapes, the illustrator has once again shared his creations with Archdaily, expressing his passion “to vision architectural fantasies that transcends time through graphic narratives”.
Imaginative Italian illustrator and architect Federico Babina has unveiled his latest series, ARCHITALE, “a tribute to the fairytale universe where the architectures are reinvented to accommodate the protagonists of the story.”
Through his illustrations, Babina imagines 17 structures that dance between reality and fantasy, with each architectural detail revealing information about the characters and story of the respective fairytale.
