Above It All

This classic Sesame Street video is a good plan-view earworm. Looking at a project in plan puts the viewer above it all. So do satellite pics. In paraline drawings, such as plan oblique or elevation oblique, their third dimension is added diagrammatically, without any convergence of depth lines. The lack of convergence gives the illusion that the back plane is bigger than the front. Figures can be placed in these paraline drawings, but constructing the context is onerous, with little payoff. On one project, the production team was persuaded to track their design process by means of plans and paraline views. There were some awkward surprises a year later when those who approved the project based on perspective presentations saw the final product. How frequently do we experience a space from above, anyway? Like plan views, paralines don't take you INSIDE. At the most they provide a superior, detached point of view. 

The blue wall is equally as wide as the orange wall in this elevation oblique
from Kevin Forseth. Optically, it appears larger.

People in Design 5.0 - Paralines - between orthographic and perspective

western drafted elevation oblique        Japanese gyaku enkinhou visual narrative 

Some visual cultures embrace a different relationship to dimensionality. The gyaku enkinhou depictions of 3D space are like super-rich elevation obliques! I am very fond of this Japanese spatial depiction on scrolls, particularly with the device used to show interiors, fukinuki yatai, meaning blow the roof off. A scroll: what a thrilling means to unfurl an intimate story about very private figures in a highly stratified society! As early as the 10th c., such voyeuristic experiences accompanied spatially-depictive poems on scrolls and folding screens. They dwindled by the late 18th c., perhaps after heavy saturation of European linear perspective. See Suzuki Harunobu, who used fukinuki yatai, often with an isometric paraline structure in his many intimate ukiyo-e, popular 18th c. one-page poster prints.  

People in Design 3.0 - Try it on for size

materiality study at user touch-points

Master a believably proportioned, gestural figure, and you have a tool that does a LOT of work. Viewers more easily project themselves into the scene. Studying design ideas in elevation broadens the visualization process. It's efficient at showing depth via overlap. Rapid visualization by hand incorporates a different brain engagement than digital imaging, including sensed vibration of pen/pencil/brush across the page. I like to explore how a design fits together this way. Although I love perspective sketches, I use figures and annotations frequently to communicate with colleagues while a project is in process. The sketch conveys an informal, temporary state, encouraging continued participation of interested parties. 

rapid visualization of space plan variant in elevation

People in Design 2.0 - Elevation Storytelling

Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. lat.15158, fol.47. Dated 1289 CE.
13th c. mass media communication

Although merely 2 dimensional, figures in an elevation tell a more powerful story than figures on a plan. They become our avatars in a given scene, and interact with the built environment. This time-tested storytelling works for communication of design ideas, including landscape, lighting and context, without having to take on a 3D model or provide data in all 3 dimensions.

Ron Kasprisin watercolor presentation document

J.F. Mahoney ink and watercolor presentation document

Through suggestions of clothing and interactions, figures in elevation communicate cultural and behavioral information about who is using the space, and how.
  

People in Design 1.0 - Orthographics

John King, Jen Mahoney, Chip Sullivan

A couple weeks ago I was on a panel discussing people in architecture at the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. It comes up again and again in design presentation classes. To the adult student who gave up on drawing around age eight, getting comfy with perspective sketching is a challenge; add figures to the mix and it's double jeopardy! Yet despite the predominance of plans in design development, instruction for drawing our fellow humans in plan is rare! We draw 'em like we see 'em. In elevation.  Some figure-drawing guidelines over the ages are below. What's not specified here is how they relate to one another, or to whatever the visual field represents.

Proportioning parts of the body to the whole are a physiological constant. Size of figures in relation to one another changes with the beliefs of the culture that depicts them. Gods big; slaves small, etc.

Above it all 5.0 What are those tiny things?

Detail, plan view of San Francisco Ferry Building

Figures in plan may cause the viewer some confusion before the scale effect sets in. We don't often perceive our fellow humans from above. To get a sense of scale, we'd do better to gauge the size of this place using what seem to be tables and chairs. Cluster them at entries, around new information in plan or at featured design elements. Evenly spaced they may seem like texture. In the plan below, word labels and figures help tell the story of the activities in the space. Where the figures overlap shapes, the viewer also gauges heights of objects overlapped by figures.

Proposed Dining Commons for Edible Schoolyard Project

Above it all 4.0 Pairing it down

Let's get down to the workhorse signifier in a plan: lines.

1. Most abstractly, line in a plan makes a feature distinction between one side and the other, the way in linguistics, a single audio shift (vocalization) makes the difference between pear and bear. 

The bottom distinctive pair is crucial info for an Embarcadero-Telegraph Hill trip.

2. Lines on a plan describe boundaries that will mediate movement and transactions. Like a sieve, a stairway, or a speed-bump, those boundaries affect access to visual, acoustic and spatial events. The flow and behavior of weapons, vehicles, valuables, germs, and creatures, including people are mediated. Line thickness and continuity convey meaning, too. 
The nature of the boundary remains ambiguous until third-dimension data is supplied, usually via elevation, section, annotation or a perspective drawing. 

Student work addressing access & transaction boundaries at a grocery store.

For environmental design, considering plans through these abstract lenses helps to focus on problem-solving without being distracted by particular products or finishes. Next post tries out the most common connector an image makes between viewer and design.