Manual versus digital.

"We live in a digital world, but we're fairly analog creatures."

Omar Ahmad, Internet entrepreneur and politician

The most significant change that I have witnessed in the architectural profession is the radical shift from analogue-manual to electronic-digital technologies and communication.  

Digital tools (networked CAD solutions such as BIM etc.) represent an enormous boost in efficiency and precision. They enable to implement complex design and planning solutions more quickly and reliably. However, apparent perfection can be deceiving.

Beginners risk losing the sensory dimension inherent in the manual design process if they are introduced to digital tools too early. Over the last few decades, I have observed that more and more students have problems with scaling and dimensions, even in higher semesters.

A viable pedagogical solution is to allow beginners to initially focus on manual techniques. Once students have gained confidence in understanding principles manually, they are introduced to the use of digital tools. Providing specific tasks to apply both techniques also proved effective.

The simultaneous use of manual and digital processes is a successful method in many architectural practices. Hand sketching is spontaneous and responsive, even reflecting the mood of the day in the lines. There is no frame, a blank canvas, a blank sketchbook page or tracing paper are virtually limitless.

A digitally  elevation produced on a drawing tablet. 

Therapeutic aspects

We live in an accelerated time, in an era of high speed and immediacy: demands of an automated and digitised society.

Yet, in the slowness of manual work lies a special quality that is lacking in high-speed society: careful observation and reflection.

Mental health issues, anxiety and depression are on the rise, a trend that is widespread in the student community too.

Many students struggle with self-confidence, with managing their student life and interpersonal skills.

I have observed that learning and practicing manual skills and analogue techniques, slowly and stress-free, is essential to overcome such difficulties: activating physical engagement;

It activates the reflective process of conscious and controlled physical movement. A natural understanding of space and time. It is about learning to coordinate and apply thoughts and actions, mind and body.

"It is evident that manual design improves physical coordination and supports a natural understanding of scale and dimension."

By practicing manual skills such as: B. observational sketching, students forget the deceptive perfection of digitally generated lines, instead they learn about themselves, their uniqueness, which is characterized by imperfection and openness rather than perfection and static results.

In the activity of manual sketching and drawing, we observe, we document our own development, we can read the mood, we remember the day, we see the traces of how the work developed. We feel connected to time. We are satisfied.

To navigate the digital world and the rise of artificial intelligence, human intelligence needs a firm foundation in our natural human abilities as a counterbalance.

Discussing the future: Students  at St. Petersburg State University

Authenticity 

A growing challenge in architectural education is evaluating design projects assignments (and for written assignments), is the authenticity of a design. Occasionally, students would have well-developed digital models and renderings but with hardly any evidence of design development. 

The method of the narrative comes into play, the coherent documentation of design development stages. The narrative of the design becomes the criterion. In fact the developmental journey reveals more about the quality of a design proposal as the design solution itself.      

A manually produced  elevation.