The need for disciplinary integration: Part 1. I have always considered teaching architecture, and perhaps more importantly the practice of architecture, an all-encompassing endeavor. And this, despite observing year after year, endless jargon among my colleagues promoting the discipline of architecture as autonomous and self-referential.

Blind sketching. If you’ve read some of my past blogs, you may be familiar with my belief that sections are key to any successful design. Two of the blogs (blogs 1 and 2) presented basic concepts about the importance of architecture students working in section, especially since they typically do not think this way—at least in their early years when plans seem to predominate their design. As students gain confidence in the investigation of space through sections, little marvels unfold. Projects become architectural, as they successfully develop spatial experiences that anticipate how users will encounter them in a haptic way.

Some thoughts on sketching by hand. Regardless of the nature of an architectural project, students need to produce sketches, diagrams, plans, sections, axonometrics, perspectives, collages, and text in addition to physical models, in order to document their process, as Ilse Crawford defines, as the thoughtful sequence of decision making. 

Drawing spatially. In a number of previous blogs, I reiterated that translating ideas into space is one of the essential responsibilities when educating an architect. Typically for students, coming up with an idea is not an issue in their design process. But transforming an idea—spatial complex ideas created in the mind and transcribed digitally or onto a sheet of paper—is altogether another beast.