Concept drawing
Concept drawings or sketches are drawings, often freehand, that are used by designers such as architects, engineers and interior designers as a quick and simple way of exploring initial ideas for designs. They are not intended to be accurate or definitive, merely a way of investigating and communicating design principles and aesthetic concepts.
Concept drawings can also be used to explore more technical aspects of a design, providing an initial response and possible solutions to problems, constraints and opportunities such as services layout, structure, method of construction, solar paths and shading, prevailing wind, patterns of circulation, relationships between aspects of the site and so on.
Much is made of the architect’s ‘back of a cigarette packet/napkin’ sketch that then becomes the basis for a building design. Indeed, this is reportedly how Renzo Piano came up with the design for The Shard, and Mike Davies from RSHP developed the initial idea for the Millennium Dome.
See also: Techniques for drawing buildings.
Preliminary sketches capture and communicate the essence of an idea, focusing on its driving features, and in the same way that an artist sketch is often more evocative than a finished painting, concept drawings can sometimes capture the sense of an idea more clearly than later drawings or even the completed building.
Concept drawings, using pencils or felt tip pens and paper can provide a more fluid, expressive and faster method for investigating a problem, than more hi-tech approaches such as computer aided design or building information modelling which can be restrictive in terms of the precision they require and the rules they impose on the way an image is constructed.
Writing exclusively for Designing Buildings Wiki, RSHP’s Mike Davies explains:
“Concept design requires that the architect grapples with the real issues of form and bulk, scale and mass and the generic appearance of a building within its surrounding urban context, resolving and encapsulating the principles of the scheme. Concept design implies an idea, or range of ideas, a development approach, a guiding concept and a design intent. It resolves the issue of ‘what’ and ‘how much’ and begins to set the stage for understanding ‘how’.
“Concept design can be simply a series of sketches, ideas and explorations, or it can go into considerable depth, including design illustrations, indicative plans, sections and elevations and 3D models of a development approach.”
The challenge of the subsequent design process is often one of protecting the original concept to ensure it is not diluted or even lost altogether under the pressures of technical, legislative, budgetary and time constraints.
Below are two example concept sketches from architect Corlandus Lang.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- As-built drawings and record drawings.
- Assembly drawing.
- Building information modelling.
- Component drawing.
- Computer aided design.
- Concept architectural design.
- Design drawings.
- Design information.
- Detail drawing.
- Elevations.
- Engineering drawing.
- General arrangement drawing.
- Installation drawings.
- North American Paper Sizes
- Notation and symbols.
- Paper sizes (ISO 216 A, B and C series)
- Production information.
- Scale drawing.
- Section drawing.
- Shop drawings.
- Site plan.
- Spatial diagram.
- Specification.
- Technical drawing.
- Techniques for drawing buildings.
- Types of drawings for building design.
- Working drawing.
Featured articles and news
From the UKs largest manufacturer and supplier of lime.
From mud bricks to smart concrete
A brief history from 7000BC to a future on the moon.
Regulator of Social Housing publishes latest fire safety report
Covering remediation of 11 metre plus social housing sector buildings.
Apartment and Duplex Defects Remediation Bill 2024
Approved for priority drafting by Government of Ireland.
The long list with in the frame of key historical events.
Competence frameworks for sustainability in the built environment
Code of practice, core criteria consultation draft for comment.
UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard Sept update
Pilot version for testing and feedback on its adoption due.
New Floods Resilience Taskforce
With a wet met office autumn prediction.
National Retrofit Hub takeover of Net Zero stage
At Birmingham UK Construction Week in October.
AT Awards 2024 finalists announced
With more to come, prior to the Awards ceremony in October.
London construction cools as hotspots appear nationally
Increases in the East of England, Yorkshire and Scotland.
ARB proposals for a new Architects Code
Announced in the shadow of the final Grenfell Inquiry report.
Combining human creativity and tech innovation now and in the future
Building automation and control systems market study
BSRIA 2024 North America BACS software & services.
Impact of digital technology on productivity in construction
New CIOB academy guidance for companies of all sizes.
Demolition and retrofit approaches in Planning Policy
MHCLG demolition and retrofit survey to inform future updates to national planning policy.
Expert taskforce to spearhead new, new town generation
Sir Michael Lyons given 12 months for recommendations.
Government policy statement on new towns
A coded vision for a new generation of new towns.