1. PART 1
   1. 1990s: my technical drafting experience
   2. 2004: Round Tablers say, “GET RID OF DRAWINGS”
   3. Abandoning drawing undermines the modeling endeavor
   4. What IS drawing? 
   5. Asking better questions in general
2. PART 2

PART 1

1990s: my technical drafting experience

I started in 1994 doing technical drafting at an architecture office while I was an architecture student.

By 1998 I’d found work at a small firm that was, I didn’t know this at the time, way ahead of its time. Led by the firm owner, an architect, we were doing what I would call even today, extreme total modeling of whole projects. Or as near as you practically can get to total modeling if you work all the time relentlessly on that task. 

We were automating entire sets of construction drawings, every line on every drawing on every sheet automated from modeled elements. Stylization and labeling too. Keynotes and dimensions, only, added manually.

We joked about it, that before the year 2K we would award ourselves a medal for this. Funny because certainly no one else would care. Nor should they.

————-

2004: Round Tablers say, “GET RID OF DRAWINGS”

A few years later, in 2003 or 2004, 20 years ago now, I first heard this idea of GETTING RID OF DRAWINGS. I was working at a large firm then. A colleague came back from The Large Firm Roundtable and mentioned this as among the things they talked about, at the roundtable.

Oh. Really?

I thought, Oh no. Now I have to reevaluate what I think, …about roundtables…

Here are roundtablers saying nonsense.

I thought so BECAUSE I was extremely dedicated to digital MODELING. I’d been building models a long time that were extremely thoroughly “complete” and accurate. I knew what it takes to do that. 

So I knew that getting rid of drawings is fundamentally counter to high quality digital modeling. And I knew why.

Abandoning drawing undermines the modeling endeavor

Modeling is serious. It’s done by serious people able to maintain attention for very long periods of time. So that’s the first thing: modeling is no joke. The second thing is that modeling doesn’t happen by magic. It happens through sustained effort and sustained attention.

For that you need specialized equipment for LOOKING AT models as you model them. 

All along the way as you build models, which takes months, you USE equipment for LOOKING at them, to evaluate your model, to QA/QC it as you build it. 

That equipment, that LENS FOR LOOKING, is technical drawing.

“Getting rid of drawings” is the single greatest idea working AGAINST the fruition of digital modeling this industry has seen in the last 3 decades.

I’ll talk more about why. First though, I can’t resist saying something about discourse hygiene.

If you’re gonna talk about getting rid of something at an industry level, particularly something that’s been central to an industry, globally, for centuries, minimum hygiene in discourse dictates you must think about, and SAY clearly what you think that thing IS, before you advocate abandoning and getting rid of that thing. Say what it IS before you throw it away.

———————

What IS drawing? 

When we make a drawing, and use it, and by “use it” I mean “LOOK AT it”, and the things that follow from looking at it, so in general, when we make and use a drawing…

We are conducting the act, and expressing the act, of visual close study (V.C.S.) of models.

Doing this act and expressing it requires specialized equipment. That equipment is known as technical drawing. Technical drawing functions in 5 ways. These are 5 critically important functions that empower model creation and interpretation.

DRAWINGS:

1. Facilitate VISUAL CLOSE STUDY (V.C.S.), equip the expression of attentive focus within the environment of a project’s mental, physical, and digital models.
2. Enable PHYSICAL EVALUATION of the model at V.C.S. locations. This is PRIMARILY a check against omission of physical items, and development of good fit among the physical items present.
3. Designate AFFIRMATION of (2) Physical Evaluation. Drawings MAKE CLEAR WHAT IS AFFIRMED, where, by who, when.
4. Engage THE ENGINE OF THOUGHT, Drawings set up and engage an interplay between two poles: between wide and narrow perception, between an expansive complex environment (model) and our focused visual attention (drawing) within it. In the interplay, thought happens and understanding grows. With either of the two poles diminished, the engine shuts down or evaporates along with thinking itself and understanding, which fails to develop.
5. DRAW ATTENTION TO THINGS NOT TO BE MISSED in the model (a minimum courtesy).

These are the functions of technical drawing. 5 functions all at once. There are more but this is a good start.

Asking better questions in general

How can anyone develop and use AEC models without these 5 functions? Without some kind of LENS FOR LOOKING AT MODELS in a sustained and articulate manner that supports clear thought in model development and interpretation and model QA/QC?

Can we have a roundtable of being serious again?

Rather than drawings going away, useful ideas about drawings include:

• (1) Ask ‘what are they?’
  • Drawings are equipment enabling and expressing visual close study (V.C.S.) of models. 
  • They empower physical evaluation of models, 
  • and clear affirmation of model QA/QC. 
  • Fundamentally, drawings set in place the 2-pole engine of thought itself. Thought, which can be said to be a wide/narrow, environment/focus INTERPLAY. 
  • Lastly, drawings supply the minimum courtesy of drawing attention to things not to be missed in the model.
• (2) Ask ‘what would technical drawing look and feel like if it were invented in the midst of today’s digital modeling versus its invention centuries ago when models were mental and physical only?’
  • What should today’s LENS FOR LOOKING AT MODELS look and feel like?
  • Why should V.C.S. (Drawing) remain ONLY externalized from digital models and confined to an expression unchanged from the form of expression VCS took in all the centuries preceding digital computing? Don’t we have more imagination than that?

Can we not envision a new form of expression supporting critically important V.C.S. functions, expressed and engage-able within the digital models themselves?

Could it be possible that such equipment in models would help optimize our efforts to create and adequately interpret very high quality AEC models?

PART 2

A new form of expression supporting critically important V.C.S. functions, expressed and engage-able within the digital models is specified in the V3.0 proposal here: 

Drawings in Models V3.0 (2024)

My relevant prior work is here in V2.0:

Drawings in Models V2.0 (2012)

I have a bio blurb about myself here:

About Rob Snyder