THOUGHTS ON THE MANUAL/DIGITAL DIVIDE IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION
Yesterday I read a post on LinkedIn from an architecture student (or perhaps a recent graduate) who called out architecture schools for being hypocritical about sustainability. The example she used was the common requirement for printing out multiple large sheets of paper for project presentations, both during the project and at the end of it. Most of these sheets are submitted and then discarded after some time, and whether they get recycled or repurposed is questionable. The same was said about the materials used for model-making and workshop assignments: wood, paper, plaster, foam, clay, and sometimes concrete, brick, paint, plastic, etc.
She has a point. One of the clearest visual images of any architectural school is the view of large quantities of materials swept up at the end of each working day and piled into overflowing garbage bins. On the one hand, there’s a romantic association with these images – they imply productivity, creativity, activity, and represent experiential and practical learning. For a teacher like me, it’s actually a joy to walk into a studio and see such a mess every day. But it does have its cost in wastefulness.
The deeper point she was making was that with the rapid advance of digital tools, why do architecture schools still require physical sheets and models to be produced in such vast quantities, all while chirping about waste reduction and conservation of resources in the building industry. Many commenters agreed, and sharply pointed how backward some institutes can be with respect to digital presentation tools. They pointed out how the COVID pandemic proved that we could get along fine with digital-only tools. Online learning forced us all to admit that we can indeed present and review digital design work without a loss in learning.
But is that really true? And is a shift to digital tools and presentations actually more sustainable than physical drawings and models? I question the premise of this, and I’d like to address this supposed claim of hypocrisy on two fronts – physical and metaphysical.
THE PHYSICAL FOOTPRINT OF ARCHITECTURAL PRESENTATIONS
I’ve done no direct environmental studies of the impact of paper sheets and physical models used in architecture schools. Let me disclaim that right away. (But then again, neither did the student who made the claim in the first place). So, I won’t go deeply into carbon footprint calculations or estimates of greenhouse gas emissions. But many people have done the work and the consensus is that, while paper does generate a lot of waste in landfills, it also contributes only 1% towards total global greenhouse gas emissions. I’m not saying it’s so small that we should ignore the problem, but there are way bigger issues to deal with first – transport and vehicle fuel is the biggest culprit, along with electricity generation, construction, and a host of other sectors.
By comparison, the contribution of the ICT sector (digital communications, etc.) to greenhouse gases is 6%. Looking at life cycle costs of paper vs. digital rather than just the landfill component, the claim that digital presentations are more sustainable than paper sheets becomes more dubious. And while we now realise that recycling isn’t the solution we all hoped it would be, we do know that one of the easiest materials to recycle is the paper and cardboard we use for drawing, printing, and model-making.
For a roughly calculated example of this, let’s look a typical jury presentation day in an architectural college conducted in two different ways… an entirely digital presentation and an entirely physical presentation. Assuming 6-8 hours of presentations by 15-20 students, we can look at the following carbon footprint impacts (measured in carbon dioxide emissions, CO2e):
A digital presentation requires a large 42-60 inch LED screen or projector, and at least one laptop or desktop computer to run the presentations. Based on current calculations of energy usage and assuming coal-generated power, the electricity alone generates about 1kg of CO2 emissions (more for a projector because of the bulb) for the day. But if you also consider the cost of the internet, servers, cooling of rooms that contain the servers, and everything else in the background that makes the presentation possible on that day, that number can go as high as 25kg CO2e.
And what if the presentation was done entirely online via videoconferencing, like we’ve been doing during COVID? There’s no LED screen or projector needed anymore, but we have to multiply the number of devices by 20-plus and multiply the data transfer accordingly. The carbon footprint goes even higher. (Estimates of the carbon footprint range from 0.1 to 1kg per hour depending on how long the camera is on.) So we’re potentially at 30-40kg CO2e for a full day of online presentations.
That number can obviously be reduced a lot if we consume energy generated from non-fossil fuels like solar panels or wind, and in fact this is where our emphasis should be. If we’re teaching entirely on campuses in person, then campus buildings should be converted to solar power, like they are at the college where I currently teach. If we’re teaching remotely, then individual homes should go solar, like my wife and I did in our own home. Or the entire grid should be made renewable, if we do it at the infrastructural level.
By comparison, the amount of paper and cardboard that might be generated for one day’s jury presentation by 15-20 students can be roughly estimated at 2-5 kg (assuming students print out sheets as well as documents of their research and detail drawings). If big site models are made with lots of cardboard contours, then slightly more. Estimates for the carbon footprint of paper (including production and transport costs) give us a carbon footprint for this day’s presentations of about 5kg CO2e, about one-fifth the footprint a purely digital presentation on campus, and up to one-eighth of a strictly online jury. Plus, most of that paper and cardboard can be recycled and/or reused. One factor that would increase this footprint, however, is accounting for the energy consumption of plotters used to print such drawings (as well as the transport cost of going to the print shop to get them printed in the first place). But the overall footprint is still much less than digital.
Since many presentations (before and hopefully after COVID) will likely be a blend of physical and digital presentations, we may actually be having the worst of both worlds. A constantly running LED screen showing digital renders with simultaneous printed sheets of orthographic drawings pinned up on a board is a likely scenario. So it may not be an either/or question. It may have to be a compromise.
One of the things I’ve personally done to reduce the consumption of paper is to eliminate the need to print every single stage of the project journey. I usually require all my students to produce a Project Portfolio, a 100+ page document which contains all of their research, progress work, sketches, diagrams, references, and technical drawings. These usually don’t need to be displayed in an exhibition or jury situation; they’re primarily kept as a reference. These are usually heavy printouts, and if we restrict the printed material to large sheets alone (for better visibility of orthographic drawings) then the carbon footprint of that single day’s presentation can be reduced tenfold.
We can also ask students to make physical models out of recycled or recyclable materials like wood, paper, and cardboard rather than plastic, foam, or metal. And if non-fossil fuel power supply becomes more the norm, then even the digital footprint can be reduced simultaneously.
But the main reason why I still like to see orthographic drawings printed large scale and pinned up on a board is that architectural plans, sections, and elevations can be complex and layered drawings. I have yet to see a floor plan shown on a digital screen where I didn’t have to constantly zoom in to see the details. Seeing a plan or section on a sheet that I can see in its entirety as well as in detail is critical for giving feedback on things like layout, proximities, adjacencies, etc. And seeing plans together with sections, elevations, and 3D views is also critical so that I can orient myself in the space the student has designed.
Am I being nitpicky and old fashioned? Perhaps. But seeing an architectural presentation on a sequential series of disconnected digital slides is nowhere near as clear as seeing all the drawings and images together in one place, at a large scale. I’m constantly asking students to “go back to that slide, now go back to the other slide”. The overall image and impression of the project is fragmented and disconnected. It takes me far longer to understand and ‘grok’ the project this way, and I don’t think it solely has to do with my age or generation. A huge 1m x 2m panel where one can see all the project images at once allows anyone to see and appreciate the project holistically, which is (presumably) the way it was designed.
THE METAPHYSICAL NATURE OF DESIGN EDUCATION
By far, the larger debate of using manual vs. digital is ideological rather than practical. Very few people bring up the sustainability issue; people seemed more concerned with the philosophical viewpoint. And it’s a fierce debate, with many accusations and stereotypes thrown around in a chaotic fury. The debate often falls along generational lines, but not necessarily so. And I think it’s no longer strictly a binary argument between manual vs. digital. The reality of technology and the internet has forced the discipline to shift strongly towards the digital side so that the debate now occupies the spectrum between hybrid vs. all-digital, with most people arguing just how hybrid it should be.
I’m not going to rehash that debate here; there are plenty of articles for and against. What I’m only going to advocate is that purely digital is to be avoided, not just for the sustainability reasons I outlined above, but also on metaphysical grounds.
When I refer to metaphysics of design education, I’m speaking about the intangible ways in which we perceive the existence and quality of objects, spaces, and materials. In design education, we teach about the materiality of things, the physical presence and mass of things, the fullness or emptiness of things. For architects, this is supremely important because even though the output of our labour is a set of abstract drawn instructions for someone else to build, the final outcome is still a physical building that is affected by gravity, light, shadow, and other forces. These forces are weak or absent in all but the most advanced digital modelling tools.
I want to emphasize that despite my age and experience, I don’t consider myself a dinosaur or old-fashioned (even though some may consider me so). I welcome new technologies in architectural representation. I graduated from an architecture school that was at the forefront of these technologies, and I’ve used digital tools throughout my career. They have a much-needed value and importance in the work we do. But they’re not the entire picture. I consider myself a hybrid practitioner (as do many architects) and I tell my students that they need to master both manual and digital tools so that they can know when to use each in their own time and place.
One of the arguments in favour of all-digital representation I often see is when people point out that the vast majority of architecture offices no longer have drafting tables or modeling workshops. And it’s true that in most firms, the output is primarily and overwhelmingly digital. There are many architects of course that sketch and draw by hand, or make study models by hand, but the output that is paid for by the client in terms of deliverables is 99.99% digital.
My counter to this point is that even if professional architects are using primarily digital tools, most of them have used manual tools at some point in their education, and that’s precisely where it’s needed – during training – to develop the metaphysical understanding of architecture. Even if an architect abandons the hand drawings over time, their digital skills will still carry over that manual sensitivity. A good digital drawing will have the same life, weight, and character of a manual drawing. A good digital model will be created with the understanding of the weight and assembly of components, and the proper texture of materials. A student who has felt, weighed, handled, smelled, and heard the difference between a slab of granite and a slab of wood will know how to apply each judiciously in a digital model, rather than haphazardly. A student who knows how the components of a wall are assembled, and how the elements of the wall are represented by hand on paper through line weight, pattern, and shading will know how the wall would actually be built on site.
I’ve seen the work of students who rely too heavily on digital tools in their presentations. Materials are applied randomly or thoughtlessly. Components are assembled in no real sequence. Cantilevers are projected impossibly. Columns are too slender and unbraced. Furniture is out of scale and proportion. These are all failings that occur when the jump to digital tools is made too early. An experienced architect can draw wonderful digital drawings and make beautiful digital renders, but they will only become beautiful buildings if they’ve understood the physical – and metaphysical – nature of what they’re designing.
In the end, I do agree that architecture schools need to ‘walk the walk’ in terms of sustainability, so I’m glad that the LinkedIn user provoked a conversation about this issue. But I feel it has to go far beyond whether we’re printing and throwing away too many paper sheets. There are some compromises we can make to reduce wastefulness while still retaining the tangible and sensorial aspects of what we do. We should definitely embrace the advantages that digital tools give us, and we can also sometimes wax nostalgic about the way things used to be done. But we should do so without romantic attachments. As long as we’re still in the business of making physical buildings, there will be a need to be in touch with our physical understanding of architecture in its wholeness.
PALIMPSEST 