The following text is the introduction to Manual Thinking, a book by BIVAK Studio, written by the founding architects Áron Vass-Eysen and Tamás Máté. The model photographs shown here were published in the book.
Over the past two decades, the drawing board of an architect has transformed drastically. There are fewer drawing tools and more digital props. Hand drawings have a mystical nostalgia to them, but also a sense of timelessness. Although using a computer is a part of our daily work, we have found that it is inefficient for some tasks and could easily result in superficiality.
Drawing or modelling always comes up instinctively in our creative and strategic decisions. We consider them as tools that are always meant to capture an idea, the designer’s intent, and the essence.
For us, manuality is a creative method that has worked best in the initial stages of our architectural designs. It captures the first spark, the first idea, which can then be unpacked with digitization, processing, and engineering design for the elaborated result. Throughout the design process, we always return to this method to review and confirm the various stages. These models, sketches, drawings, and graphic elements are also used to present our finished designs is a concise, multi-interpretable manner.
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Thinking by hand allows the designer’s intuition to flourish, and we often find that “the hand is quicker than the head”. We have consciously collected, organized, and categorized our drawings and models into three categories in recent years: sketch, hybrid, and graphics, as well as sketchmodel, pocessmodel, and objectmodel. These thematic divisions are comparable to the tools in a carpentry workshop. You can try to use sandpaper on an unedged plank, but it is worth planing it beforehand. Alternating between these tools is like shifting gears while cycling. When you are on the move, you will naturally know when it is the right time to do it, since the gear you are using is no longer functioning well. These are the shifts of emphasis that are responsible for the dynamics of a design.