Drawing Resources

My love of technical drawing led me to choose architecture as my profession.

I’ve been fortunate to work with and learn from design professionals who share a similar love for the craft of delineation. They taught me the importance of line weight, hierarchy and composition and we shared the belief that our drawings should be as beautiful as they are functional.

In the vein of this year’s theme of Kaizen - continuous improvement - I wanted to share  a few of my favorite architectural drawing resources. Whether you’re a student or a pro, I think you’ll find them invaluable:

Detail in Contemporary Residential Architecture (book series)

Basically detail porn. I appreciate the high graphic standards + varied examples of complex details executed in contemporary buildings (homes, commercial, landscape, cultural, eductional) across a variety of materials: timber, concrete, glass, steel, masonry, etc.

A few of Sean Godsell’s Architectural Working Drawings

Houses by Sean Godsell

Features his construction (and presentation) drawings alongside photos of his - thoroughly modern - built work. The text is engaging and thoughtful and although the construction drawings in Houses by Sean Godsell might not always prioritize aesthetic perfection, they excel in demonstrating a profound technical understanding of detailing and jointing techniques. This functional emphasis makes them particularly valuable for anyone keen to deepen their grasp of how buildings are put together practically and durably.

Construction documents shown above can be viewed online here.

Templates

Sometimes the best way to learn is to actually download and forensically evaluate how other design professionals draw. I’ve made my templates available so you can get set up in less than one hour with a clean, clear graphic style (title blocks, text + dim styles, hatches, title blocks + lineweights). I’ve even made some of my architectural floor plan working drawings (and the lighting + electrical plans) from the Outpost project available for download.

I’ve also made a few instructional tutorials on drawing + my graphic style, here’s a recent one:

Life of An Architect Blog

Bob Borson an his epic blog resource is a fellow architectural graphics + drawing convention evangelist. We both graduated architecture school at a similar time as the profession was transitioning from analog to digital documentation. Our training focused on drawing by hand. This - in part - I think forced us to learn the craft of delineation and sheet composition in a different way. Laying a sheet out by hand for an ink on mylar set is an entirely painful process; one you only want to do once! Which forces you to be considered + efficient with everything you add to the drawing and how it’s depicting becomes very important.

His multi-part series on Architectural Drawing + Graphics is a must-read.

HABS (Historical American Buildings Survey)

I’m a modernist through-and-through, but this is a resource even I can’t ignore. Complementing HABS, is HAER (for engineering), and HALS (for landscape) and each is a collection of building surveys from the American architectural, engineering, building and landscape culture maintained by the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

This is a deep, diverse well of material to study + learn from.

Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)

Famous for its comprehensive collection of decorative arts and design. Its searchable archives (unlike many online museum sites) easily lead you to some wonderfully detailed and rich architectural drawings, sketches and even architectural models by some of the masters.

The Getty Research Portal

Access to an extensive collection of digitized art history texts, rare books, and related literature which can be a valuable resource for architectural research.

Detail Magazine

A German architectural journal (quite pricey, actually!) that focuses on the technical aspects of building design and construction. It features in-depth project analyses, detailed construction drawings, and innovative material applications. The link will take you to an issue list, clicking on an issue will allow you to preview approx. 20 pages of each issue.

Architectural Graphic Standards

This is the bible for design pros detailing building materials, construction techniques, and architectural elements through illustrations and technical drawings. I’m including it because - as a reference book - there’s nothing like it. But, for inspiration, I find it lacking. It’s like a dictionary, everyone needs one, but it’s not something you ever read cover to cover.

Vintage manuals

The image above is from the "Vintage Mechanics Vest Pocket Reference Book, Wolfe & Phelps, 1943." My grandfather, a machinist, left me this as part of a large collection of manuals. What's remarkable about these pocket guides is the necessity for clear, well-composed drawings due to their small size, 3”x6”. This constraint meant the information had to be concise, carefully considered, and often used keynotes for further details on subsequent pages. Notice the use of white space—it's important! Through minimal linework and strict graphic standards, these guides effectively delivered comprehensive information with exceptional clarity.

Online Plan Rooms

Google “your state” + “plan room”. You may or may not have to create an account depending on the jurisdiction but you’ll have access to all projects currently out to bid. These can be good for learning the depth of information we show on documents, but please note that some of the sets I’ve seen leave a lot to be desired in terms of graphic clarity. Larger cities will have higher throughput, like this one.

What's in a typical custom architectural plan set?

All architectural drawings are representations - abstractions - of what we intend to build. The two lines that make up the wall segments drawn on a floor plan aren’t enough to describe what the wall should be constructed with. So we rely on three main devices to convey that information: drawings, schedules and specifications. Together these documents organize and catalog all the decisions necessary to build our project in a very precise way. In this video, you’ll see everything I include in a typical set of custom documents from start to finish.

By any account, this is a lot of information to include. Consider this though: anything we don't delineate, anything that's not called out in the construction documents is a decision we’re choosing to defer to someone else to make, whether that's during pricing or in the field during construction. In general, I prefer to control and direct as many design decisions as possible, so I choose to draw and call out as much as I can in the studio where making changes is relatively inexpensive as compared with on-site where every move comes at great expense.

Creating "a tight set of documents" means we’ve taken the time to document the full range of decisions required to construct the project as designed. A tight set of documents will answer every question that arises along the way, from pricing through construction. Importantly, we don’t leave things to chance, we use our set to describe very specifically the design decisions we've made with our client prior to construction. The value of this is that it helps our clients feel confident that what’s been decided during the design process will be realized in the final home, it protects the architect as the author of the design against unwelcome surprises in the field, it helps the general contractor and the sub-trades to accurately price the project and ultimately to stay on budget and on-schedule as we're building because everyone knows what's expected.

More resources:

Lighting Design + Drawing Tutorial - My Process

We can build a home from a set of five drawings or a set of fifty, one provides a lot more control over the finished product. Whether your plan set is five or fifty, one of the must-have drawings is an electrical plan. Follow along in this video as I design + draw the architectural lighting plan for the Outpost project. An electrical plan is an essential drawing in every architect’s toolbox, it shows the fixture types, switching, receptacle locations, all the necessary electrical devices + equipment we need to plan for in our architecture. Designing it in coordination with the other essential building systems: architectural, structural, mechanical and plumbing affords us optimal control over the design.

Hidden elements in a project - beams, ductwork, vent stacks - can adversely impact the placement of the visible elements - light fixtures, for example - which is why we plan for them early in the design process. Drawing and overlaying each helps us to identify conflicts in the studio and on paper where it's much more efficient and cost-effective to make changes. See how the abstract concepts of ambient, task + accent lighting are accounted for and applied in the design of the Outpost, a remote, off-the-grid residential project here in Maine.

Resources:

Learning to Sketch

I spend most of my day in a digital work environment and I’ll often find myself tweaking the smallest of details just because I can. Digital space is without limitation, yet creativity thrives on constraints. It’s the boundaries that we’re forced to work within that shape our work. There’s no question digital tools are an integral part of how we realize our architecture today and in the 25 years I’ve been practicing, those tools have changed and improved the way I work significantly. Digital tools are for executing ideas. I turn to my favorite analog tools - pencil + paper - to birth those ideas.

Sketching is thinking. Sketching is seeing. Sketching is learning. With pencil in hand, I’m a child. I think that’s part of the magic of learning to sketch, it allows me to see problems with a child’s mind, the mind of an amateur.

I designed the BLANK sketchbook because I know how transformative establishing a sketching habit can be. Buying a pair helps to support my educational mission on YouTube.

With gratitude

/Eric @30X40

An Incredible Resource for Architectural Inspiration

With more than 581,000+ architectural drawings, photos, and documents to download and use as you please, I couldn't keep this incredible resource to myself any longer. The HABS (Historical American Buildings Survey) along with HAER (engineering), and HALS (landscape) are a collection of building surveys from the American architectural, engineering, building and landscape culture maintained by the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. In this video, you’ll peek in the collection and see how I use it in my architecture practice.

The program was born in the 1930's during the Great Depression as a means to put unemployed architects to work with a mission to preserve and document the architectural heritage of America. Since then, the archive has catalogued more than 43,000 individual structures and more are added each year.

I use it for: creative inspiration, precedent research, to improve my architectural drawing, graphics and delineation techniques, and to study details from some of America's most famous works of architecture.

If you enjoy these videos, you can support 30X40’s work on YouTube by investing in a course, a toolkit or a digital tool. Many thanks!

Day in the Life - An Architecture Vlog

Follow a typical day in the life of an architect. Part architecture vlog, part behind-the-scenes look at some of the tasks architects work on each day: from designing a set of elevations to managing projects in construction, to writing specifications, to managing an office, and how to deal with the inevitable creative blocks creatives face on a daily basis.

I intentionally structure my day to be divided between making in the morning and managing in the afternoons, with a mid-day transition break for exercise. Learn why this works for me and follow along as I work through some of the most common struggles an architect faces in daily professional practice.

For aspiring architects, architecture students, and those curious about exactly what it is that architects do each day.

No Longer (Just) An Architect

An excerpt from a conversation I had with Maleick, a 22-year old architecture student from Baltimore. He’s preparing to graduate architecture school this spring, making plans, weighing his options and struggling with the anxiety of not knowing what’s next.

Twenty-two years ago, I stood where Maleick stands today, entering the profession with the same concerns, the same worries. And today - twenty-two years later - I’m no longer an architect. Yes, I have the degree and the license and buildings I’ve designed, but the profession I stepped into back then no longer exists. There are no more architects in the singular sense of the word. Today I’m a photographer, a graphic designer, a marketer, a filmmaker, a writer, a negotiator, an editor, a curator, and a creator. Professional practice is anything and everything we design it to be.

Approaching practice with a creator's mindset has allowed me to explore a spectrum of influences and interests and incorporate those into my work as an architect. In much the same way, my architectural training informs and colors my other creative pursuits.

The uncertainty remains though as a part of life. What do you think? Did I get it right?  What advice would you offer a soon-to-be graduate?

Drawing Like an Architect

In this video I share my essential tips for better architectural drawings. It's easy to forget that architectural delineation is part of our craft and - I believe - beautiful drawings communicate more clearly. 
Important concepts discussed: