174 - Sketching Process: Bridging Analog and Digital

Sketching, Process, and AI: Bridging Analog and Digital in Architectural Design

In this episode, Kurt and Jamie dive into the importance of process in architectural design, comparing traditional sketching with new digital tools like VR and AI. They discuss the value of capturing artistic expressions and explore how these methods can enhance the design process. Additionally, they reflect on recent personal experiences with sketching and digital modeling, emphasizing the evolving nature of architectural education and practice.

00:00 Introduction and Casual Banter
00:31 Life Updates and Health Check
02:13 Weather Talk and Regional Differences
06:46 Podcast Plans and New Features
11:23 Coffee Talk and Personal Preferences
12:57 Travel Stories and Gas Station Coffee
14:20 Architecture and Urban Design Musings
17:07 Exploring the World of Podcasts
18:02 Movie Tangents and Cultural References
21:17 Discussing Sketching and Process
22:18 Symposium Highlights and Sketch Exhibits
25:35 Sketching Techniques and Personal Style
34:09 AI and VR in Architectural Design
41:19 Collaborative Sketching and Future Directions
51:44 Concluding Thoughts and Next Steps

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey, Jamie, how's it going? Good, good morning. How are you? Good morning. It is

Jamie: 0:37

morning. It is morning.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:39

Yes. Thank you.

Jamie: 0:40

We we cold. Yeah, we just sort of shifted gears a little bit, folks and, and decided that you know, both of us had some, you know, different things kind of going on some illnesses and travel and work and students and Kurt rearrange his whole house. So, I mean, there's stuff going on and, you know, you know, the podcast sort of took a backseat for a moment, but, but we haven't neglected it. You know, we did drop three episodes that Kurt has expertly edited for us here in in due time. So we're all caught up. And this is, this is kind of great.'cause we also have some other fun features that we're sort of experimenting with on the podcast too, because we are

Kurt Neiswender: 1:29

the only architecture podcast that is live streamed on Twitch and YouTube. I think that's what Jamie wanted me to say.

Jamie: 1:37

Exactly. So but, but, but with that we are doing, we are experimenting with some other things that Kurt pointed out that even one of his students, you know, kind of picked up on some suggestions. And I think that, you know, we're, we're, we're sort of wordsmithing, we're workshopping what we might call these things. So for our friends and listeners out there, if you've got some ideas there's a lot of creatives that do listen to this, you know, thankfully and occasionally do send us some ideas or, anyhow,

Kurt Neiswender: 2:06

yeah. Well, yeah. So yeah. Short, shorter, shorter versions. Little, little sips of

Jamie: 2:14

podcasts. Ooh, there you go. You just, you wait, you wait. You always do this. You, you did this last time, you know, is like, there's, we're going for that, that coffee sketch podcast gold. It's, it's definitely in Kurt's Cup. And he waits for, you know, to tee up the episode to just start to drop those little nuggets. Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 2:35

yeah. I, you know, it's these big headphones, right? Mm-hmm. They, they, they absorb a lot more electromagnetic frequency.

Jamie: 2:43

Oh, so you, you trade it in the tin hat, so that's right. Yeah. Oh man. No more aluminum foil. No more aluminum foil over the dome, so, yeah. Yeah. It's it was distracting. There was a little glare. There was a little glare problem, A

Kurt Neiswender: 2:58

little shine, a little shiny. Yeah. Especially with my new office layout here, my workspace, it's still a work in progress. People. Yeah, I got the eye chart, you know, for you know, daily, daily checkups, you know, when you're working in, in in design software. A lot. Gotta gotta protect those eyes. So anyway, so I, you know, let me just say,'cause I, I in between rootless runs, I just talk about what I'm drinking in my Stan Lee Cup.

Jamie: 3:30

I might just do a comic book sketch just for you, because you did that, that name drop. Yeah. For Stan.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:35

The it, it is a Guatemalan. Medium roast. Do you guys have Aldi down in Texas?

Jamie: 3:41

We do, we do. In parts of Texas, there is the Aldi.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:44

Mm-hmm. It's not, it's not. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not trying to promote or unpro promote, you know, Aldi. But with one local, you know, nearby, you know, the, the, the Flint headquarters.

Jamie: 3:56

You're saying that the gas station coffee at Aldi is not too bad?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It, it's a, well, it's the Guatemalan, right? So you go with the country, stick to your country.

Jamie: 4:07

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a pride thing. It's a pride thing. We're all, we're all immigrants at the end of the day, so. Mm-hmm.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:13

Yeah. So that's what I got. What do you got? I.

Jamie: 4:15

Well I, I am, you know, currently drinking community coffee. This is the breakfast blend which is sort of a, a staple kind of go-to easy. When Jamie does not wanna grind the coffee, you know, that's a good one to just have an, you know, at the ready. But I've also been on the road quite a bit, so there's been a fair amount. You know, you were mentioning Aldi, a fair amount of, fair amount of Bucky's coffee has been consumed. You know, over the last few days I was explaining to Kurt why I had to postpone our, our last installment of, you know, recording session. Our live stream recording session for the podcast was that I was, you know, driving, you know, on your way to Bucky's, five and a half, no, five and a half hours to a, a project site, and then five and a half hours back because, you know, yes, Texas is big.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:10

Yeah, that's a, yeah, it's a long day. That's a tough, tough job, man.

Jamie: 5:16

Well, I mean, I, I, you know, that would've been, you know, a younger version of me would've totally done that trip that way. I would've gotten up at like stupid time and driven stupid hours and then been totally on adrenaline pumping, you know, you know, smart, all that stuff. Take lots of photos, you know, tour all the buildings, climb on all the ladders, and then hop back in the car and then get those Bucky's coffees like back in me and just keep going. This time I broke up the trip, so I did like. You know, part one and then part two and then, and then part one and then part two. So

Kurt Neiswender: 5:53

yeah, it, it adds up somehow. Alright.

Jamie: 5:55

Yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:57

Yeah. So you're just trying to say that Bucky's Coffee is, is elite. I don't know if I,

Jamie: 6:02

if it's

Kurt Neiswender: 6:03

coffee.

Jamie: 6:03

It's so consistent though. That's, I think there, that's, there's a level of, you know, when you, I mean their bathrooms are very clean, too, expectations. So that's, you know, the expectations of the certain things. However I've thought about this recently is, you know, sort of the, the, there, there that we talk about sometimes with architecture in this, you know, sort of the urban environments and sort of the. You know, you know, designing a downtown and sort of like the uniqueness of place versus sort of sprawl. Right. So why does sprawl kind of get a bad rap? Well, it's,'cause there's no, there, there, you know, it, it's, there's no kind of individuality of it. Like, if you dropped somebody, you know, into, into a sprawl community or something like that with a blindfold on, took the blindfold off and then asked them where they were, you know, they wouldn't necessarily know. Right. And so I think that they'd say,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:01

they would say Rancho Cucamonga.

Jamie: 7:03

Sure. Exactly. And that could be in Southern California or Idaho. You know, I mean, you know, that's, that's, that's where we are right now. But on this tangent that I'm on with Gas Station Coffee is that I think that places like Bucky's, you know, it's, it's sort of. You know, once you're inside that, you know, environment with the lights and the layout and the, you know, moving people, I mean, there's so many people in these places that just, it's crazy. And, and all the stuff that people like you wouldn't like, and they're constant, like, I don't know who the field of dreams, man, field of dreams. It, it really is. I mean, for people who want a beaver on every item that they own, I mean,'cause that's Bucky's for folks who haven't know what Bucky's is, right? Yeah.'cause we do have listeners in other countries, and they have, when we get to this part of the segment, not

Kurt Neiswender: 8:00

only clothing, but

Jamie: 8:02

food food's, beaver nuggets, nuggets. There's, there's beaver nuggets. Yeah. There's it's not made out of beavers. Okay. Let's just be clear. But you know, you know, the coffee's pretty good,

Kurt Neiswender: 8:15

so Wow. I, I don't know what it's like'cause we don't have them up in this part of the country, but I think there, there's one coming soon to a near, I think Ohio's getting one. Maybe Michigan, but, we'll, you know,

Jamie: 8:29

I mean, you know, there's a whole angle to this where it's like, do we really need to be building, you know, big old gas guzzling Buckys, but

Kurt Neiswender: 8:40

let's field the dreams.

Jamie: 8:41

Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:42

I, for what, what I'm trying to get at, for those that don't know the movie, if you build it, they will come build the dreams. So Yeah. I mean, yeah. You know, the size and anyway, this is not the the, the b, the Bucky's Comparison podcast. I mean, one of, one of you think there might be one out there. I mean,

Jamie: 9:01

well, I don't know. I mean, there probably is. There's a podcast for everything, right? I mean, hell, there's a podcast for, you know, two guys living in two different states talking about coffee and architecture. So sketching yeah, and sketching, but pretty good. But yeah, field, field, the dreams, you know, that's a, that's a low key. Like you know, excellent. James Earl Jones performance, by the way. I mean, just throwing that out there.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:25

Yeah, it's a, it's a, a classic. I. Even though it's not that, well, some might think it's old, but you know, it's okay. We're getting old buddy. I know, I know. I, yeah. Hesitating with my students to, to say when I was your age.

Jamie: 9:40

But you also can, you know, but you also can, you know, do the old, you know, old person trick and say, you know, yeah. You, you love the Matrix. Well, I saw it in the movie theater,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:51

you know,

Jamie: 9:51

so that's always sort said. They don't

Kurt Neiswender: 9:53

know what the Matrix is though. What's the problem? Well, did, I did go, you know what? Since we're in the show show, I did go on a streak on Monday. You're just gonna gonna make me cry now. On Monday, I got into this random tangent of movie knowledge. And so, let's see. We started with we were talking about water somehow. And somebody said, high quality H2O, and I said, water Boy, you guys are familiar with the movie Water Boy? And they're like, yeah. And I was like, well, what about Happy Gilmore? And they're like, yeah, yeah, we, we, we get it. We get it. And then, okay, so what about Caddy Shack? And a few people dropped off, but there's still some, some, some, some level of knowledge. And then I was like, what about national Lampoon's Christmas vacation? You know, still had a couple. And I was like, okay, what about airplane? And I got, I got like one or two, so I was trying to, trying to go loosely back in time. You know, along the comedy genre.

Jamie: 11:00

Well, it it before you. Yeah. And you could also do like their, like branches from that too, right? You could go like, you know, from airplane you could go naked Gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,'cause Leslie Nielsen, you know

Kurt Neiswender: 11:14

I was trying, yeah, an OJ Simpson.

Jamie: 11:16

Well, well that just goes to the white Bronco. So, I mean

Kurt Neiswender: 11:22

and then we're talking that is also way before these people's birth dates.

Jamie: 11:26

And then, and then if we do that, then we're talking about LA and you know, then we're talking about wildfires and, and then we might switch back up and go to Mulhall and Drive, you know, and then we're, then we're David Lynch and then Twin Peaks. So it all comes back to Twin Peaks.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:42

That was awesome. That was, that was, I'm gonna clip that. That's a perfect clip. Oh, that was fun. Well, anyway, I was, I was trying to make you feel better that, like, not, it's not all, all, all lost on, on this, this student these days. It just depends on what it is. I think, you know,

Jamie: 12:00

well, I, I will just in this sort of, you know, our cultural catch up you know, of our daily lives. I'll just say that I just bought tickets with two friends to go see Wu-Tang and run the Jewels. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 12:14

yeah, I, I, they're coming to Detroit in July. I think I'm gonna get those tickets too. You know, my, in my, in my favorite local watering hole here in Flint at the farmer's market, there's a little tap room and there's a guy, a, a a a neighbor ba, I mean, he's a friend. You know, who DJs on Tuesday nights. He plays a lot of, a lot of stuff, a lot of interest, you know, d diverse stuff. He used to be head of security for Run the Jewels. I thought, oh, that's cool, man. Small world. Crazy.

Jamie: 12:49

You should go with him.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:51

I'm gonna see if he's,

Jamie: 12:52

that would be get us some tickets. You should go with him to the show. I mean, that's,

Kurt Neiswender: 12:57

I

Jamie: 12:57

will, that's, that's the advice part of this COD podcast. So

Kurt Neiswender: 13:01

so yeah, that, that was a, a more diverse intro. We went all over the map. In a good way.

Jamie: 13:09

In a

Kurt Neiswender: 13:09

good way. Whenever you talk about Twin Peaks, it's a good thing. So, I think so, so do you wanna talk about some sketches, because we were, yeah, let's, let's do that. Let we wanted to talk a little bit about process today. Yeah, and it's kind of appropriate. We just finished a project in school. What's this classroom? Well, let me turn that off so we can get a little better view here. And maybe I'll switch it to this view. So you get yeah. Process. Trying to, we had a, a, a second year assignment and, and I encouraged all the students to always bring the process drawings to the presentation. Whether or not they are recognizable in the final project is not the point, but it's all part of the, the, the development of,

Jamie: 13:57

of the project. So, well, it, I mean, it's, it's all, you know, it, it's how you're recording information. Right At the end of the day, I think it's, it's about recording information and I was just gonna share like one, like quick prop, you know, is that just as you're talking about students? So I was I was at my alma mater you know, this, this past week and Oh, thank you. You get the full screen? Yeah, get the full screen. So yeah, I I was at my alma mater this past week and for a symposium that I, I support and, and, and try and assist with. And it was fantastic. We had some amazing speakers you know, and in including our friend Ilya who, you know, was talking about resilience and sort of resilient heritage and cultural heritage and, and his practice. He gave some great, you know, professional examples, you know, beyond just his teaching, but more in terms of, you know, I mean in his teaching he talks a lot about Sponge City in New York and sort of resilience on, on the east coast. But some of the work that he was, you know, sharing with us was in Moldova and then also in Hawaii and, you know, some really fascinating projects and sort of, you know, experiences. But, you know, as part of the symposium, and it's now in its 26th year is they did a, um, sketch exhibit of the founder of the research center at, at Texas a and m, the Center for Heritage Conservation. So the original director David Woodcock, you know, was one of my professors when, when, when I went through that program. And he's an incredible sketcher. And so what was nice was that he. Very recently, so in the last year has been working with another faculty there to document all of his sketches that he had been doing in a, in a, in a relatively recent period of time. He had done some travel with his wife and you know, had had this sort of, you know, really kind of robust collection of sketches from, you know, some of their, some of their travels. And I, you know, just his, you know, it becomes really evident when you see that many from one individual you know, be in a, in a larger exhibit is the stylistic impulse, but also sort of how one records information. And it's very personal. And especially when you're, you're doing it for yourself to record your, your experience. And, you know, whether it's, you know, because of travel or because of a project, you know, and something that you're working through. But seeing it in that context has sort of reminded me is that, you know, you're doing it in that moment. You're not thinking about that this is gonna be part of an exhibit, you know, years from now, you know, or, or a collected in a book or, or, or a reel or something like that. So, but when you see it in that kind of a context, you suddenly go, oh wow. You know, I, I do have a, you know, a penchant for drawing in a particular way or, or recording information a certain way or series of ways. So I just, I, I really, you know, kind of wanted to share that shout out.'cause I knew we were gonna be talking about process because I think there's some, you know, there's a quote in the, in the, in sort of the exhibit catalog was, they say sketching like meditation requires that you seek inner peace and focus on the present. Yet paradoxically sketching allows you to create images for future reference and delight.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:28

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's cool. The I just heard a quote the other day quote, unquote, but the, you know, as a designers, you know, we're the, the, the skillset that we have is sort of seeing into the future, right? We're designing conditions for future that don't exist yet. And and yeah, the, and then capturing the, a sketch, sort of like a snap. I mean, that was the quote or summary paraphrase. Yeah, the idea of like the capturing the present as a in, in a moment which is so what we have here, I guess before I. You know, what people are probably looking at is 2, 2, 2 processes. One, one from Jamie, one from me. The one from Jamie is probably more familiar to the podcast, but given 2025 and Kurt's word on agency resolution for the year I'm, I'm trying to, trying to show up to the, to the table with a little more content and, and, and, and perspective from, from my, from my, my side of things, I guess. Or at least some interests lately, right? With AI and, but, and VR and some of these digital tools. But yeah, so the, the top series is is, is sort of two two pages in the sketchbook. One, which I, as you post it on Instagram, right, the sort of sick, the. Time-based development. Right. You know, so what happens in, in a couple of minutes and then as the sketch develops to the, the completed sketch using your, the various blocking out with, is it charcoal that you used?

Jamie: 19:07

Yeah. And initial. So that initial image on the left is one minute, it's a one minute with a charcoal. Just blocking, blocking the form figure field. You know, trying to get the energy of the body or bodies in this case sort of as a composition. You know, working off of, you know, familiar territory for me, kind of, you know, Rodan sculpture the kiss which has a really, really interesting and sort of dark narrative around it, by the way. I don't know if people know that. But it's, it's, you know, probably one of the most recognizable sculptures associated with a particular artist that. Others might not necessarily know a lot of his other works. But it's, it's just, you know, it, it's related to a series that he was trying to do on Dante's Inferno and sort of the levels of hell. And so this is you know, kind of two lovers who are you know, kind of at one of those levels of hell which is something folks don't necessarily associate with this sort of standalone sculpture because I. Once it was actually rendered and people saw it in the, in the public sphere you know, patrons were like, oh my God, yeah, I really love this piece. And it really resonated with people sort of at a whole nother level beyond where his original design impulse, you know, and and jumping off point was. But yeah, I, the, the second images is nine minutes, nine minutes later, so one minute plus nine, 10 minutes total for, for this for this sketch. And at that point, picking up the pen, picking up a, a pencil to layer in additional detail and really kind of literally flesh out the forms. You know, figuring out what those light sources actually are. Just getting those highlights. You know, based on the original kind of formatting from the, from the, from the charcoal.

Kurt Neiswender: 21:03

Yeah, that's, that's cool. And then the point you brought up about the like the narrative of rodin's, the, the conceptual narrative, you know, origin of the, of the sculpture has, has sort of a different, different, different angle than what how, how the, the patron is receiving it. Right. Visually. And the same thing would happen with a architecture project, right. You know, what's going on in your head and how you're manifesting it in drawings and model and things like that. The person reading it, you know, the, the, the juror, you know, the professor or the guest or, or even a client or you know, someone like, will apply a different meaning or, or reading of their own to the, to the design, which I think is the. The, the, the better or enhanced sort of bigger picture, right? It's not just about you and a singular idea, but a collective of, of how that, you know, comes to be as a either piece of art or, you know, a building, you know, you, you don't necessarily own it all, all alone, right?

Jamie: 22:10

Well, and, and it's just sort of like, where do these ideas come from? And, and then, and as these ideas develop you know, we need to recog, we need to recognize your own process. Like oftentimes when I resort to this timed exercise with really particular, before I start to sketch really particular elements that I'm gonna use, or a subject matter I'm familiar with, it's because I'm trying to kind of restart a creative process if you get in a rut. And so this is one of the exercises that I use to sort of get myself, you know. Reset. This is, this is the control, alt, delete, you know, this is the, you know, this is the reboot for me. Yeah. Yeah. And so what you see here in the third image is by doing that, that one minute nine, nine minute, so 10 minute total kind of image on the right, then I'm able to just switch to a, a, a pencil and staying with the same subject, just do a really fine 10 minute sketch. Where I know the subject, I can detail it. It's a zoomed up image of, you know, the two individuals captured in an embrace and it, but it's all rendered with one pencil. You know, no other, you know, no ink, no, none of that. And it's, it's, it treats the first one like a warmup. And then allows for this sort of re, you know, final rendered image as a companion. And it's, and I think that those compositional strategies to kind of create sort of the energy of the original sketch where you're working through an idea and then create more of a finalized image, you know, that that's really almost presentable. Both, I think it's what's successful and you tell me is I, is both of them living on the page next to one another, I think almost enhances, you know, each image. Mm-hmm. And as opposed to, you know, you certainly could show one and show the other, and both are nice, but I think both of them together the vignettes, you know, sitting in that kind of position, I think really enhances the overall composition.

Kurt Neiswender: 24:23

Yeah, I, I totally agree. And also the, there's one thing I'm trying to impress upon. I'm gonna talk a lot about my students or maybe to the students right now, but is, you know, in, in, as an example, the two sketches, the detail and the, the quick study are in the same, the same angle, right? It's the same perspective, same, same of this, the piece of art, but they are both performing with different technique, right? You know, on the right with more detail and line weight. You know, you're, you're emphasizing the, well o obviously the detail because it's a larger enlargement of the original. But then, you know, really sort of carving or sculpting the, the forms with, with precision, but using line weight to help. Generate the depth. And on the left, the looseness of it is, is speaking to the overall form, right? The massing use the architecture side of things, and it's like the massing and then you move to a detail, which gets into the more intricate execution of the massing. And yeah, and I think, like you said, they, the co they compliment each other side by side rather than individually if they were set alone. Like if even the difference between like looking at this sequence right when, you know, since it's in your sketchbook. So page on the left, sketch page on the right blank. And then we get to the end here and now we have the two pages side by side filled, you know, with, with an image. So. Yeah, so with with and with the hand work, you know, which is gonna be different than the stuff that I did in ai, right? There's more, more emphasis on line weight and the, the boundary conditions and, and you know, those traditional graphic methodologies, right? You know, the, the use of line weight shade, shadow hatching, you know, the various sketching techniques. And, and so, which is why we do, like, let's say, I was trying to explain why we still have plans, elevations, sections, two dimensional cuts of, you know, they spend, you know, a hundred percent of their time in Rhino or any modeling software. So they're constantly looking at things three dimensionally, which is good'cause they're thinking three dimensionally, but using the traditional two dimensional. Images are there to, to express particular information about the building and, and the art in your case, I'm using the example and and, and so that's why we, because there was a couple of examples yesterday where the students were sort of pushing, we, it was all digital for the most part in sort of slide based presentation. And they would just kind of push through faster on the 2D drawings.'cause to them I think they seem boring compared to three dimensional renderings and things like that.'cause it's less spatial. That's, so that's when I was going back and saying like, but if you exaggerate some of the line weight here, like, and create more depth, maybe even add shadow, put, you know, pick a sun, sun angle and then the shadow reveals even more depth and. Mystery about the spaces that you're creating.

Jamie: 27:50

Well, and, and I think you're, you're bringing up the excellent point is that the, the, the way that you're implementing the tools and the techniques on a particular image as a composition. So what's nice about the image on the right as well, we haven't talked about it yet, is the white space. So, you know, you're zooming up on the object and then you're, you're not even completing the image, the complete image is on the left, you know, and it's very rough and very fluid. So you kind of know what the, what the overall composition of, of the piece that you're looking at is, but then your eye and deli in the deliberateness of the information you're conveying and the information you're leaving out. And so I think what you're, you're talking about with the students in terms of the three dimensional versus the plan section, elevation, traditional drawings. Is, what information are you conveying in that one image and, and what are you leaving out or what have you left out that you should have had in that image? And, and because that information exchange is still really, really important and you can have some beauty to these drawings that, you know, really can resonate at a certain level. Because, you know, our, you know, we, we talked about this in a past episode where we had a a sketch that we, you know, we worked on together, you know, quickly through ai and, and then when we got sort of near the end of it, we kind of pushed it a little even further, and the scale of that object changed. Mm-hmm. For, for, for you, you know, for me it, maybe I was thinking about it a little bit differently, but it was like, you, you kind of made that comment, and I think it was it was really relevant to this as well, is that the way we're creating the compositions and the information we're conveying. Can, you can embed other design ideas, you know, in, in those images, you know, to have a broader conversation about things. You know, if, if you're only looking at things in 3D then the relationship of spaces, for instance, and the relationship of scale is, is only through one lens. You know, and, and it's the lens of the perspective and the camera angle that you pick. And you can change that camera angle and you can change that scale. But if you're looking, if you've designed the space in plan and section and you understand the relationship of those two drawings, now you know that, now you know how that space starts to feel. Mm-hmm. Because, because you, you're actually realizing that this room is big or this room is, you know, is compressed or this room becomes expansive. And if we're only reliant on a perspective or sort of a three dimensional environment, you know, that's, that's an image. You know, I'm not talking about VR and ar, kind of augmented reality changes this. Mm-hmm. That that's a, you know, because now we are inhabiting the drawing which I think that that's the potential that you know, we will probably talk about more on the podcast, but I don't think you can be as effective, Ooh, as effective with, with VR and ar. If you also don't know kind of how to work through the designs in a plan section elevation perspective. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 31:17

Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's, yeah, that's a good point. And the yeah, there's, so there was examples all day of moments when, you know that connection was made. So that's what's fun about second year is it's a very much a sort of a discovery year for architecture students, I think. Right. They're just starting to understand scale and, and proportion and, and all that stuff. We don't, we're, we are gonna, now, this final project, which, which we start, I, I'm gonna try and implement a little br collaboration and stuff. Spoiler, spoiler alert, me and one other faculty are are, are gonna try and implement some of that. But yeah, I flashed, I was kind of while you were talking, I was so, and you brought up the, the VR thing is the one step further what I did and that maybe I'll. Steal the screen for a second here is, you know, from that, that sort of collab, I can't, I gotta get out of the way here. Right? Can you say, from that collaborative sketching we did I was able to sort of translate it into a, a model or a three dimensional digital model, which I then clumsily threw into my 3D printer without too much processing, which is sort of an experiment, right? This is the beginning of an experiment. It's the study model, you know, and that's the thing. And God, you know, like some of the, the, the odd like deconstructed forms, like this sort of, I don't know if it's not, it's trying to pick up my face too much. Maybe you could see it better now.

Jamie: 32:52

Oh, yeah. I mean the, the, the wedge there on the, on that side that you're trying to kind of highlight is it's,

Kurt Neiswender: 32:59

you know, well, that was like the most frontal

Jamie: 33:01

Yeah. But it's got, has the most definition. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 33:03

But it's

Jamie: 33:04

got like a, a real kind of extruded thickness mm-hmm. You know, with crevice and shadow conditions that were suggested in the original sketch.

Kurt Neiswender: 33:14

Yeah. So I'm gonna, anyway, maybe that's a good segue to, to the, to the things that I, the other sketches. Because for, there's, I think there's similarity, but differences, I think between using the. The workflow, you know, your, your sketched workflow to then the digital workflow. But so the similarities being that like on in my, in my, I'm gonna do it real quick'cause you know, on the left is a what, you know, the Gravity Sketch VR 3D sketching tool, and I intentionally did a very, very loose, I mean, this thing is like a, a very loose sketch, right? But I used polar array basically. So, you know, I would only sketch one object or line, and then it would mirror it across a, a, a circular array, right? So I did, you know, fives and sevens and odd number arrays of different things. And I also used these really bright. Bold colors.'cause I wanted to see how that would inform the AI in picking up the color in the prompts. So anyway, the the, lately we, this is still, you know, just like the physical model that I printed. You know, we had this sort of brainstorm on along the lines of like, architecture is protest or something. So I still following similar prompts.

Jamie: 34:43

So it's an era we're living in. It's just a, you know, let's, let's acknowledge, acknowledge the present. So, yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 34:50

And so, so some of these, and then, so there's two, these two examples, there's a whole range of iterations I did. But these two, you know, represent sort of varying degrees of control that say the AI had versus the sketch had, like how much. Influence you give ai. So on the left was much lower, lower control on the sketch and more on AI to interpret. And then on the right, I dialed it back, maybe it's a 50 50 relationship. And so on the left, you know, it, it doesn't really re resemble much of the original sketch, maybe a couple. There's some color and well, there's you know, a little bit of color in there. And then on the right a different sort of render template I guess, you know, so they're, they're two different templates, which is why they look different. But a similar prompt and then different control over. You know, the original sketch. And so to me, the one on the right is more interesting because it's closer to a building that we'd be familiar with in a way, even though it's quite abstract, the one on the left is a little bit more like a video game or something out of like, you know, blade Runner or something, which I also don't mind, but,

Jamie: 36:13

well, but I, I think what's interesting, even between the two images that we are we're talking about is that the scale difference is, is also as much as the, there's stylistic difference that you, that you're describing, I think architecturally there's scale difference, you know, if we're using those scale figures between the two things, you know, though they're in riot gear you know, but that's, you know, understanding those words, words, words, mean things, folks. But yeah it's. I'm struck that I think that the one on the right you know, has more fidelity to the original image that you had as a sketch. So your original Gravity sketch in I think has more of a scaled relationship to the one that's on the right. Even though the Gravity sketch didn't necessarily, you know, insert a person or a scale figure, I think there's sort of an interpretable process that sort of goes from I'm working at this larger scale. This multi-story structure, you know, a person is this big, you know, there's, you know, multiple access points to this, this object. And then there are structural conditions that are interpreted, you know, from the gravity sketch into the image on the right. But even those still, still have a correlation to the original sketch, you know, sort of the figure field study. So if, if we're only thinking about figure field and sort of a Bauhaus modernism, it's, it's very, very, you know, it's linear alignments in sort of verticals and horizontals and line weight like we were talking about with, with the sketches that I had done. The same thing is true about gravity sketch, but we're, we're talking about, you know, polar arrays and circular arrays. So the, the lines and the form sort of take a, a curve, linear quality, but also start to shape space. When you transfer it over to this, I think that the, the two are actually working well together. You know, it's, the materiality is kind of interesting. That's probably part of the prompt that you, you know, kind of the templated prompt that you're using. But I think it works, you know, and I think there's, it's a, it's a, it's a nice evolution and exploration from your original image. And I, and I, I think that there's something to the scale con, you know, concept here that could be really, really explored. Because if you sort of iterate from here, you know, I think, and keep the scale as it is, I think you could really start to fine tune some of those elements and sort of add and subtract and, and, and really, you know, enhance or iterate, you know, this particular image. And, and overall concept. You know, and then like you say, then it's like. How do we start to cut a section through this thing? How do we cut a plan through this thing? You know, what do those spaces really look like? So that they're, they are habitable, they, you know, they are doing programmatically what we want those spaces to be doing. And or how do they need to be altered? I think this was always the argument with you know, sort of the bi bill ba effect and sort of the criticism of the bill BA effect is that you have a building that, you know, Frank Gary proposes, I think it was like 1997, you know? Mm-hmm. And yeah, you know, you know, titanium, you know, skin and these curvilinear forms really, you know, large scale building museum and exhibit space, and it, it works for that programmatic function. But that was sort of the criticism is, you know, does the. You know, does these, do these sculptural forms relate both scale wise, but also functionally? How does it feel in this space? And I think this process that you're illustrating here is, you know, those are the same considerations, you know, and not necessarily from a critique like, this is bad, but a critique of, okay, if that's, if that's the lens that I need to be looking at this process, you know, what have I learned? What do I need to do next?

Kurt Neiswender: 40:17

Yeah, I, I, I'm actually, the, the aspect that I'm most intrigued with is because of the tool in Gravity Stick Sketch that creates these symmetrical arrays, right? So I can, even though you can create quite a abstract line, right? It will repeat in a calculated pattern and which then this, that's why I liked this one, the rendered image on the right.'cause now it's sort of picking up on the, the sort of noodles as columns, but very loose sort of concrete columns as, so is there a way to then generate a technique in Gravity Sketch that that can be. Consistently read or interpreted as structure and then space like you're saying, right. Which then things will gain dimension and have a, a sort of representational kit of parts for a lack of better term. But it, it, it could be. And so the cool, so anyway, so that's, that's kind of the next step I think is, is, and these are these, so these renderings, right, are not necessarily intended, at least for me right now, to be like, oh, I'm done. Right? They're still a, there's still another version of a sketch that then sort of informs another. Round of, of drawing exploration to, to sort of fine tune and, and, and develop. And so within Gravity Sketch, you can access Viscom, which is the, the AI rendering tool that I'm using without leaving Gravity Sketch. So I can grab a, like a screenshot, dump it into BizCom and, and then run prompts, you know, without taking the headset off, which is pretty cool. I think, you know, kind of an interesting, anyway,

Jamie: 42:08

so that's, well, I, I think this, this goes back to our, our you know, our original thesis, you know, that we've, we've used you know, collectively, but I, you know, kind of. I introduced it, I guess maybe you, to my thinking on it. And then you've experienced it sort of with some of your, your work. And so it's resonated with both of us. But, you know, as we talk about process versus product, and you're describing, you know, just your, your you images here I think it also speaks to the form follows fiction, right? And, and that that fiction, that storytelling, that way that we engage with our work and engage not just with our work, but more specifically our process. And the, the self-critique of it and kind of working through that, I think is, is is really, really evident here. You know, in, in both, both sets, you know, the, the analog and digital. But it's, it's process, process, process. And I, I really, I, I appreciate this conversation for that. Oh.

Kurt Neiswender: 43:13

Thanks. The sec. Let me get back to our full screen faces. The the other thing that I don't think is, well, is not, haven't done yet is actually then still using hand, hand-drawn sketch blended with these things because there's still that level of fidelity or, you know, the hand eye coordination. Right. That, that is for me missing. Right. I think I want to try and fold in, so to be continued as, as usual.

Jamie: 43:45

Well, and, and maybe it's, you know, maybe it's, again, it's the passing, the drawing thing that we've talked about is maybe it's taking that I. That pause with your second image passing that to me and letting me sort of iterate with that so that then I'm able to pass it back to you and, and then, and work that process that way.'cause I think that that's, that's a, you know, these are, you know, as I said before, it's, you know, you get to these stopping points and you need to kind of figure out some artificial way to kind of leap the project or leap your process forward. Or find ways to reengage it. You know, like you're saying, you, you wanna find a way to get that hand piece that you feel is missing, you know, as you're kind of working through it. And so it's, it's almost creating artificial conditions and saying, okay, well at this point I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna do this other thing so that I can sort of, you know. Flip that switch and see what, and not knowing what the end result's gonna be, you know, or you know, both how it's gonna feel as a designer, but also what the res end result's gonna be. And so I'm game basically, I'm saying I'm game,

Kurt Neiswender: 45:03

so, yeah. Sounds good. Well, you know, I'll, I'll, we'll collect a, a little library of images in the, in a folder that we can swap back and forth. That technology already exists, so. Alright, well always thanks for another good one, Jamie. Yep. Cheers.