Being Less Perfect

By Timothy Shotts

There are many methods to render for your presentation.  You can hand sketch everything, add watercolors, colored pencils, or markers to sketches to catch the viewer’s eye, you can even use the latest computer graphics and Cloud services to produce high quality, photorealistic renders.  Bjarke Ingels uses a variety of these techniques in his presentations.  According to Adam Finkelstein, “an appropriate form of imagery depends on nature of the communication” (http://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/proj/sg05lines/course7-4-npr.pdf).  Finkelstein goes on to list appropriate uses of photo realistic renderings – documentation and simulation - and when non-photorealistic renderings are more appropriate – explanation, illustration, and storytelling (Finkelstein).  Non-photorealistic renderings allow the client to focus on the story we are telling about how people will use the space we create instead of being distracted by the kids playing soccer in the photorealistic rendering.

Now that “perfect” design is possible with the click of a mouse, the industrialized world has become nostalgic for “imperfect” design. As computer-aided everything takes over our lives we begin to realize, little by little, what is missing from the high-tech world. We realize that a crooked line sometimes has more soul than a perfectly straight one....

-- David Byrne

When Bad Art is Good

Utne, March-April 2003

Vanessa Lafoy, a recent graduate from the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College of London, recently had her work featured in the Design section of Wired.com.  She followed more of a Bjarke Ingels comic book approach with her final project.  Below is a selection of her work, summited for your pleasure.