WWW.Drawing: Architectural Drawing From Pencil to Pixel

What is the role of hand drawing play for architecture in a digital age, as drawing moves off the page and onto the screen? How might computer-generated drawings emulate the ambiguities and nuances of the hand?

WWW Drawing: Architectural Drawing from Pencil to Pixel documents the eponymous project conducted by Pennsylvania State University's Department of Architecture, which explored these questions through a giant-scale hand-drawing workshop and a symposium held at the Drawing Center, New York.

WWW refers in this context both to the World Wide Web, and to the "Three Ws"--architects Michael Webb, Mark West and James Wines, each renowned for their skills in hand drawing, who discuss their individual approaches and techniques.

Complementing the Ws' perspectives, artists and architects of a younger generation -- Daniel Cardoso Llach, Andrew Heumann, Jürg Lehni, Jane Nisselson, Seher Shah and Ann Tarantino--address various aspects of contemporary architectural drawing, both analog and digital: the legacies of contrasting ideologies of early computer-aided design; technology as expressive vocabulary; and drawing as live performance, whether executed by hand or by robotic drawing machine.

Together, the research and creative explorations presented in WWW Drawing cast architectural drawing in a fresh light.

Published by Actar Publishers, Pennsylvania State University and Stuckeman School of Architecture

Janet Abrams is an independent artist, writer, and editor, whose most recent book, Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bauhaus: Profiles in Architecture and Design--Selected Writings of Janet Abrams, is published by Princeton Architectural Press (2020).

Mehrdad Hadighi is Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design.