Hand Graphics and Digital Applications: A Mutual Design Process

[Brian Lin]

State Route 99 / Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Project in Seattle, Washington was a design charrette for the Washington State Department of Transportation. Because of the short duration and bursts of design efforts during charrettes, we did not have the usual luxury of time allotted for finished hand-drawn illustrative perspectives or flashy, photo-realistic digital images. The following images and descriptions are a step-by-step of this design process utilizing both hand-drawing and digital programs that yielded an efficient and exciting design product.

We began the design exploration with a concept area diagram delineating connections through land use districts to the waterfront. The base aerial was created by photoshop layers of color and then hand drawn diagramming on a color plot during the charrette. This was an effective tool to quickly communicate opportunities and constraints of certain planning moves that gave concise clarity for the client group during the charrette.

Rhino and Revit model to generate views for the design charrette. At this point, we did not know what kind of product we wanted when creating the models.

Series of sketches and ideas pinned-up on boards showing ideas on how to integrate the landscape design with the structural parameters set by the SR-99 tunnel entry. These overlays were developed quickly on trace overlays on bases generated from the Rhino/Revit models. These studies were created very quickly which allowed more time for dialogue and review with the design team and client group.

Sectional studies of landscape and vegetative zones.

Plan view from the Rhino/Revit model with quick conceptual overlays created on trace paper and scanned into the drawing.

View generated from the Rhino/Revit model to act as a base for more refined design concepts that were explored in the initial design charrette.

This pencil sketch was created from the Rhino/Revit overlay and served as the base linework for the finalized design concepts.

Base linework was scanned and then brought into Adobe Photoshop. Color palette of trees and groundcovers were created on separate layers in order to create different options of colors and textures, however, the colors were carefully chosen not to overpower the overall "feel" of the drawing.

With good layer management in Adobe Photoshop, the design team had the ability to generate different concept moves relatively quickly and on-the-fly.

Final Landscape Concept Plan in pencil, pen, and colored pencil.

Final Perspective which was inserted into the design booklet that was issued to the client after the charrette.

Design Team: NBBJ w/ Bill Johnson, Brian Lin