Bring Back the Draft

A recent article from Architect magazine has inspired me to lift a glass to the art of hand drafting. I believe it is widely assumed that very few architects and designers use this technique in their work anymore.

But that's simply not true. My firm, Muse Architects, uses both hand and computer drafting in their approach to design. All schematics start by hand. Much of the design development and later on the elevations are also produced on the traditional drawing board. Then if a project is deemed worthy of submission for awards, we produce presentation sets that are drawn and colored by hand.

Our firm's senior principal, Stephen Muse, prefers a woodless graphite pencil and trace for design development.

As office manager, it falls to me to order supplies for these drawings. I face a dwindling number of vendors that offer traditional supplies, especially the out-of-production plastic leads required to produce presentation drawings on mylar. (Pssst:  Got a source for E0, E1, E2, or E3 plastic leads? Contact me here!)

And don't get me started on lead pointers. What ever happened to these?

All I can find now are these things:

Ah, well, you get the point.

So to speak.