A Brief History of Lines
Ever since Richard Seymour’s inspiring article in Blueprint (May 2005) we have taken a great interest in the importance of drawing as a tool for design. It was therefore natural for us to get involved in the national Big Draw campaign.

Intended to get people sketching across the country, its focal point was a series of events in London over a weekend at the beginning of October.

Blueprint’s event, sponsored by Colebrook Bosson Saunders, took place at the Science Museum and used urbanism and architecture as its main theme.Fan blades became enormous wind-powered cities, electricity metres became bus shelters and Victorian counting machines became futuristic urban environments. It started with a talk by Archigram founder Peter Cook who, despite having produced ground-breaking drawings in the 1960s, confessed to being an average and impatient draughtsman.
Right By: Tom Ayers

Cook led the participants through a brief history of architectural drawing – from Heath Robinson through Cedric Price to Zaha Hadid. Having seen the almost limitless techniques architects have used to visualise their ideas, the mix of amateur and professional sketchers who attended were set free for 45 minutes to product their own work.Using the Science Museum and its collections as inspiration, they were invited to choose an object or exhibit to draw from observation.

Far Left By: Eleanor Davies
Left By: Lucinda Rogers

Then, part way through the sketch, they were asked to turn the object into a building or part of a cityscape. It was a deliberately open and abstract brief, which provoked an impressive range of responses. Fan blades became enormous wind-powered cities, electricity metres became bus shelters and Victorian counting machines became futuristic urban environments. This page includes the drawings produced during that frantic few hours of creative activity.

Left By: Gianluca Amadei

Left By: Rosalind Duguid
Below Left By: Ceri Kirosingh
Below Right By: Stephen Bramwell

Right By: Pietrich Yaf
Far Right By: Hina Joshi

Left By: Seiyo Ezure
Right By: Andres Da Rocha

Far Left By: Isabella Dyson
Left By: Gail Knight

Right By: Stephanie Chen
Far Right By: Vicky Richardson

Far Left By: Clara Gaggero
Left By: Martyn Colebrook

Left By: Ian Caldwel
Right By: Kofi Aidoa