 |
| Morpholio Trace 2.0 gives architects a robust digital drawing platform, complete with canary yellow trace. |
That
depends, of course, on one’s definition of drawing. Does one, like
Michael Graves who eulogized the state of the medium last year in an op-ed for the New York Times,
define it as a kind of visual thinking, whereby thought is directly
(and according to some, mystically) fused to the movements of the hand?
For Graves and others, it's this intimate connection that is
remorelessly severed by the imposition of the computer. Many disagree.
Some see drawing is no longer integral to architectural design; or at
least, it's once primary role is now secondary to digital platforms.
Still, others think that drawing can be encompassed by the digital
processes that have and continue to redefine the architectural
profession.
All of which is to say, can an architect using a computer ever produce something akin to a napkin sketch? Morpholio Trace tackles this question head on. The Trace app,
which debuted in Fall 2012, aimed to preserve the aura of drawing while
helping the medium to make the digital leap it ostensibly needed. It
did this by cleverly tapping into architects’ complicated love/hate
relationship with drawing. Rather than present drawing as a rarified
exercise thrust on architects and students, Trace folds it into their
digital skillset. Users can draw directly on their tablets using
"sheets" of canary yellow trace, then save and export their drawings to
their work computer. Trace 2.0, which releases tomorrow, improves on its
predecessor while straining to deepen the core Trace experience.
Much
of the new Trace is geared to recreating the tangible effects of
drawing, the kinds of things that send Graves or Juhani Pallasmaa into
excited praise or quiet rumination. “There’s nothing more intuitive than
picking up a writing instrument or throwing on another sheet of trace
paper,” says Mark Collins, one-fourth of the Morpholio team.
The task with Trace, he explains, lay in translating that “intuitive”
operability to the world of the app. But how exactly does architectural
drawing, or more accurately, sketching benefit from this translation? For Collins, the digital environment’s
inherent connectivity to social media networks can only be
advantageous. Whereas a studio critique is a very isolated, exclusive
event, a single Trace sketch can generate all manner of critical
feedback and input from colleagues or fellow students. The trick,
Collins adds, is to “seamlessly integrate those possibilities without
burdening the designer with the abstraction that makes it all possible.”
The
latest iteration of the app delivers a slew of updates that streamline
the Trace platform. While the previous version allowed users to add up
to eight layers of trace, one on top of the other, they could not access
the layers that quickly became buried. Trace 2.0 allows users to manage
layers and edit them with ease. Additionally, the team have added new
tools such as zoom and pan, along with editing features like colors and
line types.
The
most conspicuous addition, however, are the twelve trace filters that,
much like Instagram, apply an effect directly on top of the sketch or
image. Several of the filters are takes on hand-drawn processes, like
crosshatch and poche, as well as drawing instruments, from ink and
marker presets to even grease pencil. These replicate the material
qualities and unintentional side effects generated by hand drawing that
critics say get lost in the medium’s digitalization. Meanwhile, effects
like ‘Tile,’ which renders an image in 8-bit square tiles, play up the
diagrammatic side of architectural sketching.
The
new features enrich the interface Trace 1.0 introduced. At the same
time, the improvements are part of a much more ambitious goal. As
Morpholio co-creator Jeff Kenoff says, the Morpholio team conceived of
Traces as a way to reclaim sketching for a new generation of architects.
Ironically, drawing must be reclaimed from the computer itself—or,
as Kenoff specifies, the desktop computer—which “hijacked [it] from the
design process for years as it removed your hand from the actual line
by forcing sketching with a mouse.”
Architects seem to be responding to Morpholio's message. Since its
founding, the project, which began as a portable portfolio-cum-social
media platform, has grown rapidly, and the Morpholio team expects its
user count to surpass 1 million in 2015. According to Kenoff, Trace has
been integral to that growth. Who says architect's don't draw?
0 comments :
Post a Comment