PRESS
from Architectural Record
New Textbook Turns the Page on Drafting
April 28, 2008
By C. J. Hughes
Many high school students aspiring to be architects are heading into
this year’s summer vacation with a fundamentally new learning
experience under their belts, one that recognizes that the profession
is as much about landscaping and room circulation as drawing lines.
This holistic approach comes courtesy of the Architecture Handbook,
from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, a 462-page primer that
debuted last August and has quickly caught fire in schools across the
country. By April, 71 schools in 34 states, plus 10 community colleges,
were using it, says Lynn Osmond, foundation president, with the list
expected to grow in the fall.
For some, the textbook couldn’t have arrived sooner. Chicago-area
teachers had been stuck with the handbook’s predecessor, Architectural
Drafting, a 1951 work whose emphases can seem as outdated as that era’s
tail fins and Brylcreem. Lessons called for designing a single-story
ranch house, a style that can seem atavistically rooted in the early
suburbs. Also, that ranch needed to be accompanied by a garage, though
in today’s age of eco-mindedness, encouraging fossil-fuel-dependent
auto travel seems like an increasingly quaint notion.
In the Architecture Handbook, the case study is a skinny three-story
residence known as the F10 House, designed by EHDD Architecture, based
in San Francisco. Its name refers to the fact that it’s 10-times less
environmentally harmful than the typical American dwelling: sedum
plants sprout on the roof, for instance, and a second-floor carpet is
made of recycled soda bottles.
The text, the culmination of a three-year, $500,000 development
process, is also easier to read than its predecessor, teachers say, and
the 60 hands-on activities included on a companion CD-ROM are desirably
interactive. Most important, perhaps, it moves beyond drafting to teach
design through different disciplines. There are lessons about
vocabulary—explaining “contour line” and “clerestory
windows”—math, and reading, including passages from Sandra Cisneros and Jane Jacobs.
“Firms need people who can draft, but who also understand the bigger
picture of how a building comes together,” says Jennifer Masengarb, the
book’s co-author. Even if the students who will use it—mostly
sophomores—pursue careers other than architecture, “they could be
homeowners or future clients or city council members and so the more we
can impact them, the better.”
In Chicago, that soup-to-nuts approach also fulfills a city mandate
that vocational schools do a better job prepping their students for
generalized standardized tests. Practice with the Pythagorean theorem
can boost their math scores, teachers say, while an exercise about
adding sugar to concrete can illustrate chemistry principles about the
curing process.
On the national stage, the new publication’s timing is also fortuitous
because attracting more young people to the profession is a key goal of
Marshall E. Purnell, FAIA, the 2008 president of the American Institute
of Architects, especially those who hadn’t considered architecture
before. A book with many entry points can accomplish this, he believes.
“We need to broaden the appeal of the profession because it’s not just
about drawing a single building, it’s also about planning
neighborhoods,” Purnell says. “I want to expand people’s thinking about
what an architect is and what they can do professionally.”
Being well-rounded by senior year may also give students a better shot
at a top college, adds George Ranalli, dean of the architecture school
at the City University of New York, who studied drafting in high
school. As the general public grows more aware of how development
contributes to climate change, he explains, “schools are thinking more
broadly about the profession. We want students to be aware of the
forces on the planet.”
A head start may even help land a job down the road, says Krisann
Rehbein, the textbook’s other co-author, summing up the input she and
Masengarb received from architects while writing it. “We asked them the
million-dollar question: ‘Where would you place people in your firm
with drafting backgrounds?’ and nobody said anything,” she recalls.
“It’s been wonderful to see how architects pick up this book and say,
‘I wish I had this in high school.’”
Dave Bodmer, a design teacher at Bound Brook High School, in Somerset
County, New Jersey, turned to the Handbook last October, frustrated
that the 20 students in his introductory architecture class were
uninspired by other texts. “The new one is more real world,” he says.
Students also give it positive reviews. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to
be before I took the class,” says Ashley Sanabria, a junior at Lane
Tech College Prep High School, which is a magnet school in Chicago’s
Lakeview neighborhood. “When I got more of a feel, I really liked it.”
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