The architectural sketch in the digital era

Abstract

This article analyses the use of the sketch in contemporary architecture, which is characterized by a systematic recourse to computerized graphics media. On the basis of the intimate relationship between manual gestures and the creation of complex concepts, as defined by modern research in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neurology, it concludes that although the calculation capacity of the computer allows us to give free rein to our most complex fantasies, the distance which its mathematic algorithms impose between the mental processes of design and the graphic result of those processes is covered in a much more efficient way by graphic techniques as simple as the sketch and the design model; both techniques are based on human manual gestures and, thus, linked to our most profound cognitive mechanisms.

Key words: sketch, computer, manual gestures.