Life In Plastic
Computer-aided design (CAD) plasticizes our world — here’s how to save it.
There is a great irony in the fact that the designers of our lived spaces — architects, interior and industrial designers — spend so much of their time tied to a computer screen. These are the purveyors of material culture, spatial form, and a life well lived; but since the invention of computer-aided design (CAD), their studio life transformed from this:
to this:
Can you imagine how much more engaging design work was when you literally had to put your entire body into it?
It is easy to be overly nostalgic as an early career designer in 2024, never having experienced hand drafting in a professional setting. From my experience with the one and only hand drafting assignment I did in my architecture program, it is not without its frustrations and inconveniences. Imagine putting tens of hours into a drawing, only to ruin it with the last stroke of your pen. The precision, perfection, and sheer volume of hand drafted architectural drawings is nothing short of incredible.
The second image is the contemporary architectural office. There, mistakes are undone with a simple Ctrl-Z. Every aspect of the drafting process is expedited. The contemporary office can accomplish in a day what the pre-CAD office would accomplish in a month. The jump in efficiency is undeniable and practically irreversible, but along the way some piece of architecture’s soul was lost.
The effect of this loss is not only felt in the experience of working as a professional designer, but in the designed spaces and objects themselves. You just can’t pour from an empty cup.
I worked in an interior design studio that designed everything in house: furniture, lighting, cabinetry… everything. When I was interviewing for the job, this excited me the most. I’d always felt torn between design disciplines, so I felt I found a cheat code into having it all.
In practice, I was somewhat bludgeoned by the obvious: this is a lot of work. Imagine the time difference between buying a chair and designing one from scratch, then multiply that by everything in the room, then the building, then ten buildings at once. To make up for this time, the studio required tens of hours of unpaid overtime from each designer per week (the main reason I am not there anymore) and relied heavily on CAD.
There was no physical model making, no sourcing trips — the entire creative process happened within the confines of a 3D modelling software. The resulting spaces felt flat — like plastic worlds formed, pressed, and packaged from their digital prototypes.
Some in the design industry have embraced the impossible perfection that rendered worlds convey. During the pandemic, Charlotte Taylor offered a form of escapism through her highly polished fantasy vignettes. Visually delicious? Yes. Livable? Not so much. Taylor moved from design to fine art in her studies, consequently freeing herself from the limitations of architecture regulations, and often from the laws of physics and nature. As the absence of human life in her renders might suggest, these are not spaces intended for living in.
Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao is quite the opposite. For one, she is a practicing architect designing real, lived-in buildings. On her very first project, she produced a computer render for her client. When the project was complete, the client was surprised that the real space did not match the vision that the render put in his mind. After that, Bilbao banned renders from her practice — instead using drawings, physical models, and collage as more freeing forms of design communication.
Collage is a medium far more fitting for real-world design than computer renders. It is inherently collaborative; pulling material, environments, and ideas from different designers, disciplines, and timeframes. It is the skill of the designer to compose these diverse elements into cohesion. They are more of a director than a sculptor, contrary the common understanding of architects as sole artists. The complexities of a building demand collaboration not just with other designers, but with engineers, contractors, electricians, and more. Design is, in essence, a collage.
In architecture school we had regular zine nights. They were a relief from the somewhat manic energy of a late night in the studio. There’d be drinks, snacks, music, and a pile of old magazines to dig into. These nights unlocked creativity in me that hours poured over my active project could never. If you’re stuck on a creative project, you likely won’t find the answers inside of it. Changing mediums, changing environments, laughing with friends over old advertisements — this was the key to new ideas.
Though the pre-CAD office allures me, this isn’t a case for its resurrection. Instead, I propose a contemporary design studio that has balance between analog and digital methods, and truly diverse sources of inspiration. Get outside of constant efficiency mode and give yourself tools and a process that you genuinely love. Maybe it’s collage and collaboration, ceramics and archival research, or mold making and photography. These unique combinations are the key to originality. This studio is itself a collage — composing layers from different worlds into works of design that are anything but plastic.
I will leave you with some inspiring collage-studios:
