The digital age has had a major impact on the forms of expression used and the designs that result from them. The camera, computer and digital drawing programmes sit between the architect’s field of vision and his surroundings. What, then, is the role of the hand-drawn sketch?

The sketch lies at the heart of many art forms – just think of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s drawings or Francis Alÿs’s The Green Line. The architect’s hand drawing lines on a sheet of paper is akin to the dancer’s body searching for an unseen choreography. In that respect, sketching during the design process is a form of improvisation. For how can you draw what you do not yet know? How can you write what you cannot yet put into words? How can you move differently than before? When sketching, therefore, the question is not immediately whether you are making a good or bad drawing. What matters is what the lines on the page bring about and evoke.