There are some clients who are enchanted by drawings, but most of them like us to put pictures in front of them that create an illusion of being in the house. I don’t like glitzy and scented colouring book type pictures but the public isn’t always interested, nor do they always value, architectural drawings, so because of this we are forced to use computers.

You can’t think if you are working on a computer. Working on a computer involves such a directed series of choices that it becomes difficult to fill those drawings with soul. I often add hand drawn details to the print-outs of my computer-made designs. Once one of my colleagues sincerely apologised to the jury at a design competition for making ONLY computer drawings and for not having time to draw into them by hand.

It’s difficult to find the right proportion in a drawing: so that it’s filled with life, it expresses thoughts and at the same time is an accurate representation of a house. That’s why I think that drawings play a more important role now. In my view drawing is more important than it used to be. These days everybody is reaching for the mouse straight away. But people who can express themselves well in a drawing will enjoy a special privilege. After a while computer graphics all start to look alike. The software programmes determine the outlook of the renders, which of course can be enhanced to death. In contrast to this, a drawing is unique, and personal; it bears the individual characteristics of its maker. Moreover, it’s more transparent, while a computer isn’t.

We architects are bound by lines.