Finally, a cutting-edge stylus for the iPad that feels so natural, you’d think you are drawing on a real sketchpad! Recently released, the Jot Touch 4 Stylus by Adonit is a professional tool that allows digital artists to create quality work away from the confines of a desk. To provide a more intuitive, seamless experience, the Jot Touch 4 takes full advantage of Bluetooth 4.0 and integrates palm rejection and pressure sensitivity with the Jot’s patented precision tip. How easy-to-use is the Jot Touch 4? Consider this: I (a blogger!) was able to sketch Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye on my iPad. (And it didn’t turn out too shabbily, either.) Click through to read more, and see my jot drawings of the Villa Savoye.

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Much—far too much—has been made on the future of 3D printing, with a lot of the commentary pointing to the technology’s mass-democratizing potential. (To say nothing of its “emancipatory” promise to fundamentally alter our lives and work—a notion that, I’m sure we all can agree, is a big joke.) For the time being at least, 3D printers are expensive objects that require a specialized education to use them. This education may become more widespread down the line, but right now, it’s highly concentrated in universities and “forward-thinking” private kindergartens and elementary schools that cost the same as universities. What if there were an alternative, less exclusive vehicle for delivering 3D printing to the public?

Enter the 3Doodler, the world’s first 3D printing pen. When in use, the pen spews hot strands of ABS plastic “ink” that immediately harden and stiffen and which can be arrayed to form upright micro-structures. Developed by WobbleWorks, purveyors of toy and robotic products, the 3Doodler makes it possible for you take your drawing off the page and into reality. And it couldn’t be easier to use—after all, what’s more intuitive than drawing? Continue.

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Architects are inveterate dreamers. They think up buildings all the time and, given the chance, are quite capable of producing master plans of entire cities, complete with fanciful designs for the towers and tenement houses, whirling roadways and flyovers that would populate them. But rarely do they do this in pen and ink, let alone with the virtuosity that artist  Mark Lascelles Thornton possesses. Thornton is currently underway on a massive drafting endeavor: a fully-realized skyscraper city that spans an 8 foot by 5 foot spread. “The Happiness Machine,” as he is calling the project, collects the world’s most iconic superstructures and lines them up along a monumental axis that forms the spine of the imaginary metropolis. Read more!

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Oblique Drawing: A History of Anti-Perspective by Massimo Scolari. Anyone Corporation and MIT Press.

Massimo Scolari, one of the most well-rounded leaders of Postmodernism, has long made studied contributions to the fields of architecture, painting, and design. Perhaps most famous for his surrealist paintings of abandoned landscapes and large edifices (pyramids, gates, etc.), Scolari has been a major feature on the more theoretical side of Pomo. His new book, Oblique Drawing: A History of Anti-Perspective, is no exception. Scolari revisits a formerly arcane site of architectural speculation: the relative benefits of drawing in axonometric or isometric projection rather than in perspective. Continue.

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image © Kickstarter

Not everyone knows architecture can be fun, and even fewer know that Ohio is home to a number of the country’s most famous buildings. Urban design guru and proud Cleveland native, Jeremy Smith is about to change all that with “The Cleveland Architecture Coloring Book”. Fun for all ages, this book is littered with line drawings of over 30 local buildings, including the Louis Penfield Residence by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum by I.M. Pei, and even the Museum of Contemporary Art by Farshid Moussavi. The book is currently collecting funds from Smith’s Kickstarter page, and it needs your help! Read more.

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Despite the extensive and thorough research dedicated to his life and works, it’s still difficult to separate Le Corbusier the man from the mythic artist, builder, and poet. Sure, the biographic anecdotes are well known—he awoke every morning at 6 AM to paint before ‘doing’ architecture in the afternoon; he had mommy issues, keeping up alarmingly frequent and personal correspondence with Madame Jeanneret; he may or may not have had a fleeting affair with Josephine Baker, on a steamliner no less—yet when thinking of Le Corbusier, we can’t help but summoning up images of the iconic round black glasses, the dapper impresario nervously bantering with Einstein, or even just the cartoonishly muscular silhouette of Modulor man. And all in black-and-white.

But these rare color portraits of Le Corbusier could change all that. The photographs date from 1953 and were shot by Willy Rizzo in Le Corbusier’s studio at 35 rue de Sèvres and his self-designed penthouse apartment. Only a few of them were published in 1954, but haven’t been exhibited since, until now. Continue.

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Morpholio Trace; All sketches courtesy of Morpholio

Despite what popular culture and gregarious (and suspiciously well-rested) television protagonists tell you, architects don’t do much drawing anymore. But they still trace, and for good reason. Trace, or tracing, is the fastest and most intuitive form of critique, which, unlike drafting or the charette (in its literal forms), has survived as a fundamental stage(s) of the design process. Still, as the 3D modelling field supersedes the drafting table and even the studio as the predominant venue for the design of buildings and objects alike, trace has become stigmatized as anachronistic, or worse, atavistic, a “detour” from the action unfolding in virtual space. After all, how to get your pristine Rhino model from the screen to the page and back again, in a timely and seamless manner?

Introducing Morpholio Trace, an innovative new app that allows architects and designers to literally “bring your model out of Rhino”. The app, which can be downloaded here, simulates the act of tracing by overlaying a trace-like canary-yellow filter over a sketch or rendering of your 3D model. Users can draw (or scrawl) directly on the screen to immediately generate both feedback and ideas. Add another layer (and another and another) to further the creative process. Continue.

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We all know drawing a straight line ain’t as easy as it looks. This new tape measure by South Korean designer Sunghoon Jung, may be the solution to all our delineating woes. The retractable ruler features a pin at the mouth of the holster that attaches it to a surface. Read more.

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empire state of pen from patrick vale on Vimeo.

The drawing timelapse (drawn timelapse?) is something to be awed and held in suspicion for its casual, near callous display of the talent and extensive effort behind the documented (i.e. finished) work. The great effort involved–we’re talking hours, days, and even weeks here–is condensed beyond all decency, streamlined to create the pretty effect of the continuous line. In nearly all cases, such as in “Empire State of Pen” by Patrick Vale, the artist/draftsmen is reduced to his or her wrist, the moving, “thinking” hand that seemingly roves in aleatoric fashion, haphazardly planning its next move. That isn’t to say that they’re not impressive–Vale’s “Empire” is an act of bravura, and as such, it’s exceedingly enjoyable to watch him map out the geography that unfolds south of the Empire State Building. He starts with the Flatiron district (just slightly south of the Architizer HQ!) before literally sweeping through Gramercy, the Villages, Soho, and Chinatown, thought the latter barely registers, overwhelmed as it is by new construction in Lower Manhattan–most notably 1 World Trade Center which anchors the top half of the drawing to the preceding cityscape. In keeping with Vale’s other work, the line work is willfully scraggly, imperfect without being whimsical or cute. See more of Vale’s work at his website.

‘Untitled (Project 8)’ by Patrick Vale

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Tokyo is an energetic city, filled with frenetic motion and bustle. These tend to be difficult to capture, unless your canvas is an entire room, as it is for teamLab’s mural at the new Tokyo Skytree. Filling the walls of a room at the size of 130 feet wide by 10 feet tall, the mural took sixteen people—eleven artists and five animators—more than a year and a half to complete. What’s more, the mural depicts almost the entirety of Tokyo, focusing on its central districts around the Sumida River.

The painting is stunning, not only because of its size, but also due to the amount of detail the artists were able to fit into it; hidden around the massive tableau are Kabuki actors, sushi rolls, and emoticons, among other random Japanese artifacts. Not only is the city filled with realistic billboard adds, but also with people, all of whom look unique. Continue.

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