I received the final PDFs for this issue of arcCA, for corrections, while sitting in my car on a side street outside the Le Sage Riviera RV Park in Grover Beach, California. Someone in a café in Pismo Beach had told me there was a public wireless hotspot there.
Surely there is something of architectural significance in the idea—well, no, not the idea, the fact—of someone in a car, downloading onto a laptop computer, through a wireless network based at an RV park, an issue of a magazine featuring award-winning buildings.
And just across the road—the Pacific Coast Highway—is the Grover Beach Amtrak station. It’s something one might draw, if one thought about it awhile. Not the train station (though of course one could); the . . . what? “Matrix” isn’t right (no mid-air suspensions). “Infrastructure” isn’t social enough. “Space”?
It would be a good assignment for the John Lautner described by Jon Yoder in this issue—someone interested in the relationships and not too concerned about making a pretty drawing. Someone who would give equal weight to the seen and the not seen.
As you will see, the regular editorial section of this issue is about drawing and, more specifically, about attitudes toward drawing and the use of drawing. We have excluded the most obviously utilitarian sorts of drawings—construction documents—not because we think them dull, but because we intend to devote the first issue of 2006 to them.
Less intentionally, we’re delaying until the fourth quarter of this year an article about the architectural illustrations of Carlos Diniz. The editor dawdled in selecting the illustrations to print, and then we ran into a further delay in securing high-resolution scans. But they (along with Peter Dodge’s commentary) will be something wonderful to look forward to.
The drawing on the cover is by Rob Quigley, this year’s AIACC Maybeck Award winner. We’re pleased for the second time to be able to publish the annual AIACC and Savings By Design Awards in a special color section.
You’ll find, as well, a series of color plates accompanying the articles on drawing. And the more attentive among you may have noticed something different about the cover. Take these changes as hints that more systematic enhancements to the design of arcCA are afoot. We are working with our designers on a number of ideas, to be implemented formally beginning in 2006. As always, but especially now, your suggestions are welcome. If you will be at the Monterey Design Conference, you can look for me at mealtimes in the dining hall at a table with the arcCA logo, to share your thoughts. And stay tuned.
Originally published 3rd quarter 2005 in arcCA 05.3, “Drawn Out.”
