Concept drawing
Concept drawings or sketches are drawings, often freehand, that are used by designers such as architects, engineers and interior designers as a quick and simple way of exploring initial ideas for designs. They are not intended to be accurate or definitive, merely a way of investigating and communicating design principles and aesthetic concepts.
Concept drawings can also be used to explore more technical aspects of a design, providing an initial response and possible solutions to problems, constraints and opportunities such as services layout, structure, method of construction, solar paths and shading, prevailing wind, patterns of circulation, relationships between aspects of the site and so on.
Much is made of the architect’s ‘back of a cigarette packet/napkin’ sketch that then becomes the basis for a building design. Indeed, this is reportedly how Renzo Piano came up with the design for The Shard, and Mike Davies from RSHP developed the initial idea for the Millennium Dome.
See also: Techniques for drawing buildings.
Preliminary sketches capture and communicate the essence of an idea, focusing on its driving features, and in the same way that an artist sketch is often more evocative than a finished painting, concept drawings can sometimes capture the sense of an idea more clearly than later drawings or even the completed building.
Concept drawings, using pencils or felt tip pens and paper can provide a more fluid, expressive and faster method for investigating a problem, than more hi-tech approaches such as computer aided design or building information modelling which can be restrictive in terms of the precision they require and the rules they impose on the way an image is constructed.
Writing exclusively for Designing Buildings Wiki, RSHP’s Mike Davies explains:
“Concept design requires that the architect grapples with the real issues of form and bulk, scale and mass and the generic appearance of a building within its surrounding urban context, resolving and encapsulating the principles of the scheme. Concept design implies an idea, or range of ideas, a development approach, a guiding concept and a design intent. It resolves the issue of ‘what’ and ‘how much’ and begins to set the stage for understanding ‘how’.
“Concept design can be simply a series of sketches, ideas and explorations, or it can go into considerable depth, including design illustrations, indicative plans, sections and elevations and 3D models of a development approach.”
The challenge of the subsequent design process is often one of protecting the original concept to ensure it is not diluted or even lost altogether under the pressures of technical, legislative, budgetary and time constraints.
Below are two example concept sketches from architect Corlandus Lang.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki
- As-built drawings and record drawings.
- Assembly drawing.
- Building information modelling.
- Component drawing.
- Computer aided design.
- Concept architectural design.
- Design drawings.
- Design information.
- Detail drawing.
- Elevations.
- Engineering drawing.
- General arrangement drawing.
- Installation drawings.
- North American Paper Sizes
- Notation and symbols.
- Paper sizes (ISO 216 A, B and C series)
- Production information.
- Scale drawing.
- Section drawing.
- Shop drawings.
- Site plan.
- Spatial diagram.
- Specification.
- Technical drawing.
- Techniques for drawing buildings.
- Types of drawings for building design.
- Working drawing.
Featured articles and news
The context, schemes, standards, roles and relevance of the Building Safety Act.
Retrofit 25 – What's Stopping Us?
Exhibition Opens at The Building Centre.
Types of work to existing buildings
A simple circular economy wiki breakdown with further links.
A threat to the creativity that makes London special.
How can digital twins boost profitability within construction?
The smart construction dashboard, as-built data and site changes forming an accurate digital twin.
Unlocking surplus public defence land and more to speed up the delivery of housing.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill
An outline of the bill with a mix of reactions on potential impacts from IHBC, CIEEM, CIC, ACE and EIC.
Farnborough College Unveils its Half-house for Sustainable Construction Training.
Spring Statement 2025 with reactions from industry
Confirming previously announced funding, and welfare changes amid adjusted growth forecast.
Scottish Government responds to Grenfell report
As fund for unsafe cladding assessments is launched.
CLC and BSR process map for HRB approvals
One of the initial outputs of their weekly BSR meetings.
Architects Academy at an insulation manufacturing facility
Programme of technical engagement for aspiring designers.
Building Safety Levy technical consultation response
Details of the planned levy now due in 2026.
Great British Energy install solar on school and NHS sites
200 schools and 200 NHS sites to get solar systems, as first project of the newly formed government initiative.
600 million for 60,000 more skilled construction workers
Announced by Treasury ahead of the Spring Statement.
The restoration of the novelist’s birthplace in Eastwood.
Life Critical Fire Safety External Wall System LCFS EWS
Breaking down what is meant by this now often used term.
PAC report on the Remediation of Dangerous Cladding
Recommendations on workforce, transparency, support, insurance, funding, fraud and mismanagement.
New towns, expanded settlements and housing delivery
Modular inquiry asks if new towns and expanded settlements are an effective means of delivering housing.