Before a model, before a render, there is a pencil line on tracing paper. It is slow on purpose.
Software gives every option the same weight. A wall, a window, a tree are all equally sharp on screen, and the project grows by addition. On paper, an architect hesitates, erases, presses harder on the one line that carries the idea. That pressure is information.
Our name comes from the Japanese word for a technical drawing. It reminds us that a building is first a document shared between people: clients, engineers, builders and, one day, users who will never see it.
Three rules on the drawing board
One sheet, one idea.
Draw at a real scale, never to fit.
Light is drawn first, walls second.
A plan drawn by hand is a promise you can still change. A rendering already feels like a contract.
From sketch to site
Hand sketches stay pinned on the studio wall for the whole life of a project. When a decision gets hard, during a budget review or a site visit, we go back to them and ask whether the first line is still there.
At the Voiron Cultural Centre, the timber screen survived four budget revisions because it was the first thing drawn, and everyone in the room could see it.