Here is a very sharp text from Hertzberger on referring architecture to an ‘instrument’

“When you have a dwelling, a living unit, it changes considerably within 15 years. It may start with a couple, then they have children, then the children leave – it’s a constant state of change. Another way to approach this is the difference between an apparatus and an instrument. An apparatus is a thing – a coffee machine or a shaver, a thing based on the one thing it’s made to do – to make good coffee or whatever. A shaver is completely designed for cutting hair. But an instrument – like a musical instrument – is a thing that incites you to put your own ideas into it. A musical instrument gives you the challenge to do what you think you should do. And I want to make my buildings more like instruments and less like apparatuses.” (1)

“ A (musical) instrument essentially contains as many possibilities of usage as uses to which it is put – an instrument must be played. Within the limits of the instrument, it is up to the player to draw what he can from it, within the limits of his own ability. Thus the instrument and the player reveal to each other their respective abilities to complement and fulfil one another. Form as instrument offers the scope for each person to do what he has most of heart, and above all to do it his own way “ (2)

Architecture can operate as an instrument for various agencies – social, political, cultural and at multiple scales – public and domestic. To give an example at the domestic scale, I want to mention about the balcony we appropriated recently at our home during lockdown. This part of the balcony (image below) was used as a storage space for many years since I moved to this house. The negotiation of space between different members of the family forced us to carve this space as a refuge during the lockdown. This space is connected to my bedroom, so it is sort of private. Even though we have a bigger balcony in the house, this little space (4’ x 4’) became an ‘instrument’ to take refuge from the house itself. Now we have also started growing few plants here. This is a good reminder to me, on how a small place can also add a lot of value. We spend a lot of time here now – having tea, reading books. There are 8 houses in our apartment which have exactly the same balcony detail, out of which may only 2-3 houses are actively using that space. And we are only one to add a few plants to it. This unused balcony “challenged us to do what you think you should do”. Any architecture needs active participation, like a musical instrument has to be ‘played’. And may be its design’s responsibility to embed the potential to ‘play’.

(1) Source : https://architectureandeducation.org/2017/08/29/interview-with-herman-hertzberger-2017-architecture-as-visual-and-social-connection/ . Accessed on Sep 14, 2020 
(2) Lessons for Students in Architecture, Herman Herzberger, 1991 Edition, Page 170

A brilliant note on writing by Peter Elbow in his book “Writing Without Teachers”. He could be as well as speaking about drawing here.

“Instead of a two-step transaction of meaning-into-language, think of writing as an organic, developmental process in which you start writing at the very beginning – before you know your meaning at all – and encourage your words gradually to change and evolve. Only at the end will you know what you want to say or the words you want to say it with. You should expect yourself to end up somewhere different from where you started. Meaning is not what you start out with but what you end up with. Control, coherence, and knowing your mind are not what you start out with but what you end up with. Think of writing then not as a way to transmit a message but as a way to grow and cook a message. Writing is a way to end up thinking something you couldn’t have started out thinking. Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive. You make available to yourself something better than what you’d be stuck with if you’d actually succeeded in making your meaning clear at the start. What looks inefficient – a rambling process with lots of writing and lots of throwing away – is really efficient since it’s the best way you can work up to what you really want to say and how to say it. The real inefficiency is to beat your head against the brick wall of trying to say what you mean or trying to say it well before you are ready.”

Thanks to this piece by Sara Hendren which led me to this quote and the book by Peter Elbow

The act of tracing is an elemental part of me being able to practice architecture. One needs to know only how to trace well, capacity to draw (non-tracing kind) will tag along. In the process of tracing, one is joining the act mid-way, hence there is no pressure to face a blank paper. Here is brilliant quote from Jessica Helfand from her brilliant article from Design Observer.

“Tracing, it turns out, is more than an involuntary narrative delivered by a relaxed mind: it’s a process and a practice, a verb as well as a noun, and a flexible, foundational material that functions, in the studio, as a kind of connective tissue. Tracing allows for a new idea to be layered upon another, or sketched over in such a way that new and old can be viewed together: the magic here is that drawing on a diaphanous surface provides the opportunity to both refine and deviate from visual thinking in real time. It’s a membrane that exposes the underbelly of an idea—a way to think in stages—and seeing those stages pulls you along in your thinking…Trace, on the other hand, is a revelatory material, a conceptual hinge shepherding you from what was, to what is, to what could be….In the act of tracing, the past is in view, the process is revealed, and the journey is powerfully exposed”

Below is tracing of Kamala House – Doshi’s own house. One of his brilliant projects but under-discussed. I have traced it a few times. The act of tracing not only allows me to look closely the order of the house, but also to recover fragments of memory of visiting the house. I was part of a group of students who visited. He personally showed us around the house. A rare privilege. In this process of tracing, both the memory and the order of the house are remembered. One starts noticing the subtleties of the plan – the extended landing of the staircase becoming an aedicule, the consistency of  the grid and also its deviations, the thickness and thinness of the wall, recalling the memory of the peacock playing and the sound of water in the garden, noises from the kitchen, the soft light from the clever skylight, the idiosyncratic dining table he loved showing us and how it folds and unfolds and how one can sit cross-legged and reach the table.  I always refer back to this house as a reminder that good design can be sharp superimposition of simple and precise ordering principles – cadence of the grid, minimal material palette, articulation in sections, distinct play of smaller and larger rooms – to name a few.

Tracing is taken to another conceptual level by Niall McLaughlin in this installation/experiment Losing Myself. A note from the website says : “The mind is in constant flux: it observes, remembers and projects in multiple and unpredictable ways; constantly shifting and distorting the reality it encounters. To explore this kind of experience, we employed hand-drawing where the act of drawing valued as much as the final outcome. We created an analogy between inhabiting the world and inhabiting the page. We found parallel associations between the mind wandering in rooms and the hand sketching on sheets of paper” .

This above image (link to the complete page) from the installation gives us an unfamiliar chance to look at the drawing from below, and to look at the maker through the drawing. As if an idea/thought is tracing the mind of the maker, inverting the creative association between them.