The Five Minute Concept
It took me 5 minutes to dream up and sketch this concept. I looked at the 3 site plans with their massing studies and it was clear to me that the buildings need common and simple architectural concept to tie them together, yet be interesting spatially without any structural gymnastic nonsense.
Then it took me all of another 10 minutes to properly illustrate what the finished rendering could look like…
It took the CAD designer 3 days to create a reasonable rendering, and it does not look anything like my hand-drawn sketch…Long live Free-Hand Sketching…
Sketchingjourney's Blog 
Reblogged this on Archi Blog.
You’re correct – your sketches seem fresh, spontaneous, and alive. you mention it took a CAD designer 3 days to develop a visualization. Can I ask what the motivation was for that, given your existing sketches ?
Freehand sketching in architecture is developed after years of experience. It is not simply an artistic drawing, but rather one from which a building could possibly be developed and physically built! Architects sketch with reality in mind, knowing that their sketch image could be developed and built. This asset takes years of experience and knowledge to materialize. CAD drawings on the other hand, are precise drawings that require actual dimensions of the image that is being conceptualized. CAD software assist the architect, however the process requires accuracy and in many cases one could be side-tracked because of the numerous details required to develop a CAD drawing. Both process rely on experience but it is easy to see that the architect who sketches could develop far more design options than the architect who used CAD software to conceptualize his work.