Sketch like an Architect: Techniques and Tips from a Real Project

Feast your eyes on the world's most outstanding architectural photographs, videos, visualizations, drawing and models with the winners of Architizer's inaugural Vision Awards. Sign up to receive future program updates >

Follow along as Vision Awards Juror Eric Reinholdt works through a few rough sketches for a new project. The founder of 30X40 Design Workshop discusses the key style points and techniques you can use to develop your own architectural sketching style. Each sketching vignette includes many tips, but broadly they fall under the following headings:

1) Simply your toolset: fewer tools = fewer decisions
2) Start small: move quickly, be less precise, less precious
3) Line work: architectural sketching is a line art, not a fine art
4) Annotations: helps create a layered esthetic, describes things you’re not able to easily show
5) Media + Implements: how changing these from time to time can spur new ideas.
6) Practice: the one thing guaranteed to improve your architectural sketching technique.

If you’d like to get your work in front Eric and other leaders in the field, consider entering Architizer’s Vision Awards:

Eric Reinholdt is an architect, founder of the residential architecture practice, 30X40 Design Workshop, author of Architect + Entrepreneur, innovator of progressive practice models, and the creator of the eponymous YouTube channel, 30X40 Design Workshop. From his remote island studio, Eric makes videos about architecture, designs simple, modern homes, and shares his process online.