Ken Shuttleworth

This week Tim Abrahams meets Ken Shuttleworth. Known as Ken the Pen in his university days, he is a leading architect with an exemplary talent for drawing. He takes us through a life in drawing, explaining how his relationship with the art has evolved and how, now he has founded the Architectural Drawing Prize, the media has changed in an industry undergoing huge technological change.

 

Podcast transcript

Tim Abrahams: Hello, this is Superurbanism. My name is Tim Abrahams. Last week I went down to Somerset to interview Niall Hobhouse, the man behind the collection Drawing Matter. Thanks to all the new followers who joined us as a result of that. This week we are continuing our look into how we value, use and think about architectural drawings. Ken Shuttleworth has his own practice Make, which designs some of the sleekest and stylish new buildings in the city of London and many other places too. But he’s also a great champion of drawing. His practice is now a sponsor of the Architectural Drawing Prize, the world’s largest such prize, which is hosted every year at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London before it travels the world as part of the World Architecture Festival.

 

This is not an empty gesture either. Nicknamed Ken the Pen at university, Ken draws wonderfully. So, I wanted to talk to him about the prize and about how his drawing has changed over the years. Now this is talking about drawings on a podcast. So, there are a few pictures on our Instagram account Machine_Books. Sadly, one of the ones that isn’t there is the one I start talking about first. It’s about the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, which Ken worked on when he was Norman Foster’s right-hand man at Foster and Partners working on this project. It’s a building that fascinates me. It speaks to an incredibly important moment in the evolution of architectural drawing and Ken gave me some amazing insight into it.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: When I was working with Norman on the Hong Kong Bank. This is 79.

 

Tim Abrahams: That’s the detail from the Hong Kong bank, is it?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. And there’s a plan again, which is the same thing. These are drawings pulling information together from various contractors. So, this is the cladding contractor, this is the steelwork contractor, this is the internal partitioning contractor and actually putting it all together and then working out where everything goes.

 

Tim Abrahams: Now this is pre-digital, isn’t it?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, no computers.

Tim Abrahams: But it’s an interesting chicken and egg story, isn’t it? Because the level of complexity and the level of layering that’s going into a structure of that kind, the type of drawing you are doing there is already lending itself to a kind of digital…

Ken Shuttleworth: This is all done on bits of paper with armies of draughtsman. We drew the whole lot and we drew the plan section elevations perspectives without computers and it was all drawn. We actually drew the whole thing from top to bottom. Whereas nowadays you’d have a 3D model of the whole building in full size in the computer and then you would have everybody inputting into that and then you would be trying to coordinate all of that in the 3D space.

 

Tim Abrahams: One of the reasons why computing is taken on by architecture is the iteration process going through the Hong Kong Shanghai Banks. How many times did you have to redo the same things that you were taking in information? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, it’s always overlays and you used to redraw things or you would scratch bits out with a razor blade on the tracing paper, but also another technique or you would overlay and start again. That layering allows you to, as you draw, understand it and do more, do more thinking as you’re going through it. You are always checking whether everything fits. And the great thing about drawing like this, when the guys come in with this drawing, you know it’s going to fit if you they’ve got the dimension right. I think it’s really interesting to think about the way the computers have developed. Yeah, we had 150 draftsmen on this project, whereas now the same sort of scale project we probably have 10 architects. So, the difference is enormous.

 

Tim Abrahams: That’s a fascinating idea of mass drawing that I’m sure there’s probably engineering projects in the US in the 1950s that may have had similar kind of levels but I mean you are really pushing at the levels, not of graphic representation, but actually human management. How are you managing 150 people drawing?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: So, the thing is you have to do is… like the problem is, you have to break down into bits, you break it down packages and you draw in the structure,  fand with the structure you then draw the cladding and you work on it as layers. And so, the most important things that the early things get the most attention as you go on, mainly the mechanical electrical has to fit around it, and it’s still the same today to be absolutely honest. You just do it quicker in a computer. And we have things like clash detection in computers now, which we obviously didn’t have here. If there’s a pipe going through a beam here, you would have to work that out yourself. Whereas on a computer, clash detection, it just flags it up as being a problem. So, things like it’s really developed. So, computer drawing was developed for the North Sea oil industry. We weren’t using it in the architecture, but a long time after the North Sea guys were building all these platforms which are very complicated lots of pipe work. So, the development of computer aided design as it used to be called, it was done for the North Sea Platforms. 

Tim Abrahams: It’s very interesting. You’re describing the process of breaking the constituent elements of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank down into: exoskeleton, structure, facade. Do you think that the drawing process creates the architecture in that way?

Ken Shuttleworth: I think before computers, there was very few buildings that actually curved. I mean there were some. I worked on Willis Faber in Ipswich when I first joined Fosters and that was all curvy, and that had a computer working out the panels on the edge. So, there was actually like a chain link computer drawing, which basically was the glass: back in 1974 when I started on that. But that’s all there was in the computer. and everything else had to be drawn to match it by hand.

 

Tim Abrahams: So, you had to draw it and then input the drawing and

Ken Shuttleworth: You see you have that as a drawing and you overlay that drawing and you work into it

 

Tim Abrahams: And how would the computer interact with that? How did it? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It didn’t feature again; you would be given the outline as a drawing that was it

 

Tim Abrahams: So, he was telling you what to do rather you telling it

 

Ken Shuttleworth: All it drew was the outline of the shape and it made it in two-meter panels. And what the contractor wanted to do originally was to start at two meters and go all the way around at two meters. And then when he got to the end, he would just do a cut piece to fit in. We didn’t want that.

 

Tim Abrahams: So, he wanted it to be? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Had to be two meters all the way around

 

Tim Abrahams: All the way around, it could be, oh my…

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It’s like a daisy chain of a computer drawing and then we worked within that, putting the grid on by hand and everything. But I think computers have allowed us to do more exotic shaped gems and you think of some of Viñoly buildings, they wouldn’t have been possible without computers. 

 

Tim Abrahams: 

It’s easy on plan to do it. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: 

This is it quite easy because it’s faceted.  

 

Tim Abrahams: It’s interesting to hear about the software that was coming into the architecture industry in the UK was coming from North Sea Oil because I was involved in a series of exhibitions called the Archaeology of the Digital, CCA. There was a great interview with Frank Gehry when he was talking about the Ellis House. There’s that house he spent like 15 years doing and, in the end, he didn’t build, he just had this rich guy just letting him come up with more and more ridiculous ideas. But Greg Lynn suggested that one of the moments when Gehry moves from an analogue to a digital drawing experience and Greg Lynn did an interview with the guy that was working for Lockheed Martin in Los Angeles drawing military aircraft for them. 1991 happens, Berlin Wall comes down, they all get made redundant.

 

A week later he gets a phone call from someone who works at Gehry’s office, who knows he does this software and he said, can you draw fish? And the guy was like, that’s a bit like a plane. And so, he uses this aircraft software to draw the Barcelona goldfish for Gary. I’m always intrigued by that moment of how one thing goes into the other. I’m a big fan of the Hong Kong Shanghai bank. It’s one of the most amazing buildings in the world. It’s got a bit of a North Sea oil rig vibe there

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I think it was assembled, it wasn’t literally built on site, it was actually brought, components were made off site, brought in. It was one of the first projects that did that. And a lot of projects since that have tried to do the same because at the time, we felt the Hong Kong market wasn’t able to do… it could do lots of concrete, vertical, concrete towers, but the quality isn’t necessarily what the Hong Kong bank would actually want. So, our idea was to prefabricate it all over the world and bring it together and assemble it on site. So, the Meccano, I would say it’s more like a Meccano set, where it comes together. Everything has to fit; it has to be bolted together and it has to be waterproof. So that side of it, where bits of it are being made all over the world are then assembled on site. So, you avoid that pouring wet concrete in the pouring rain, but you are actually trying to do that in a factory where it is controlled conditions then bring things to site which have semi-finished in big lumps, big components. We still do that today. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, how do you think the drawing is impacting that? How and conversely, how is that process impacting the drawing?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: That means you have to draw everything and you’ve got to make sure the interfaces work. Because the biggest problem with that is if components arrive from Cleveland Bridge in the north of England and that something else comes from Tokyo in Japan, it comes together on site, and they don’t fit, then you’ve got a massive issue. And I think that the drawing of the interface is so important that both elements actually have to be drawn with the other ones. You are actually almost drawing those details twice, drawing once for the guy doing one bit, once for the guy doing the other bit. And that’s the same today. We do all that, and most projects we do try and prefabricate. So, stuff’s done offsite and brought to site and then assembled. So, the drawing is really important at that point.

 

Tim Abrahams: You talked about that you had to break things down when you were managing 120 different people.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: A large project would be broken into packages. So, it would be say the basement or the roof or the steelwork or something like that. It depends on the project. And then you would have a team leader for that element, you would have a team that goes with that team and so they are actually developing their bit of it. And then the challenge is then bringing the various interfaces between those teams together. So, the guy doing the terrace waterproofing needs to speak to the guy doing the external wall because otherwise there’s going to be a leak just exactly where they come together. So, I think on any project that’s breaking down to bits, but actually allowing, ensuring people actually come together and actually make sure it all fits together.

 

Tim Abrahams: I would imagine that having a single digital model makes that process much easier.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yes. Obviously today we would, it’s less about packages, it’s more about zones of the building and bringing it all together and then making sure that the top fits on the bottom and sides fit and all that. So, it’s actually more about larger areas of the building coming together. So, it’s the same process though. You still got to draw it. You’ll just be drawing in a computer and the computer’s not drawing it for you. You are still inputting it and you are using the computer as a tool as that is a pencil, used as a tool. Coloured pencils are a tool and the computer is just a tool, but it’s only doing what you ask it to do. It’s not inventing something

 

Tim Abrahams: Perhaps. I don’t know if this is the right juncture, but I’m interested in how you reacted when the computer comes into practice. When did that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: When it happened, we finished Hong Kong bank in 1985. We came out to London and there was a computer.

 

Tim Abrahams: And you thought, where in the hell were you? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It was like the organ in a church. It was massive. It had two screens, it had a big sort of dashboard and it was the size of this table.

 

Tim Abrahams: This table is about three meters by three meters

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It was a bit shallower than that, but it was about that width and there was one at the end of the office and then there became two at the end of the office. Then there were a few and it, so basically you would draw like this and go to the computer guy and say, can you put this into the computer? And they would, the CAD guys would put it into the computer. So, the process was we were drawing by hand and on the drawing board and then it would go to computer scan and put it in.

 

Tim Abrahams: What would be the point of that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Because then you’re coordinating it in the computer. So, you’re giving a set of drawings out which are more accurate and you’ve got one drawing with everybody’s input into it, in the computer.

 

Tim Abrahams: So, the drawings are coming in, the CAD guys adding it to one big model.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah right. Often in two dimensions to be honest. So, you’re doing two dimensional drawings, not just three-dimensional drawings. You’re doing two dimensional drawings as well, in the computer. And that became over time to the point where everybody had a computer and everybody was learning to draw and everybody was drawing. Not so much my generation but the generation below me, they were learning to draw in the computer as well. So, there was a transition in my career from a drawing board with t-square and set square. So, a computer now happened in a way that sort of steam locomotives went from steam, coal driven to diesel electric in somebody’s lifetime that sort of level of change. Now the change for the next generation will be going from computers to AI and that’s going to be interesting for them too.

 

Tim Abrahams: Before we get to the giddy world of AI, what’s the first package that you are drawing with yourself?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: The actual package would be, I suppose MicroStation was the first big one that we all used. It was actually designed for the rail industry. So, it was a sort of infrastructure package and that was one that architects used quite a lot

 

Tim Abrahams: Bentley MicroStation and how long was that around?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Oh, I think 20 years.

 

Tim Abrahams: Wow. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, we switched to Revit. A lot of architects have switched to Revit probably about 10 years ago.

 

Tim Abrahams: But MicroStation,

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It’s still around we actually probably have a few licenses here for it, but Revit’s become much more architect friendly. I think Bentley went off into the sort of infrastructure world, roads, that sort of thing. Whereas Revit’s become much more to do with buildings and Revit has become the main package. Most architects are now using Revit. But as I say, that’s probably about 10 years ago we switched and there wa  a sort of an outcry because people have to sort to learn a new package going from MicroStation to Revit. People nowadays they use, there’s loads of programs, but the main one is still Revit.

 

Tim Abrahams: So, if you’ve seen a Revit building, a building where you think that was drawn in Revit?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: No, not really.

 

Tim Abrahams: No. It’s so open that you can do with it what you want? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, absolutely. This is Charlotte Street, 80 Charlotte Street where it goes from sketches through to much more detailed drawings and sketches.

 

Tim Abrahams: And the sketches are done in on the computer? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: No, these are done by hand. Then there would be a hand drawing through two renders and then working drawings that then go through to much more detailed drawings.

 

Tim Abrahams: How do you draw still has the reasons why you draw changed?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: No, it’s still exploration, so this is just a book from just before Christmas. We had different projects, different aspects of buildings, ways of doing, ways of geometry with few doodles. But I still draw because we’re still designing, buildings, going down to details and working on the moment for a project. 

 

Tim Abrahams: The book that you’ve got here, how does it go from those drawings to the technical detail drawings? How do you use those drawings that you’ve sketched? Are they just for yourself or do you show them to people and say, can we give it a bit more of that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: We tend to go from a hand drawing like that and then put it into the computer themselves. The great thing about being an architect, you can see things in three dimensions.

 

Tim Abrahams: When did you become involved in the drawing prize?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I think it’s seven years. I think the idea was that drawing is changing. Drawing by hand just is disappearing and a lot of the architects coming out of the university can’t actually physically draw at all. But they can draw beautifully on the computer and they treat it in a way I treat a pencil. A guy on a computer can actually produce amazing drawings in a way that’s just as good or better than what I can do. 

 

So, I was quite keen to not be an old fuddy-duddy and say we need to be drawing by hand, but to actually celebrate the hand drawing still in today’s modern world. But also, to recognize the fact that digital drawings are really important and actually are just as beautiful and just as helpful to architects. So, the drawing prize started with the idea of celebrating hand drawing and digital drawing at the same time. And the prize has been really successful. It’s been all over the world. This John Soane Museum is the home of architectural drawing. Gandy, who was a fantastic draftsman back in Stone’s Day, did these amazing drawings which they’ve got. So, if you haven’t been there, go to the Soanes museum. It’s fantastic.

 

Tim Abrahams: It’s pretty special. But the drawing prize is interesting because your involvement has been over seven years. What’s changed in that time?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: What’s really interesting about the drawing prizes is the type of drawings that we’ve actually had. We’ve actually had less of what I would call like some of the architecture drawings I’ve just shown you. They’re more arty drawings, which you get this sort of drawing by Mr. Passing, which is fantastic drawing.

 

Tim Abrahams: Who’s this by?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: This is by a guy called Passing and it’s just a beautiful spatial drawing.

 

Tim Abrahams: Was this one of the entrants to the…?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, it’s one of the ones that won a couple of years ago. But the layering of it, the depth of it, the perspective, everything. So, I think the drawing prize has actually gone in quite a different direction.

 

Tim Abrahams: The other ones are quite fantastical as well. One’s very computer embracing its CGI nature. From what you’re saying is that the field of what is considered an architectural drawing has expanded.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I also think they have a narrative with a point of view about the world. It’s become a prize that’s celebrating art as well as architecture, I think. And now they are a work of art. You would have them on your wall. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Oh absolutely. That’s a stunning picture. Does that reflect the background of the people that are submitting or that they have a non-architectural education?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: They tend to be a combination of architects, architect students and professional artists. So, Ben Johnson who’s a fantastic artist. He loves architecture so he is drawing buildings all the time. He’s entered a few times and to get that level of entry is fantastic. So, it’s become the best drawing prize in the world.

 

Tim Abrahams:  Perhaps people aren’t aware of who can enter, is it any…?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, anybody can enter. 

 

Tim Abrahams: And obviously there are criteria, but it’s an architectural drawing.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It’s a drawing and y’know there’s three categories, the hand drawing and digital category and then between is a hybrid and the hybrid is where people will use a bit of computer and then a bit of hand work and go back into the computer, come out and do some more colouring. And I think where we are going next is how we handle AI which is basically things like MidJourney and a stable diffusion where they are packages which you just talk into and you get a drawing and that’s a totally different skill.

 

Tim Abrahams: So, you are thinking of creating an AI category.? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It’s something actually we asked ChatGPT 

 

Tim Abrahams: I bet they were up for it.

Ken Shuttleworth: They said it was a dilemma, which I thought was interesting. We are looking at how we use it as a tool. You know, we can produce incredible renders. Once you get to understand how you can do it

Tim Abrahams: Every time someone uses it, in a way I find engaging is when they are going, what if you do X in the style of Y? What if you make a building that is X plus Y: mashing things together? And when it’s interesting then you could imagine someone then going on to draw it. I think exploring the hybrid is, to me that’s the richest territory because it’s a goofy, it’s amazing, but it is very thick. It works within a received set of images and you can’t really escape the finite nature of that. And it’s only really interesting when you mush things together and go, what happens when you do that? Like that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: We want to use it in a way that allows us to create that information for clients to go, yeah, that’s great. No, I don’t like that. Yes, that’s great. What we don’t want to do is have something that’s trawled the internet and come up with a Zaha did building because that’s not what we do. The way you put the information in is what’s so important.

 

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, it’s a tool to be played with. You’ve got to constantly probe it, interrogate it, change it, what happens if you try X, what happens if you try Y? What happens if you try Z? How does that move things forward?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: This is quite interesting. This is some of Jason’s work. Jason Parker, one of my colleagues. We worked on 40 Leadenhall. These are my sketches here. But we looked at the sort of essence of part of this, which is to do with the bell making which was actually on the site originally. So, this is a lot of research that went on into the foundry that was on the site. And this was the historical building that was, it’s still actually there that we’ve actually left it intact 

 

Tim Abrahams: Where’s this?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: This is in the city of London. It’s just off Leadenhall, and it’s called The Bertha Building. And then we had this idea of the entrance and these adjacent drawings on the iPad and looking at the idea of bells being expressed, creating these bell-like shapes using flutes of cast metal that create the infrastructure.

 

Tim Abrahams: And this is still on the iPad?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: This is on the iPad, yeah. And then we made mock-ups and models and lots of drawings showing and we started to do full size prototypes as well. 

 

Tim Abrahams: There’s such a range of different types of drawing involved in that process.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. And these are the actual ones being made in the factory. So these are the tests, mock-ups, prototypes and then that’s it in the real building.

 

Tim Abrahams: That looks like a drawing to me.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: That’s a drawing, yeah.

 

Tim Abrahams: Oh, but it’s got the same quality as the original iPad drawings.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. It’s still being built.

 

Tim Abrahams: There’s always a drawing that you look back at and go: that’s, there’s the project. Do you have a first drawing that you remember?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I drew from a very early age. I can remember one drawing, which is probably my first few days at school. So, I was five, it was of a clown and they pinned it on the wall and they wouldn’t let me take it home. And I was really devastated, I couldn’t show my mum. She came into school on day two of me being at school to see the drawing of a clown on the wall. But I was always drawing and I became better at it obviously as time went on. It was that sort of graphicacy, I think it’s called. Numeracy, literacy and graphicacy is another one of those things, education wise, which I was very good at. So, I was always very good at jigsaws, was very good at reading maps. I knew where I was orientation wise, I still do. And I think it’s that visual learning in a way is what drawings is all about. So, for me and my kids have been the same. They learn by looking at things they don’t learn by reading things. They learn by images, sketching things through, drawing things through making jigsaws, anything to do with the visual side of life.

 

Tim Abrahams: Very interesting. There’s a very strong idea of an innate way of looking at the world, a way of understanding the world and a way of learning about the world. How are you encouraged when you to talk about your children? You draw, they draw. Was that your condition when you were growing up? Were you in a family in which drawing was an activity?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, my dad was a good draftsman, good artist. My uncle, his brother, was also fantastic so I learned it from them. And dad would always draw a picture for us to colour in while they were doing breakfast in the morning. And I think from that dad drawing got me into it. So yeah, the environment was my dad drawing all the time and being quite a hands-on practical sort of character. He’s a DIY expert, he would make something out of nothing. He would create a garage out of old bits of wood. He would do all sorts of things.

 

Tim Abrahams: Did he draw it first?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Not with those, no. He used to just knock them up. But that practical side of life, we’ve still got that today. Whereas you find a lot of people don’t have a practical side. I was very much I mean, Dad had got a hammer, picked up a hammer, I would go and pick up a hammer too. And I think that’s something I’ve always enjoyed as a kid making stuff, we made sledges and go-karts, that sort of thing, and we were drawing and, in a way, making things that effectively what we do here.

 

Tim Abrahams: No, but it is interesting that they operated in parallel drawing and making this process.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, I think so because I think you are seeing a sketch and draw to think. So, my drawing is the way I think and put ideas down.

 

Tim Abrahams: How did your school encourage you to draw? Did it encourage you?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah absolutely. I went through primary school being a good drawer. I went into a secondary school. I was always the top of art, went right to GCSE and then A level art and special level art. So, the school was fantastic and I think drawing became a thing that gave me confidence. Because as a kid I was quite nervous, I was small. I used to stutter quite badly. And that’s all about confidence and as you get more confident and you find out, oh you can draw, oh you’ve got a grade A in O level in Art something you realize it’s something you can do. You feel more confident because you know you can do it. And then to turn that drawing into something that you make money out is the next step really. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Yeah. When you were being taught, do you remember specific drawing techniques you were taught, which you took to immediately? Were there certain methods of drawing or was it a good Catholic broad system of teaching drawing?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, I think, because in my really early drawings. Things like this,

 

Tim Abrahams: I haven’t told the listener that Ken is here showing me different types of drawing on his laptop here. So, we’ve got a kind of life in drawings, which is really amazing. Wow, what’s that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: So that’s quite early on. There’s a ship like the Golden Hind.

 

Tim Abrahams: How old are you when you did that? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Quite young. I always think I was probably about six or seven.

 

Tim Abrahams: That’s six or seven, you’ve got a mark for it. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Got a seven minus for that. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Is that good?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: No.

 

Tim Abrahams: That’s harsh because that’s an amazing drawing. Oh, that’s good though. There you, now you connect. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: This is a motorbike. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, that’s a motorbike. And what mediums then?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: That’s just pencil on paper. So that’s coming up through my teens. Being interested in speed and motor cars.

 

Tim Abrahams: We’ve talked about how you were learning to draw. What were you drawing? Were you just drawing everything or is the motorbike a kind of typical teen project?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I was designing little houses as well when I was young. 

 

Tim Abrahams: Wow. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, so it was, did that sort of thing.

 

Tim Abrahams: When’s that? 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: So, this is probably going up to GCSE level.

 

Tim Abrahams: That drawing of that house is GCSE level

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Probably. Yeah 

 

Tim Abrahams: That looks like a sketch and architect might do now/

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I went to Hainsworth Grammar school in Birmingham. I went right through to A level, GCSE, levels in art, geography and history. My career’s master Mr. Keith Dony said I’d never be an architect. He said I wasn’t clever enough, intelligence enough, I should just forget about it and I should go and work for Ordnance Survey.

 

Tim Abrahams: Where is he now? 

Ken Shuttleworth: Maybe I’ll meet him one day. But he just thought I’d never do it and I think in a way, it encouraged me to prove him wrong. So, I did go on and work very hard at school to actually make sure I could get into school of architecture because I wanted to be an architect from quite an early age, probably seven, eight. And again, they encouraged me not to do it. But I think for me, drawing has just been with me throughout my life and I think without it would’ve been… I’m not sure what I’ve done really.

Tim Abrahams: And then you went to…

 

Ken Shuttleworth: To city of Leicester Polytechnic School of Architecture in Leicester now called De Montfort University. And I went through that course all the way through seven years in Leicester. 

 

Tim Abrahams: One of the things I think is fundamental for me to try and understand the way architects use drawing is to understand the multiplicity of different types of drawing that they do. I imagine, not having done an architecture degree, but that’s a process you begin to learn at university of types of drawing. How did you find that process? Did you enjoy learning the different techniques or did you find it constrictive?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: No, I mean I absolutely love some more drawings here actually.

 

Tim Abrahams: Oh, what’s that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: So, this is one of my very early university drawings.

 

Tim Abrahams: That’s a university drawing.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Actually, just before when I was doing A level

 

Tim Abrahams: Sorry just to explain, that’s a kind of root amazing kind of Barbican-esque roof terrace.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: It’s actually a city

 

Tim Abrahams: Sorry, 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Of houses and things. But actually, it’s obviously very landscaped. It was a competition actually, which I entered before I went to university. This is basically A level stuff. 

 

Tim Abrahams: But that’s an incredibly sophisticated level of perspective, that you’ve learned there even before you’ve gone to university. Where did you learn that?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: One-point perspectives, which is what this one and this one is an axonometric. I learned that at A Level Art. 

 

Tim Abrahams: But you were taught axonometric drawing and single perspective. Wow. Do you think that was common for the time?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: I suppose you just forget what it was like. I think people could do that. But then this is a drawing which is a series of door schedules, door details.

 

Tim Abrahams: Welcome to the reality of architecture.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: So yeah, I went to work for Harry Bloom and Son in the summer holidays.

 

Tim Abrahams: And who were Harry Bloom and Son? Are they an architecture practice?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yep. Harry Bloom was an architect based in Birmingham and I was paid five pounds a week to work there, which was fantastic. And so, you’ve got start somewhere and it was just great.

 

Tim Abrahams: And in terms of your output, was this typical you were drawing?

Ken Shuttleworth: I don’t give you an office building to design from day one. You’ve got to learn how buildings go together. And I think what was interesting is grounding with people like Harry Bloom, is it actually, it was all about how you put a building together, how does it actually physically work? How do you keep the water out? Why doesn’t it fall over? Etcetera, etcetera. So, I think all of that was really good grounding.

Tim Abrahams: So how big is that drawing?

 

Ken Shuttleworth: A1

Tim Abrahams: What are you drawing on?

Ken Shuttleworth: This Is on tracing paper with a set square and a t-square

Tim Abrahams: And to pen. And there’s six details on one page. Is that right? 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, so the idea was to try and not use so much paper to try and get as many drawing details on it as possible.

Tim Abrahams: And what would happen to that drawing once you would finish with it?

Ken Shuttleworth: So that would go to the contractor and the contractor would build it just like that. So, if it was wrong, it was my fault. But often you would find yourself on the site with these drawings and the guy would say, why don’t you just move that to there? An old guy’s done joinery for the whole of his life and you’re a teenager architect, you would be sketching and he would always try and move things on a bit, which was great. I learned so much from being on site.

 

Tim Abrahams: One of the things I’ve learned to think about with a drawing is who are we drawing this for.

Ken Shuttleworth: So, an architect, you’re basically drawing first of all for yourself to understand what you’re trying to persuade someone to do. Then you are doing drawings to persuade somebody what you want to do is going to look fantastic, work amazingly. And then you’re going to go through the whole process of actually building a set of drawings which actually can be built from. So, the contractor’s getting these drawings and he hasn’t really understood what he’s actually building until he’s finished. Whereas we’ve got to have the whole thing in our head before we start and then do detailed drawings so he can put it together. So, this sort of drawing is for a contractor or joiner to put together some doors.

Tim Abrahams: Dense with information 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: What works, what size timber… all of that was detailed on the site. The door handles are important, where the hinges goes in is important. Anything that you don’t draw, they will guess it and then get it wrong. So, you have to, the more you draw, the more chance you have getting it right.

Tim Abrahams: The more you draw, the more chance you have of getting it right.

Ken Shuttleworth: So, if you want these ducts in a particular place,

Tim Abrahams: You’ve got to draw it

Ken Shuttleworth: You’ve got to draw it. So, you want that in the middle of the room like it is and you want it to connect from this side, which it is. Then you need to draw it. If you don’t draw it now, just come across on the diagonal and

Tim Abrahams: And there’s nothing you can say about it, because you didn’t draw it. 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, if you don’t draw it, they say why didn’t tell me I would have done it. it would have been easier to do what you wanted to do.

Tim Abrahams: Wow. That’s really nice. Where’s this?

Ken Shuttleworth: So, this is a project in Leicester college project, which was a healthcare centre. And this is basically one point perspective looking back with the existing parts of Leicester echoed into the project.

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, that’s a very interesting style of drawing when, forgive me for asking what, because it looks like

 

Ken Shuttleworth: 1973, it’s ink on tracing paper and it’s coloured in with felt tip pens.

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, it looks very like Cedric Price’s style of drawing.

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. With a space deck. Absolutely 

Tim Abrahams: Lovely. Showing each kind of striated level and these beautiful geometric shapes embedded into the structure.

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, geometry is important. That’s the long section through it. 

Tim Abrahams: Oh, that’s really nice.

Ken Shuttleworth: That’s the elevation, the cross section through the street cross sections of the room. So, it was on a sloping site as you can see.

Tim Abrahams: Yeah, It’s like a stepped Crystal Palace. 

Ken Shuttleworth: a bit more modest than that, but it’s a single-story building. It steps down the site. A space deck continues down the site. The cladding is alternative purple and pink. So, it’s a fun project.

Tim Abrahams: And what has the colour been added with what. 

Ken Shuttleworth: Felt tip pen. 

Tim Abrahams: Felt tip pen. 

Ken Shuttleworth: This was a scheme for a leisure centre. So, when Centre Parks was being built, there was lots of sort of ideas I think.

Tim Abrahams: So just to explain, we’ve gone from this very intense, very layered, perfect piece of Cartesian geometry. And now this looks a bit more like a cartoon, doesn’t it?

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. So, this is a leisure centre in, outside Leicester Abbey Park. And it was supposed to be a fun palace. There were centre parks being built at the time. There was the idea that people go on holiday to these sort of glass boxes and have a great time. And this was one where it’s a bit Disneyesque, it’s got mountains and chair lifts and lagoons and sailing and all sorts of things going on. 

Tim Abrahams: But it’s interesting that you’ve picked out the suitable style. Very different to match the project, haven’t you? 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yes. So, the style is trying to make the project fun.

Tim Abrahams: Have you spent a lot of time throughout your career thinking about which drawing to show to which person at which time? 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah. We definitely think about that. We definitely work out what’s the best type of drawings to explain something. And you are communicating through drawings. Now you’re using more computer work as well but the essence of it is all communicating through the visual medium of drawing. 

Tim Abrahams: It’s like a cross section of a manmade mounting. Got this chaotic fun palace feeling, which the manner of drawing is picked out perfectly.

Ken Shuttleworth: This is a village hall in Long Clawson outside Leicester. So, this is the plan of the village hall. These are the different configurations you could do from different activities for the village hall. This is the site and this is the elevation.

Tim Abrahams:  It’s always like a source of wonder to me, when you see an architect laying out, not just one, not just two, not just three, but a whole suite of drawings in one layout that gives you the whole shamola. So, there’s 8, 9, 10 drawings on one sheet of paper. I think that one is dead. That’s gone. That ability to… 

Ken Shuttleworth: Lay a drawing out

Tim Abrahams: Just to do the whole shamola on one sheet.

Ken Shuttleworth: And then these are drawings which are more interesting to me at the moment. Because these are exploratory sections. This is a plan of a staircase here, and the section through it, and there’s full size tread here to get the dimensions right. So, you’re looking at a plan, a section, elevation in the same drawing at a different scale. So, it’s more for me just working out, is this stair going to work? Does the geometry work out? Go triangular, obviously a triangular stair, does it actually physically work? Can you get what’s the size of the hole it goes into where the columns supporting it, and all the dimensions that go with that. But what’s good about it, it then goes, then you just draw the plan section elevations because you’ve got all the information here. You don’t need to get anybody else involved. Just draw it straight off that, which I did and it got built. And it got built.

Tim Abrahams: Wow. I’m going to have to take your word for that because that looks incredible. I can see the logic at work. But for someone who’s not an architect and someone who doesn’t draw, the sheer overload of information in that makes, it quite difficult to take on board because there’s three or four different levels of perspective and it makes my eyes go wobbly, just trying to work it all out. And yet that’s the very thing that has enabled you to do that drawing and the very reason you’ve wanted to do that drawing. Because you can compound those things into one space, which is, which is remarkable.

Ken Shuttleworth:  Yeah, I think that that sort of concept sketch, I think is the most, one of the most interesting things I’ve always been interested in. I still do these today. So, you end up, what’s the idea for the projects? And this is my studio in Yorkshire and some of my paintings as well. So do I some paintings…

Tim Abrahams: You paint? 

Ken Shuttleworth: Yeah, I do abstract paintings. This is all in acrylics because

 

Tim Abrahams:  Wow, they’re really bold, expressive, abstract. Boogie woogie as I think some call them. 

 

Ken Shuttleworth: Some of them are. Yeah, just exploring.

Tim Abrahams:  Wow. They’re very expressive, with lots of colour.

 

Ken Shuttleworth: And what’s interesting, you try and disconnect your hand from your brain when you do painting, when you are drawing, and you’re obviously the opposite. So painting, you’re just trying to just let the paint and let your motions come out. Whereas when you’re drawing, obviously you’re thinking and you’re trying to design. And the danger when you as an architect when you’re painting is you try and design the painting, which of course doesn’t work. But some of these quite interesting… 

Tim Abrahams: I like that. I’ve seen a lot of paintings by architects that I have not liked, and I like those. They’re very different as well.

Ken Shuttleworth: This is painting on the iPad. This is using the one David Hockney uses. I think people still think through sketching, people doodling, they’re thinking, they’re not daydreaming, they’re thinking and trying to work something out. You know, you’ll see a mathematician who will write out a formula and he’ll be thinking as he’s writing it. It’s the same thing with me drawing, as you’re designing, as you’re thinking, as you contemplated something, you’re drawing all the time as you can see by drawing all the way through.

 

Tim Abrahams: I love that. A life in drawing.

I admire Ken for the way in which he supports drawing without any particular position. Like Niall Hobhouse, who we spoke to last week, he’s not against the computer. He’s not championing drawing because it’s somehow a dying craft. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Ken, like Niall, is celebrating drawing, appreciating drawings for their beauty, but also their rich levels of information, their instructions, aspirations, philosophical framing devices. Go and see the Architectural Drawing Prize that Ken has supported over the last seven years at the Soanes museum. 

It’s there until the 3rd of March, 2024. Remember the Soanes is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays don’t make that mistake as many, many do. So yes, architectural drawing, it’s an incredibly interesting field and it’s one which I have been spoiled by having worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and having worked briefly with Niaal, but it’s something to which I return to again and again, even though I’m not an expert, I love to read drawings, to grasp the ideas, to understand what is not being said in the open and which the drawing contains. So, this was Superurbanism, the podcast that dances about architecture to adapt Brian Eno’s quote. 

Please like us, please subscribe to us, tell all of your friends how lovely it is to spend some time thinking about the real values of this wonderful art rather than the surface level take, you get elsewhere. We go deep. Talk to you soon. Ciao.

 

 

 

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