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Graphical Parallel Projection - Elevation Projection

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To make an elevation projection you must first view the world from the side. No, this is not a trick! I mean it! Actually, this is the normal viewpoint of humans. Walk down a street in your neighborhood and you will be confronted by the sides of houses. The plans may be known or completely unknown, but the elevations are easy to see. An architect or builder will probably think in 3 dimensions while walking the neighborhood, but a “normal” person will see the sides of the houses, and react to them first. Anyway… Start with a square wall with a circle drawn inside. Extrude it away from you and… Voila! A cube! The main problem in drawing elevation projections is distortion in a familiar plan. If a cylinder (standing on end like a coffee cup) is created using the original cube you will find that… The circular plan of the cylinder seems to be stretched into an oval. This can be easily adjusted by eye, but it is still a problem that limits the use of this drawing type in architecture, and m...
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Hugh Hardy

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I have been quite busy from the beginning of the year, and so have only now felt able to acknowledge the death of my mentor and friend, Hugh Hardy, on March 17. The first time I saw Hugh was at a building where his company was vacating a floor, and I was involved in the renovation of that same floor for a new tenant. I found myself in the elevator with him, and was so flustered at being alone with a longtime architectural hero that I stood there tongue-tied.  That was in 1986. Three years later I had gained some experience doing perspectives for offices where I worked, and I began working as a freelance architectural renderer. Late in 1991 I got a call asking if I had time to work on the Vancouver Library competition. That competition was won by Moshe Safdie, but Hugh liked my work and we got along easily. I did rendering work for Hugh, as well as his partner Malcolm Holzman, for the next ten years. Although his projects were usually performing arts venues, he was quite capable of...
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New York Times reviews Times Square Competition at Skyscraper Museum

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Midtown Manhattan Wouldn’t Be the Same ‘Times Square, 1984,’ at the Skyscraper Museum By Joseph Giovannini, New York Times, Aug.. 21, 2014 (Weekend Arts Section, page 22) “One of the most beautiful entries, by Lee Dunnette, envisioned a restored Times Tower with a spectral, hooped tube driving through the body and shooting beyond the roof, a ghostly hologram vanishing into the night.” The column by Mr. Giovannini is a concise and entertaining review of the Times Square redevelopment in the mid 1980s, and the parallel shifting of architectural design thought in the same time period. The online version includes a slide show of images from the time.  Paul Goldberg of the Times wrote a contemporary (1984) review of the original competition, which announces  an understandably begrudging acceptance of the stylistic chaos, His note on my proposal: " The jury also selected Lee Alan Dunnette's proposal for a re-creation of the original tower with a cylindrical light shaft shooting ...
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