COUNTRY Life/yiangou drawing competition
Readers are invited to enter the Art of the Hearth competition to design a fireplace, in a collaboration between COUNTRY LIFE and Yiangou Architects to promote the role of hand drawing in the design process
If you spend just two minutes doing a drawing, your brain talks to you in a different way Lord Snowdon
IN an age of digital design, there is a growing concern that hand drawing is a dying art. ‘Today’s students of architecture are simply not taught hand drawing any more, which is a tremendous shame,’ says Ross Sharpe, director of Yiangou Architects. ‘For many students, that means the computer drives the design, whereas I believe it should simply be used as a tool. All the best ideas come from the brain, the eye and the hand.’
To encourage a revival of the art, COUNTRY LIFE, in partnership with Yiangou Architects, is running a competition to design a chimneypiece. In the work of Robert Adam, Sir John Soane and William Kent, the fireplace had a pivotal role, offering a chance to create focus in a room through a combination of craftsmanship and architectural detail that was in tune with the building’s exterior.
Readers of all ages and disciplines, professional and non-professional, are invited to explore the challenge. Winning entries will be given the chance to appear in the pages of COUNTRY LIFE. ‘It could be a straightforward architectural drawing of a chimneypiece or a conceptual idea for a hearth—and its role as the heart of the home—in a modern living room,’ says John Goodall, COUNTRY LIFE’S Architectural Editor.
No architectural-drawing experience is required, although it may be an advantage. Drawings can be submitted in pencil or pen and with a wash of colour or without. ‘We are looking for seductive and attention-grabbing imagery, be it a perspective drawing, a flat elevation or something more abstract,’ says Mr Sharpe, who will judge the competition with Dr Goodall and Lord Snowdon, founder of luxury furniture company Linley.
How to enter
Entries should be drawn on one sheet of paper of any size up to a maximum of A3 (297mm by 420mm). Please take a photograph of your drawing and send it to drawingcompetition@countrylife.co.uk as a JPEG image, together with your name, address and phone number, by January 2, 2019. Selected entrants will be contacted to have their work professionally photographed, with the winner and shortlist featured in COUNTRY LIFE on February 20, 2019.