#HTE

An Architect’s Sketch-and-Sculpt Tactic for Breaking Creative Block

What do you guys and gals do when you encounter Designer’s Block?

Mexico-based architect Alejandro de la Vega Zulueta, who designed the Antigua high-rise apartment building you see above, has a go-to trick that he presumably picked up in Foundation: He starts free-sketching random patterns, applying lighting and shadows to wring form out of them. Occasionally he digitizes these sketches into parametric diagrams, then realizes them as full-blown sculptures with a 3D printer.

“My inspiration is often derived from the process of problem-solving, but I am never far from architecture,” he says. “If I am working on office design and I encounter a space that needs to be filled, I start to imagine how different shapes and forms can fill that void.”

De La Vega Zulueta is the principal of architecture firm estereotomia, and you can check out his Instagram here.