J. Zhang and C. Sun (Eds.): CAAD Futures 2013, CCIS 369, pp. 187–197, 2013.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
Bi-tonal Architectural Narratives:
Design Expressions in Manga
Marc Aurel Schnabel
School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
marcaurel@cuhk.edu.hk
Abstract. Bi-tonal, or black and white architectural renderings are a common
medium to present an architectural design that goes beyond factual representa-
tions of dimensions of length, width and height, materials, structure or technical
details. They aim to engage their audience with visual aspects as well as emo-
tional reactions. An architectural presentation that is based on a story-telling
approach, akin to comic or manga style, adds intangible expressions, which
allows communicating key elements as well as concepts, development and
overall aspects of a design easily to laypersons and professional alike. This pa-
per presents how designers develop a narrative of their architectural proposals
using a bi-tonal visualization and story-telling methodology that communicates
design to a wider audience.
Keywords: Digital manga, architectural depiction, visual communication,
story-telling.
1 Introduction
Sketches and renderings are the most common methodology which architects use to
communicate their design and proposals to peers, clients, consultants, contractors, or
the general public. Over the past two to three decades computational tools allow arc-
hitects to generate depictions that offer a communication of the designs that is appears
to be reality via photo-realistic rendering, video walkthroughs, or similar computer
generated depictions. Despite these advances, there is a great value in the abstract and
simplified visualization that hand sketches, black and white (b/w), or bi-tonal images
offer. Technical drawings or sophisticated renderings not always allow professionals
or laypersons to understand the complex facets and various elements of an architec-
tural design. Hence the study proposes a particular form of representation that
supplements factual and technical drawings: digitally generated, bi-tonal, non-
photorealistic images of architectural design that offer an easy accessible realm for
communicating architecture. The genre of Japanese comics, called manga, is related
to conventional architectural drafting with their b/w patterns and representations. A
manga artist lays multifarious screens to express different semantics building up each
image to match the overall narrative of the story. Hereby the narrative offers a deeper
engagement with the image by both the artist and the reader, while offering at the
same time an enhanced legibility and appreciation by the general public. This paper
188 M.A. Schnabel
discusses how designers generate and develop their ideas using bi-tonal architectural
depictions of key elements of their designs and how they develop narratives to
communicate them to a larger audience.
2 Conventional and Digital Manga
Despite its popularity there is no automated process to generate manga images and the
task of drawing a series of images is rather tedious, time- and labor intensive, espe-
cially if the image is composed of large variety of details and elements, which is par-
ticular true for architectural depictions. Yet the way of narrating a story through a
series of key images is a widely used and well understood methodology to communi-
cate factual, fictive, as well as intangible elements and feelings.
The typical conventional steps for producing one manga image-frame are: First,
artists decide the perspective and roughly sketch the major structure if the scene with
pencils. Next, they finalize the drawing with ink. With the precise lines in place, art-
ists then begin the screening procedure. Based on the inked lines, manga artist usually
select appropriate pre-print screen sheets to fill regions in order to express shading,
tone, texture, or atmosphere. The selected screen paper, which is semi-transparent
with pre-printed patterns, is then overlaid on each of the target regions. The artist
usually uses a knife to carefully carve out screen paper along the boundary and paste
it on the target region. The image is ready when all the regions are overlaid with se-
lected screens.
Fig. 1. From left: Original image and three digitally converted bi-tonal solutions: hatching,
halftone, and Manga-Me
Only recently a system that automatically draws bi-tonal depictions using manga
techniques was developed [1]. Although there are numerous tools available to convert
digitally any input image, sketch or drawing into a bi-tonal manga picture, often the
generated results does not look like manga. Qu et al’s [1] system automatically
generates a result that has the same quality as a conventionally produced image, yet
with a fraction of time and costs (Figure 1). A simplified version of this system,
Mange-Me, is an iPhone-application [2] that allows users to generate a depiction
Bi-tonal Architectural Narratives: Design Expressions in Manga 189
using the distinct expression of manga style visual communication. The system con-
sists of two major components, screening and line drawing, which are similar to the
conventional manga production described above. The line drawing includes an impor-
tance model that ranks each line, allowing architects to control the detail level of lines
needed in their architectural manga. For the screening process, the system aims to
automate the screen selection process allowing richness preservation and style consis-
tency to conventional manga by utilizing the solution [3] that automatically selects
appropriate bi-tonal screens to represent or fill up different regions in the input image
or photograph.
3 Bi-tonal Architecture Depiction
Photorealistic visualizations of architectural design are the established method of
communicating architectural ideas, concepts or existing buildings. Hereby the objec-
tive is to generate a highly realistic and factual representation of the designs. The
quality of these renderings is so high that it is often impossible to distinguish them
from real photographs and the illusion is nearly perfect. However, architectural spatial
concepts such as geometry/composition, threshold, proportion/scale, circula-
tion/duree, light/shadow and tectonics are lost in the colourful well-rendered details
and images. In conventional sketching these architectural elements, properties, func-
tions, or materials are either represented by standardized screens, hatches, line-types, -
styles, and -widths, or by the personal expressions of the architect. In the abstract
representation of the sketch architectural spatial concept and other non-factual ele-
ments can be highlighted clearer. The above presented automated methodology of
generating bi-tonal images allows for the development of a new generation of archi-
tectural design communication that reaches beyond graphical standard visualizations
that include among others intangible elements and expressions.
Conventional rendering or a series of sketches missing a crucial element in their
communication: the narrative. A collection of images, collages, diagrams, photo-
graphs and rendered images do not provide the reader any clue about how the design
comes about, how it blends into the urban environment, how the building functions,
and especially how emotions, atmospheres or expressions relate to the design.
Standardized depictions provide the factual outlook, practicality, and buildability of
the design only, but not a narrative that engages the reader with the design akin to a
movie or novel. On the other hand, bi-tonal, non-photorealistic depictions are increa-
singly becoming popular around the world as a mean of expression and story-telling
because of its distinct graphical quality with its elegant use of rich set of screens, tidy
and fine drawing styles of b/w drawings, and its engaging ways of its narrative [4].
In architectural design for example, the commonly used software SketchUp™
provides a few additional options that change the line style of a model, giving it a
unique raw outlook, mimicking hand-sketching, in order to portray architecture in a
simple outlook with just its basic geometric elements. In this way many digital
sketches are produced.
The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) goes a step further. This group of architects,
designers, and theorists operate within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research
and development. Based on the methodology of comics, their book ‘YES is More’ [5]
190 M.A. Schnabel
introduces their works through this very format. It is a playful gesture to make archi-
tecture accessible and less formal. BIG ads speech bubbles and overlaid diagrams to
their architectural designs, making them appear to be alive and talking to the reader.
Although most images are simple photographs, yet the overall style is novel to how
they convey architectural ideas and designs to the general public and professionals
alike. Architectural manga as presented here goes even further to give architectural
representations an enhanced immersion that goes beyond conventional architectural
depiction and communication by using a bi-tonal narrative akin to manga.
4 Bi-tonal Architectural Narrative
In order to test how young designers, who are all familiar with the genre of manga are
able to develop their own narrative of an existing, yet new building to them, a cohort
of fifty second year undergraduate- and thirty first year master of architecture students
were asked to generate an architectural narrative using the above presented smart-
phone application. The aim was to introduce the newly opened building of their
School of Architecture (AIT), at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), to
their peers. Alternatively, the students could capture a particular urban setting of a
high density and vibrancy neighborhood in Hong Kong, called Mongkok. Students
then took their selection of converted bi-tonal images and collaged them into a comic
narrative on maximal two pages by using either typical manga page lay-out templates
(predefined subdivisions and image frames of pages) or their own generated designs
to generate a short architectural story. The pages were uploaded onto a social network
group [6] for comments dissemination and evaluation among a larger audience. This
not only inspired other students, but also generated variations and sequels to emerge.
Figure 2 show the initial representative outcomes of the above described manga-
task. The outcome was promising as students were able to easily utilize the unique
quality and characteristic of manga to narrate a certain story or journey that is has the
architecture as its protagonist. These examples act as initial framework of how
designers use the medium to develop an architectural manga.
Fig. 2. Left. Walkthrough by Winnie Tam portraying her personal story of the AIT-building.
Right: Motion supported manga by Kenton Sin: it depicts the seemingly chaotic arrangement of
the urban setting and their impact on humans’ movements through the streets of Mongkok
Bi-tonal Architectural Narratives: Design Expressions in Manga 191
The above descried method resulted in different understandings and reflections of
the chosen building or urban setting. In conventional analyses designers collect a
variety of data that are related to the site or building, though these gathered findings
are often not used any further in the following design activities.
Students selected their own topics for their personal narratives and then generate a
comic-strip to reinforce the structure of their narratives. However, by developing a
story, the plot of a narrative is comprised of a series of "things that characters do, feel,
think, or say" [7]. Hereby each of the events is an important component to the out-
come of the story. These components have to be selected carefully, because a simple
list of events or incidents, and in this case, depictions alone do not establish a plot.
The portrayed architectural context, the building, and its details must be "significant
events" rather than a simple series of images or details that happen. The exercise re-
viled that students understood the essence of an image based story and were only
sometimes confused by the difference between a series of events or details that occur
at their site or can be found at the building.
5 Manga Design Expressions
In a next step of reacting architecturally to their findings students were asked to
generate their own designs based on their initial comic strip. Keeping the elements of
a narrative not only in mind but also as their influential design parameter students
were then given the freedom to continue working with the manga application at any
stage of their next following architectural design studio with the same sites. Without
going into further details of the design studio, this paper focuses on the phases at
which the manga application was used and in which way. Details of the overall design
studio and its process can be found at the social network websites of CAAD@CUHK
[6] and Ornaments and Patterns [8].
Fig. 3. Design by Anita Au: Form generated from the studies of urban context
