Delivering design through sketching

"To sketch is a mental exercise", says Santiago Calatrava, architect, sculptor and painter as well as structural engineer.. "It's a mental exercise that goes directly fromy our mind into your hand in a very spontaneous way. And probably one of the most effcient ways to capture the idea and the vision you have in your mind. And also to analyse it, to investigate, to let it change and transform.The drawings, in the beginning may be very imprecise but with time they become more and more precise and, maybe follow much more the intuition. And then with time, they become more and more construction drawings". He continues: "I started in an art school, then went into an architecture school, and then an engineering school. For me, the work as a sculptor proceeds architecture. I was proceeding to find my own language, independent from schools, independent from tendencies, independent from any dictate, thinking that I have the right to say whatever I want to say in my own manner. I like the idea of being an artist but being an artist doesn't mean living in another world but working very hard and thinking and analysing that this what you are doing can have also a higher signification. I mean, simply doing a platform, where people will wait to get a train  can be also a beautiful place. Just that. But, finally, it is a work that you have to deliver, and work that goes over hundreds and hundreds of sketches". And so, given the proliferation of digital design tools, Calatrava proves sketching has not lost it relevance although there are anecdotal reports of a decline in freehand paper-based drawing ability among today's design students. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9qSRbUDWEI