The book is a guide for students and teachers to understand the need for, the role of and the methods and techniques of freehand analytical sketching in architecture. The presentation focuses on drawing as an approach to and a phase of architectural design. The conceptual goal of this approach is to use drawing not as illustration or depiction, but exploration. The first part of the book discusses underlying concepts of freehand sketching in design education and practice as a complement to digital technologies. The main component is a series of chapters that constitute a typology of fundamental issues in architecture and urban design; for instance, issues of "facade" are illustrated with sketch diagrams that show how façades can be explored and sketched through a series of specific questions and step-by-step procedures.

This book is especially timely in an age in which the false conflict between "traditional vs. digital" gives way to multiple design tools, including sketching. It fosters understanding of the essential human ability to investigate the designed and natural world through freehand drawing.Among the 250 buildings and spaces drawn and analyzed are:
Church on the Water, Tadao Ando
Santa Maria della Salute, Baldassare Longhena
Frederick C. Robie House, Frank Lloyd Wright
Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Altes Museum, Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Philips-Exeter library, Louis Kahn
Tate Modern, Herzog & de Meuron
Berlin Treptow Crematorium, Axel Schultes
Breakfast Room in Sir John Soane's Museum, John Soane
Tugendhat House, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
IKEA diagrams
New England Holocaust Memorial, Stanley Saitowitz
Berlin Am Kupfergraben 10 Gallery, David Chipperfield
Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, Philadelphia
Palazzo Chiericati, Andrea Palladio
The Netherlands Architecture Institute, Jo Coenen & Co Architec
Casa en Bunyola, Francisco Cifuentes ts
Casa 6, Ochoalcubo, Marbello, Cecilla Puga
Traditional Turkish House
Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi
Dumbarton Oaks Gardens, Beatrix Farrand
McCormick Tribune Campus Center, OMA
Spielbudenplatz, Hamburg
Place des Vosges, Paris
Deanery Garden, Edwin Lutyens
Olympic Sculpture Park, Weiss Manfredi
Galleria Umberto I, Emanuele Rocco, Oxford University, From Broad Street through
Bodleian Library courtyard to Radcliffe Camera