"A beginning design student needs to learn to think like a designer, to visualize ideas & concepts as well as objects. In Diagramming the Big Idea, Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T. Swisher illustrate how student architects can create and use diagrams to clarify their understanding of both particular projects and organizing principles and ideas. With accessable, step-by-step exercises that interweave diagrams, drawings and virtual models, the authors clearly demonstrate how to compose meaningful and useful diagrams. As they follow the development of the four projects groups drawn from the authors' teaching, readers will become familiar with architectural composition concepts such as proportion, site, form, hierarchy and spatial construction. In addition, description and demonstration essays extend concepts with further examples of the methods used in the projects. Whether at 3:00 AM during an all-nighter, while preparing for a desk critique or any time when a fundamental insight can help to resolve a design problem, this book will serve as an essential studio resource"-- Provided by publisher.