Oxygen House Project (Site plan)

Douglas Darden

1988

A site plan for Douglas Darden’s Oxygen House Project, rendered in pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, and correction fluid, that proposes a compact circular living chamber linked by axial walkways and sited within a misty landscape—an architectural idea presented as a drawing.

The drawing arrests you with its contrast of crisp, technical linework—most notably the round plan and intersecting bridges—and soft, tonal washes that make the house appear to hover in fog, punctuated by a single sketched tree.

This piece exemplifies late‑20th‑century speculative architectural drawing, where hand-rendered plans become storytelling devices—Darden’s work helped expand drawing’s role as a means to explore program, myth, and theatricality in architecture.

Palette

Art Terms

Architectural drawing Plan drawing Drawing Architecture Pencil Ink Charcoal

Exhibitions

Built in USA: Post-War Architecture

1953

Architecture and Imagery: Four New Buildings

1959

Visionary Architecture

1960

Integrated Building: Kitchen, Bathroom, and Storage

1945