A random visit to the Build site this weekend yielded a nice find. Pictured above is a custom presentation piece developed by Build for Sony Computer Entertainment last year. This plexi-glass plaque was presented to outgoing executive Phil Harrison to acknowledge his 15 years of service with Sony. The piece is a sleek exercise in tech-typography, screen printing and etching. It also proves that a little offsetting between layers (the piece is six-ply) can have a dramatic effect in the way we respond to a document, creating a tangible volume out of a few simple 2D drawings - graphic design as architecture. This photograph doesn't do the object justice, make sure to check out the documentation in the Build webfolio as there are some nice detail shots.

These types of transparent, "stacked" documents are by no means uncommon in the age of semi-ubiquitous laser cutting - any architecture school with good ventilation will churn out a few a year. That said, it is a little strange to see this technique deployed to create corporate trophies.

Looking at the Build plexi-plaque immediately evokes memories of one of my favourite architectural artifacts of all time, an element from Zaha Hadid's 1983 entry to the Paris Parc de la Villette competition. The studio culture surrounding Morphosis in the 1980s spawned the world drawdle (drawing+model) and that noun is as good as any to describe the assemblage of electrostatic prints on polymer and sheets of acrylic pictured above. As would be expected from Hadid, gesture is the name of the game and we can read this abstracted plan as a playbook for landscaping strategies and speculating possible vectors across a site. We don't have to read it as such though as Hadid did not win the competition and her "well constructed document" is now merely a beautiful model - an engine of pure potential. Philip Johnson owned the piece and in 1996 he donated it to the Architecture and Design collection of the MOMA.

These types of objects have such an incredible resonance to them though! The Hadid plan buzzes with energy while the Build plexi-plaque is a meticulous exercise in composition. I'll make a point of tracking down some more examples of these kinds of documents, these drawings with aspirations to occupy space.