John Redington

Redington works at Side Angle Side in Austin and holds degrees in architecture from Texas Tech and Pratt Institute. He completed the Ghost Lab Design-Build internship, worked for Robert A.M. Stern Architects, and spent a year knocking around Tasmania and Australia, where he attended the Glenn Murcutt International Master Class. Redington is behind the folk architecture website Low Plains.

The style in which I illustrate architecture is a reference to how buildings are commonly depicted in folk art — flattened, simplified, and done by hand. Architecture with a capital “A” is commonly nurtured by the pedigree of universities and publications that together can obscure the public’s perception of architecture. The illustrations pay homage to the other side: to the many hands involved in the process of building, as well as to the common folk who look upon it. This aesthetic is accomplished by reducing the representation of the building’s materials to dots (concrete or earth) and lines (wood and steel), and then repeating these elements until a figure or pattern emerges. I use pen, pencil, and straight edge to produce the drawings, and then make them into prints by the silk screen method to add color for easy reproduction and to retain the handcrafted quality. Depending on the size of the drawing and the complexity of the structure, this can be a very laborious process, giving me time to reflect on the many people and stories it took to make that building possible. 

Instagram: @lowplainsdrifte