David Thorpe provides ink and watercolor renderings of residences and businesses and sees his larger mission as illustrating healthy communities and sustainably designed built environments. Having studied Transit-Oriented Design and Form-Based Codes, such as Downtown Colorado Springs' new code, Thorpe specializes in rendering walkable, human-scaled architecture. Working with builders, architects, and planners, his art visually interprets such designs for clients and the general public.

Thorpe understands that the scale and density of a project depends upon its context. As national conversations begin regarding sustainability, Thorpe aids the design process and creates artworks which capture local character and appropriate densities.

He is also able to render the unique relationship between transportation systems, such as commuter rail or streetcars, and the city as a whole. In the largely auto-dominated West, Thorpe's work helps the public understand and imagine how transit can enhance cities and be incorporated into their fabric. Thus his work provides a way to garner public support for transit projects, showing how they can look and feel for a public who may not be familiar with such modes of travel.

On a larger level, he studies and articulates how cities work as ecosystems, writing, speaking, and painting on the subject. Colorado Springs, like many other cities, is a community with little cultural memory of walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhoods and he therefore has the opportunity to interpret the importance of such urban environments to the city's health. Thorpe both casts a vision for future growth and helps develop the strategies that will get the community there. In that respect he is a sort of "Urban Advocate" and has spoken recently at the 2010 Southern Colorado Sustainability Conference and the 2011 GeoDesign Summit, hosted by Esri, in Redlands, CA. Please contact Thorpe for more information on speaking engagements.

A student of urbanism, he sees the larger context of a project and how it fits into the city ecosystem as a whole. The Colorado Springs Gazette says of Thorpe: "...He thinks we should build on a human scale rather than an automobile scale, and that mixed-use, mixed-income spaces such as (downtown Colorado Springs) 'create attractive public spaces where people want to be, and where they will interact.'

'The most underused resource is what we already have,' in older downtown buildings that aren't occupied.... He said he'd love to help people visualize rehab projects in... the most vital part of our community" (Dec. 14, 2007).

Thorpe understands that the public or customer needs to be able to visualize a design to offer significant support to the project. Thorpe's background in fine art adds a necessary component to his renderings which welcomes the viewer into the scene. Whether it be a new home, business, remodel, or simply a piece to commemorate a structure, Thorpe's work tells the story before construction begins. Providing dynamic images of both interiors and exteriors, his work is well suited to the bulk of architectural needs.

Working from plans or photos of the space, Thorpe produces sketches and finished drawings. He is also available for on-site sketching at a contracted rate.

LINKS

Please visit jcraigthorpe.com for information on commercial artwork based in the Seattle area. While also proving architectural renderings, Craig specializes in helping clients rethink, design, and promote community using rail travel as a means to these ends.