Everyone loves an architectural plan don't they? The precise and often intricate line work; the annotations and technical specifications; the info boxes and reference numbers; and especially, if you're lucky, the fading at the folds and ever so slightly blurred (old school) ozalid print. I don't know if ozalids are used any more, probably not, but I can remember how fresh prints would reek of ammonia; the smell so strong you'd expect it to send you into orbit. Someone gave me this stash years ago (so that smell is long gone) and I've just stored them away imagining that, one day, I'll put them to good use. I have an idea that it would be great to overprint them and re-use them for some new, as yet unknown, purpose.
I remember using the ammonia style copier around 10 years ago, it's all plan printers and large format photocopiers now though! That's if the plan even gets printed out! We email it to the client as a pdf and send that same pdf to the planners/ builders etc. Usually, only printing it to check for mistakes or to hand sketch ideas over the top. But that's just us, each firms different i guess.
I've got a large collection of the blueprint type plans at home awaiting inspiration too!
Posted by: akun | 27 January 2010 at 12:38 PM
The images you have there are bluelines, not blueprints. Bluelines were pretty easy to print, a fairly inexpensive machine in an architect's office and a few minutes of interns time.
Blueprints are whitish lines on a dark blue field and are usually far older. The technology for printing bluelines replaced the even more toxic blueprint printing.
In each case the source paper was light sensitive, especially the blueprint paper, and allowed for differing levels of blue depending on the thickness of the original material use for printing. Cutting and gluing multiple layers of semi-transparent vellum or mylar gave off beautiful results.
Posted by: Mark Gerwing | 09 February 2010 at 10:49 PM