Jacques Pochoy
Architect D.P.L.G - Urban Planner
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Jacques Pochoy
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Beach house
Way back in memory lane--or was
it yesterday?--I was one of the happy few who had a funny box
that did not really look like a computer. It could even get a
shoe drawing printed in the middle of a business letter! Alas
MacPaint was not enough for the dreams of a young architect.
One day, I saw on a friend screen's exactly the sort of drawings
I wanted. Two hours later I bought my own PowerDraw 1.0. Since
then, the architect grew older and the software wiser.
As many pseudo "hackers", I try all that's new in my
realm. I often spend a full night rebuilding a project with some
so-called 'full CAD' package, only to discover that what seemed
a "sooo attractive" feature, already existed in PowerDraw,
and that it was so much simplier and subtle at the same time in
my usual electronic drafting board, so I've 'sticked to it'.
Of course, I'm the usual 'never satisfied' customer. I dream every
day that 'my' software is a lightyear in advance on its time.
So, I phone to the extraordinary guy who sold me the first PowerDraw,
Michel Jean-François, the wizard who became, years being,
a true friend, and we discuss for hours on why can't we have such
a tool, and every year (I suppose) Engineered Software gets pages
of ideas. I'm very proud that some tools or modifications went
through and now are built-in, and I'm patient enough to wait for
the proper time for the others to come out (well, maybe not patient
enough)!
In the meantime, some nice people stepped in my daydreaming: Richard
Dotto, responsible of the Architecture module, and THE Alfred
Scott the marvellous author of WildTools!
The trouble with architects is that they are weird people! Especially
this side of the Atlantic where we don't believe in norms! Each
of us wants his own way in drawing and detailing, some go for
arrows, other for bubbles etc. Worst of all some (a few I hope)
don't even know how to draw! (Usually you can recognise them because
they use an antique, but very well known, CAD wheelbarrow and
if questioned, they answer: "I won't do such drawing, I don't
need it"--in other words "my software can't do it, and
I can't bypass it.")
"Bypassing" is maybe one of the best words I can find
for PowerCADD. Because there is not only one way to draw a design,
but several! And if you don't find the exact tool, well, you get
it done anyhow! You can design a screwdriver (very useful for
Alfred's collection of screws), a house, a building, a village,
a city and why not a country!
The basic fact that you can 'juggle' with scales and that each
line drawn is just what it's supposed to be, a line, not a 'wall'
or any other complex structure, well, it can then be in your mind
whatever you want, an axis, a view, a path, a fairy tale, and
why not a 'wall to be'!
That is a great help in conceiving things, simply and quickly
in a troubled time, where most people want to 'automate sensibility'!
I'm writing this at my 'office'--a PowerBook on a desk, surrounded
by the usual mess at hands-reach that goes with architects. I
do have a roll of tracing paper (the yellow sort of thing)! I'm
realizing that it's the same I bought three years ago and it's
still quite 'new'! As a matter of fact, I start directly my designing
with a scanner and PowerCADD.
My first imprecise sketches are feverishly traced on the screen
and after some nights and cubic meters of coffee, they evolve
in the usual but necessary plans! The results of this "way
of working" you can find here and on my website.
As you may have surmised, I'm French and my English is not as
perfect as I would dream of--so please be a wee bit tolerant of
my gallicisms.
Jacques Pochoy
Jacques Pochoy
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Imaginative, obsessive, driven, genius... these are only a few of the words that come to mind when I think of Jacques Pochoy, and a mere glance at some of the work shown here says it all. Few people have pushed the limits of what can be done with PowerCADD and WildTools more than Jacques, and he does it all on a PowerBook with a Wacom tablet. And if you question the wisdom of doing it that way, be prepared to listen to another point of view! Many thanks to Michel Jean-François of Abvent (the PowerCADD distributor in France) for introducing me to Jacques, for his hospitality in France, and for many good ideas that have made it into WildTools. Alfred Scott |
Jacques Pochoy was born in India, Calcutta to be precise, in 1953. After following most of his studies through the Snail Mail system (no French school in Calcutta, he finally made it to France, where after a 'try' in medical studies, he found the French Beaux-Arts much more interesting.
An architect in 1981, he was in a junior partnership, then decided to fly solo. He started teaching at the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture of Paris in 1991 (254 Bvd Raspail, Paris 75014) and at the Ecole Supérieure de la Nature et du Paysage in Blois since 1995 (5-7, rue des Grands champs, Blois 41028). He is following a Doctorate of Urban Planning at the Institut des Hautes Etudes d'Amérique Latine in Paris.
Despite all what was said above, he's not a "computer maniac" but is just an ordinary man of his time, trying to get some shelters done for people of the human kind. (At least, that's what Jacques says!)
And he likes cats! Telephone/Fax: 01 55 42 95 59, Portable: 06 11 40 24 15 Email: Jacques.Pochoy@ArchiVue.net
For more examples of Jacques Pochoy's work, please visit his website.
Architecture Datchas Motel Covered
Market
Boat House Site Plans House Centre
Polytechnique
