Sarah ChangeziArchitecture · Bombay

Sheet 08.4IdentityPencil, then markerAt the scale of a stamp

Legal Learning Tree

A pair of scales that grows into a tree. Sketch by sketch the beam tips into a branch, the post thickens into a trunk and leaves come out above the pans, until the balance and the tree are one drawing, inked in a single weight of line.

Pages
2 in faint pencil, and the mark in black marker
On the page
US LEGAL LEARNING TREE · ULLT · ULT
Studies
Nine scales, from a balance on a stand to a tree drawn up on a grid

01The inked mark, traced for the screen.

Scales that sprout.

The pencil page starts with scales as anyone would draw them: an ornate balance on a stand, then a plainer one tipped on a single post. Then stems come up above the beam. The beam tilts and becomes a branch, the branch puts out leaves, and the scales end up hanging in a full tree. Then I pulled it back and drew it up on a grid.

Pencil: an ornate pair of scales on a turned stand.
Pencil: a plain pair of scales, its beam tipped, on a single post.
Pencil: level scales on a post with a splayed foot, stems and leaves rising above the beam.
Pencil: the beam of the scales tilted like a branch, leaves above it.
Pencil: tilted scales on a post, leaves scattered along the beam and above.
Pencil: a pair of scales hanging from the bough of a leafy tree.
Pencil: a spreading tree with hanging roots, the scales slung from a low bough.
Pencil: a tree with a round crown, two scale pans hanging from its lower boughs.
Pencil: the scales and tree drawn up on a triangular construction grid, leaves set in pairs.

01 / 10

Four words, then four letters, then three.

All nine studies share one page with the name, lettered three times in open capitals. Twice it’s cut down to initials: ULLT under the spreading tree, ULT under the mark drawn up on the grid. Down the right edge, the mark is tried small, four times over.

US LEGAL LEARNING TREE

Faint pencil page: ornate and tilted scales, trees whose branches carry scale pans, a constructed tree-scales on a triangular grid, US LEGAL LEARNING TREE lettered three times, ULLT and ULT, and four small versions of the mark down the right edge.
02The page of studies, in pencil.

The gavel

The other sign for law.

A second page tries the gavel instead of the scales. Its head sits in the crown of a tree, with the handle for a trunk; it stands on a plinth like a trophy; and once it lies on its block with a handle that tapers to a point, like a pencil. The ink kept the scales.

Faint pencil page: a gavel beside a tree, gavel heads set into the crowns of trees with the handles as trunks, a gavel on a plinth, and a gavel on its block with a long tapering handle.
03Gavels growing into trees.

Identity study, undated.