Learning To See Through Direct Observation and Drawing: Inspiration From Laurie Olin
“To sit still is to see the world as it is, not as we would have it” – Laurie Olin
Filmmaker Gina Angelone describes the title of her documentary Sitting Still as coming from landscape architect Laurie Olin’s conviction that “one of the best methods devised to learn from the world is to actually be in it and sit still.” The film explores the philosophy and work of Olin, a National Medal of Arts recipient whose designs include Bryant Park in New York, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the Washington Monument Grounds.
During a screening I attended at Lehigh University, followed by a Q&A with Olin himself and Lehigh’s Chair of Art, Architecture, and Design, Nick Sawicki, the architect articulated something profound about his drawing practice: you don’t truly understand something until you attempt to draw it. You might glance at a person sitting across from you, but when you put pencil to paper, you’re forced to see their shape, their posture, the arch of their eyebrows, their demeanor. Each time you look down at your pad and back up again, you discover something new, details that were invisible moments before.
As Olin explains it: “Drawing makes you sit still and be somewhere, and you learn from looking… drawing is an extension of seeing.” He describes drawing as “a remarkable event that engages the senses and mind with physical reality and the moment in time and place.”
This concept lies at the heart of what I call “direct observation,” a principle I explore in my book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean. While I originally taught this principle in the context of observing work processes and organizational systems, Olin reminds us that it applies to learning anything in life.
There are different levels of observation. Receiving secondhand information is one thing. Seeing something directly is another. But truly observing requires a deeper engagement where we’re genuinely trying to understand how things work.
Drawing serves as a tool for this deeper observation. When I teach this principle, I encourage people to sketch what they see, regardless of skill or technique. The act of trying to capture something visually forces you to confront its essential structure. When describing workflow, for instance, I can use words to capture events. But when I start to draw the system, I naturally focus on the fundamental system architecture rather than just the sequence of activities. As Olin notes, drawing forces you “to see in particular ways.”
Moving pen across paper, whether it’s a dry-erase marker on a whiteboard or ink on a sketch pad, reveals the underlying constructs that words alone might miss. As we draw, we dig deeper, gaining insight with each line.
In the documentary, Olin recalls his method for studying Central Park: “I drew the whole damn thing.” Through this exhaustive practice of observation, he understood the masterwork of Olmsted and Vaux in a way that walking through or reading about the park never could have provided.
Olin describes drawing as helping you “see…what is good about the good…to discern what is really good, and to recognize the subtleties.” This is precisely the value of direct observation combined with the discipline of drawing. It trains us to notice what we would otherwise miss.
Whether you’re interested in landscape architecture, organizational systems, or simply understanding the world around you more deeply, Olin’s practice offers a valuable lesson: sit still, observe carefully, and draw what you see. The act of drawing itself becomes a method of learning, a way of truly seeing rather than merely looking.