The paper draws upon the changes brought up by the use of the zoom command into architectural practice. Zoom is compared to the analogue methods traditionally applied for the development of an architectural project. Due to the increasing immediacy of experience in the digital working environment, some routines have become so repetitive, instantaneous and automatic that their influential significance in the design process, also in the end result, is often overlooked. Thus, a detailed analysis of the changes appointed to the computer is pending, so that the historical transition from analogue to digital would be compared to the gradual shifting of the most common assumptions about design: namely, how the extensive use of commands such as copy, paste, delete, zoom, and practices such as the organizing of elements in layers and groups, have affected the design process. It is stated that a radical transformation of architectural design has happened primarily because the drawing processes have changed, as there have also been ongoing researches on the emerging possibilities due to digital technology in the recording, digitalization, diagrammatic expression, reordering and evaluation of data, also algorithmic design, digital manufacturing and material research, to name a few. In the above wider context, the zoom command is examined. Methodologically, zoom is compared to the analogue drawing methods and techniques, such as the paper drawing and the physical model. The inquiry points out the impact of the zoom command upon the mostly common drawing conventions, as a consequence of viewing the object in different scales onto the computer screen from extreme close up to a very large distance. In that sense, the paper examines which issues are facilitated, resolved, even cancelled with zoom, also how the digital tool may be superior, or fall short to its analogue counterparts, finally the emerging areas of research
