Hello again!

I’m now halfway through my second semester as an architecture design student. Its been three months since I updated (I’m really bad at this! Well, I am busy…) but I am now on Spring Break, and will be able to better update and catch you up on this semester and everything I’ve learned so far. That is my goal. Today, I want to share with you what I’ve learned/realized about studio culture, rather than about architectural/design theory…

People
There’s this notion non-arch people have about architecture students. That we live there. That we smell. That we are the reason an ambulance shows up on campus 75% of the time and that more pizza is delivered to our building than to the dorms. A good bit of this is true…..but for the most part, we are well groomed individuals who do have lives away from our work spaces, and have decent diets. But we do keep band aids on our toolboxes. We also know all of the best coffee places, what restaurants are open late, and how to make a sturdy plate from cardboard. We are simply hard working, creative “weird” people. H.S. Thompson didn’t know he was talking about us when he said “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” We are professional weird people, “uber geeks,” as one professor puts it. We find the “moments” in a structure, and analyze it. We look for shadows and light, and try to find out what makes it do that, or how to manipulate it. We dumpster dive. There are a lot of small things that we never noticed before, but can’t help but to see now, and we appreciate it. Architecture students know how to observe a space and identify its details that some “normal” people don’t even realize exist. We’re the ones on campus with our faces against the brick, ears to the concrete, and in Atlanta, we’re looking up walking into things.

There are those kids. Then there are those, that “scrape” by, just floating through the program, and never get excited about a project, and work defensively. They create animosity in the studio, which can ruin the creative atmosphere. They are also the most likely to steal your things. These students are the hardest to work with. If you are planning on being an architecture student, you have to love design. You have to be curious. And dedicated. If you can’t draw, that’s ok. (Refer to Frank Gehry). If you don’t know the names and work of every Pritzker prize winning architect, that’s ok too. All you need is to be weird…

Studio
Studio is mythical. No, there isn’t a party every night. Most of us enjoy studio, and being in the company of our friends that we’re stuck with for 5+ years; but we’re not up there to mess around. Some people play their music too loudly, or talk too loudly, or use their sander or dremel while you’re trying to sleep…but you can just crawl under your desk with your ear phones in, playing soft music to drown everyone/everything out, and get that delicious sleep….

People steal stuff. I think architecture students are the most intact with their primitive hunter-gatherer instinct. You’ll be sitting there, cutting some chipboard and reach for a new Xacto blade…..and its gone. Cardboard mysteriously goes missing….as does your HB lead or scissors. Light bulbs have also been known to go missing. Its all quite curious….

Reviews
Final reviews aren’t so bad. (Those are typically what follows an all-nighter.) The format is like this: professor(s), and at least one outside reviewer (typically an architect working professionally, or a retired professor) come in. Everyone in studio pins up what they’ve poured their blood, sweat, and tears–often literally–into, and wait for their turn to have their argument torn to pieces. Sometimes these goes well. More often than not, actually. But I learn more during my reviews about design, than I do while sitting in lecture or reading. Reviews are often the only chance you get to see or hear what your fellow studio mates are doing with the same design problem posed to you.
The reviewers, and other students, comment on your work. Often its “what if” questions, which are the best. They help you to see your own design in a new light and a different perspective. You probably won’t touch the same model again (you might even have to resist the urge to break it down and recycle parts), but you remember the insights from past reviews to help you challenge your argument, and run it through the paces before the next one. I’ll probably address reviews again in a later post.