University life is a test, the first step in adult life, the moment when, at least for us architects, you realize that every day is a challenge. We don’t learn how to behave once out of the protected school world, but we learn how to fight.
Fighting for our ideas, to excel, not to fail, to team up, to maintain one’s identity despite the need to team up, ultimately for everything, but it is the fight for our Projects that will become our best weapon. To achieve which you need to have acquired some fundamental notions during your growth path.
Build your way to do it
Creating your creative process: the way your imagination comes out with the design idea, and the building takes shape is your unique signature that will distinguish every creation. This process is much more important for an architect than the achievement of finishing construction, this generates buildings that could also be the result of luck and different circumstances.
However, a correct, clear, and strong creative system is a guarantee of excellent results. That is what creates good architecture! Your process will grow and change depending on your experiences and is the most valuable thing you gain from one design studio and take with you to the next.
Make it clear
Clarity is fundamental, not only project one in terms of design because this is a technical tool and is not always effective with the clients, but also the clarity of the verbal exhibition. The architect must be able to draw the project in the minds of customers using dialectics, so it must be clear. If you can not explain your ideas in terms that the interlocutor understands, then you can have the happiest hand in the world and have produced the best project, but that won’t help.
Some architects make the explanation too complex and often meaningless through the over-sought-after use of language in an attempt to gain recognition and respect. However, good professionals who know their area and their projects know well how to communicate their knowledge to others using clear and understandable language to everyone.
Not only plans
It is important for the success of a project to draw while simultaneously managing plants, sections and not least perspectives. A good architect works going back and forth between these drawings so that each of them can bring specific spatial information to others. This is very important because it is the spatial perception that users will have of the building so you must never lose sight of the three-dimensional space that is being created.
Not you, them
If you aim to create a prestigious building you have to put aside your fantasies and let your hand and mind be guided by the conditions dictated by the project itself. It must be sewn on to the needs of the nature of the site, the construction method, the interweaving of public and private relations, the structure, the aesthetic opportunities inherent in building materials, and many other form factors such as the management of lighting and natural ventilation, the desire to frame the landscape, etc.
Make your architecture suffer from the main form factors, not the other way around.
Just do something
Despite the careful design, the constant interaction with engineers and manufacturers to prevent possible problems, the attention to detail, and the careful management of the construction site the projects do not always go according to plan, and you are ready to face unforeseen problems. In this case, when a problem is so overwhelming that it is almost paralyzing, do not vacillate and face the situation firmly, and if necessary, take the pencil in your hand and draw, although it is still not clear to you what to do. Drawing is not only a way of representing a design solution; it is in itself a way to know the problem you are trying to solve.
Also, always keep in mind that you know many things as a professional but you must maintain the humility and awareness that other professionals and workers with their experience can be of extreme help in getting to the solution of the problem.
Trait d’union
An architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows all about one thing. The architect is a generalist, not just a specialist: he is the conductor of the project, and the construction site, not a virtuoso who perfectly plays an instrument, he coordinates all the instruments.
As a professional, an architect coordinates a team of professionals that includes engineers, designers, contractors, and specialists from other disciplines. In those multidisciplinary contexts is usual that the interests of the team members will compete with each other. An architect must know enough about each subject to negotiate and synthesize competing requests while honouring the customer’s needs and the integrity of the entire project.
