When asked what we have learned as an architecture student, the first thing that comes in our mind, I suppose, is ‘rush’; getting huge assignments done in a short period with a level of perfection that requires special skills which we learned through 5 years of Architectural Education. As sarcastic as it sounds, those nerve-racking sleepless nights taught us the importance of time management, which in many cases comes handy, especially to manage the huge work pressure that architects have to face during project delivery in our offices or during free-lancing. So, it is safe to say that the pressure we have been through during our academic lives prune us for what our future holds for us.
Let us be honest; when asked, an overwhelming number of newcomers in their first years tell that sketching and painting skills have brought them into architecture. But is that enough?
The answer is definitely a “NO”!
Painting is a form of visualization and to be an architect even though it is important, it is never enough; adequate knowledge about the structure, materials, climate, understanding human psychology is much more important. Most important of all is the knowledge of history, for without knowing the past the future cannot be perceived. A good design can only come up when you get to know everything it is related to, no hypothetical data or misleading information can result in a good design.
The beginning is always exciting, we get to know the basics about the profession and design is not introduced to us, but then all of a sudden, we are given a design assignment that we don’t have any clue about. These are the moments we seek the help of the college library which provides us with the information we need and we gradually realize the importance of good design. In an age of social media, we google our needs, watch youtube videos and become aware that we will be introduced to working with softwares like AutoCAD, Revit, Sketchup which actually make us happy. Am I not right? The ridiculous amount of hours spent on hand drafting with T-scales, and the resulting back pain finally coming to a stop!
Even though the idea seems marvelous at that time, I can assure you, in later years, we all crave for beautiful hand-drafted sheets and admire our old works of resilience and patience.
But on close inspection, we see how naive we used to be and how much more we have learned after all these years and we start finding our faults. I believe that’s the moment when we are supposed to understand what we have successfully achieved to pick up about design. It’s quite natural that we won’t be perfect but realizing our own mistakes is a huge step towards excellence.
Throughout the course, we learn about different subjects like art appreciation, sociology, the theory of architecture and many others but fail to understand the relevance and importance they hold until we reach the time of our internship and then provide a dissertation and then our ’honorary’ thesis.
Another subject that many students (including myself) had trouble with is structures; the tough sums were stressful enough yet when we finally understand how easy it is, we have already reached the final year! Being an avid sketcher, I have always prioritized sketching instead of 3d visualization by softwares, but software saves a lot of time during crucial moments of design submission, or is it just me?! But in our final year, when we compile everything that we have gathered from all these years and put it into our thesis, it feels like an achievement, all those efforts, classes, technical skills that we have learned finally coming into action!
Studying all these subjects, we also better understand our interests which further help us with our higher studies. Now when I have finally got the degree, what do I miss most about college? The answer will be the choice to design freely, without any restrictions, because even though we tend to lose our minds during design submissions in our academic lives, after becoming architects, we no longer get the privilege of designing what our imagination leads us to, instead, we get restricted in different ways.
There is absolutely no doubt that our perception of architecture has changed a lot since our first year. Even though we have learned so much and have realized the amount of effort it takes to come up with design sheets, an architect’s life is not just about preparing them sitting inside the confined boundaries of an office. In fact, this beautiful and versatile profession provides a person with an opportunity to explore their inner creative side and helps them think out of the box and see the world from their own perspective. Afterall there can’t be any end to learning and architecture happens to provide the perfect vision for all those who like to slide away from the conservative boundaries of our so-called education system!
