If there is one thing we all can agree and reminisce about, it is how much importance we gave our design studios throughout our architecture school even though we had multiple other subjects that needed the same significance. It was basically like our first home as we spent most of our hours in the studio. Working, eating, sleeping, daydreaming, everything happened within the studio. It was a place of nonstop intense production where classmates eventually turned into a family as we spent more time with them as the years passed by. The experiences you go through as an architecture student in the studio every day are some of the most bizarre memories you would carry throughout your career as an architect.
Every design studio consists of diverse characters that we can all relate to. When you walk into the studio late, sleep-deprived yet managed to get a cup of coffee on the way, you see that one professor who argues and has a counter-argument for their ideas. You notice the students who said they have not got much done on the group chat the previous night ready to present all their work printed on time. There are those few who have enough work but whine they don’t have much done when there are students who really don’t have any work sit quietly and watch them cry. We all have had classmates who walk around procrastinating, contemplating life, and looking for inspiration asking “what are you doing for your project because I don’t know what I’m doing for mine.” How do we forget the one who goes around the studio asking “Are you done?” Like no, I’m not done. Would you like to draw my section for me? There are the sleepers, the ones who make models while the professor asks for technical drawings, the dreamers, the fake workers, the ones whose eyes are on the project while their ears are glued to Netflix.
You know what is the best part about architecture studios though? The nights before the juries, the inseparable all-nighters. The long list of names and fights for the laser cutting machines with your fellow comrades, juniors and seniors.
The promises we all made at the beginning of the semester that we would finish work on time this semester before the jury. The to-do lists and the plan of action that keeps changing as we get closer to the final day. Right, when you remember you have not saved your work but you would when you finish this particular detail, your AutoCAD crashes and you lose your lifetimes work. Damn! I should have saved it when I remembered to. But the good news? Your frustration, disappointment and the need to complete your work on time makes you redraw all of that in half the time it took you the first time. I would say it’s not time you wasted but the time you gained experience. You start off the semester being so excited but it is during these weeks you would question if you should quit architecture. Come on, we have all been through this every single semester. The amount of time we spent on Pinterest marveling at Zaha Hadid’s architecture for inspiration and walking around corridors looking at our seniors’ work for motivation, we should have been working on that site plan that we kept pushing till the last minute.
Then comes the final day of the semester. The Jury. I still remember all the squabble for pushpins to pin up your work, the excuses we gave our professors to cover-up for classmates who were yet to print their work and the last minute preparation to come up with a “decent concept” that makes sense. You know the students who were cribbing they don’t have any work? They are the ones who come up with videos about their project on this day. The panel of critics appreciate physical models made of sticks and rubber bands and forget the amazing models with details made of expensive acrylic and MDF. This is the day the professors who’ve seen your work throughout the semester take sides of the jurors and roast you together. “So where is the north?” asks a professor. One forgets to add the north sign and the panel ends their whole jury! But there is another who has a lot of work missing and just a masterpiece-render pinned to the wall which gets immense positive feedback and appreciation. We’ve all had an experience where the panel of jurors don’t let you speak during the jury and you stood there feeling your presentation going downhill, having no power to stop it. By the time they let you speak, all you have to say is “so basically..umm…over here..this is the section” followed by crying to your friend that they just don’t understand and you had it all figured out. Thinking back, we do realize now that our professors and jurors do know what they’re talking about and every argument was an opportunity to develop stronger reasoning and opinions.
North arrow, scale bar and line weights are the start point of discussions in design juries. I had all of those on my design panel. Watching the jurors react and criticize other students before mine, my legs started shaking when it was my turn. As they were waiting for me to start my presentation, I was out of breath, nervous and I ended up crying. After a few minutes, they started questioning me softly about my design but then came the usual question, “Where is the north sign?”
