The Moment when Students Start Understanding the Design Process or Processing the Design
What could have been architecture school without the professors’ critiques, the studio environment, and three cups of coffee a day? How was your first architecture semester?
Probably, the first semester in architecture school is the most remarkable. In this semester, students explore the academic system and discover what involves the architecture student’s lifestyle, which operates differently from other school’s departments. The memories start with the first day of school; when students opened the classroom door holding only their backpack, it was the first and last day students comfortably opened the door. After the first day of design class, opening the classroom door needed a skillful strategy due to student’s hands were holding craft materials, drawing storage tubes, and models. Once the student accessed the academic space, or better known as the studio, is where all the magic happens. The studio is where architecture is analyzed in every aspect, and undergraduates start to build their education from different sources, such as institutions’ instructors, studio environment, and presentations. If we go back to the definition of architecture, Merriam-Webster Dictionary refers to this term as the art or science of building. Therefore, architecture students not only apply this concept to design projects but also build skills in design communication, public speaking, problem-solving, time management, and professional development. During the freshman year, students understand to explore the world through their imagination and learn how to propose aesthetic architectural solutions through drawings and models. In their first semester, each student experiences a great lesson about architecture school, starting from due dates like the best motivation to keep working on projects, until how coffee could become your loyal friend.
The first day of architecture school was kind of exciting and intriguing at the same time; the student environment was completely different from how regular classes could look. In contrast to lecture classes, students democratically select their desks and drawing tables. The four-wall space, design studio, was the bright lighted battlefield for design students who spent day and night working on projects. In the morning, it all started with the pinup; it is a modality of presenting work on boars. Before pinning up drawing, the clear pins become invisible; if they were not enough pins, we had to ask a classmate or even start exploring the boards and ground to find nails. Once the professor arrived at the studio, the silence was the loudest noise in the building, some students were quiet for respect, but others unconsciously were falling asleep because of all-nighters. The class’ review was not only about showing up and telling, and it was more about preparing, showing the process, and telling the design class your concept. Over time, students started collecting process models and drawing; this behavior is what I used to call Mother Nature’s Wonders. This phenomenon demonstrates that ideas need work since all rough architectural designs start as a tadpole. It depends on the student to transform the tadpole into a frog or make a miracle and produce a prince charming. Everything in architecture classes is relative when it comes to concepts, design strategies and time. Especially when it comes to time, it is an essential factor in finals week.
After a few weeks of learning about architecture’s organization principles, basics of 3D modeling software and scales, the due date was closer than we thought, just a week away. During the final week, the studio was a theatrical scenario for architectural students; this is the result of spending several hours at the studio where students gradually created a diverse academic community. The best part of the studio environment is that each student adopts a personality feature, and this person’s characteristic makes the studio environment memorable. These kinds of architecture students are described as: the social supervisor, this student spends about 85% of his/her time in studio socializing and discussing architecture; part of the discussion boards include guessing who are the guest jurors and feedback sessions about other students’ projects. The second category is the architecture student is the one who is already in the architecture practice, this person is an extra diligent undergraduate who is involved in almost of kinds of student’s organization offered by the school, the student has its project completed a week before the deadline, and he/ she is already starting to develop the upcoming plan without any instruction from the professor; this a person has extraordinary knowledge about the profession and has never experienced an all-nighter. The fourth kind of design student is the Frankenstein student, he/she is the one who has borrowed students materials and drafting tools to create an innovative project, this student has a unique skill to socialize and produce excellent work at the same time, as a result, these students have created a monster, his/her project. The last-minute student, this student has an exceptional capacity to complete the final design project the night before the presentation, this student doesn’t save files in the USB drive and luckily recover them from the recycle bin, has a particular condition of productive procrastination; and has trusted coffee the entire time.
Finally, the mysterious architecture student, who keeps secret the project he/she has been working on by own; these students have special artistic skills and have witnessed every studio’s event, and have a unique ability to take rest over materials and drawing boards. All students described commute in a single working space, which is commonly confused with a student residence where the lights are not turned off.
In finals week an architectural studio is more like New York City, The City That Never Sleeps, but in this case, is The Studio That Never Sleeps. Students have worked for numerous continuous hours dealing with computer crashes, broken printers, and USB drives with low storage capacity. At the end of the process, they have completed their work for the most expected day, the presentation day. The date when students attired professionally to demonstrate what they have worked on, such as, design’s inspiration, metaphorical concepts, construction process, and project’s final product. In addition, the design professor invites faculty, alumni, architects in the practice and the last-minute celebrity juror. Presentation day is The Big Day for the design class, it is when the students walk by the door listening to Queen’s song, We Are the Champions song and birds are singing aligned with you. Presentation day is the day of the final pinup, the day of the last cup of coffee, and the day you realize you forgot to draw two sections.
