‘Architecture cannot be taught, but it can be learnt’ I was told in my first year of college, but it took me long five years to understand this. Life in an architecture college can be compared to a stained-glass window. Up close, you see the world in a single color; you smile if you like the color, else you frown. But the actual beauty comes through only when you step back and see the larger picture.
I’ve been faced with several trying situations in my student life where I’ve broken down to bitter tears under the intolerable pressure of a design studio or stood transfixed and terrified seeing my model being thrown out of the window or that unfortunate jury day when I stood paralyzed in crippling panic. But today, five years down the line, I know I can have clients or contractors shouting at me from all four sides and still play badminton without even a hint of a frown on my face. I can have my boss trashing my designs time and again to get the best out of me, and not feel bad about it. I can stand in front of an audience and present my scheme without the tiniest drop of perspiration on my neck. In that sense, the greatest learning architecture has offered is to ‘believe in yourself’. But that isn’t all. There are several tricks and trades to be learnt from an architectural college.
Jack of all trades, master of one
Architecture provides exposure to the multiple aspects and multidisciplinary nature of design. It is good to be comfortable with all of these and have a basic know-how to deal with them. But to be able to establish your expertise in a certain field is of utmost importance. Mastering a skill not only gave me an upper hand in group works but also helped me understand my own interests and identify a prospect in the field.
Communication is the key
Effective communication of design ideas is as important as having a good design idea. Hence communication is a necessary skill to be learned in college, and this may be written verbal, diagrammatic, or even virtual communication. But a common contradiction I’ve observed is that
when talking about communication in architecture, it is often assumed to be an interchange between architects. However, when the space is to be designed for non-architects, the communication should be such that people outside the architecture fraternity can understand. This not only trains you to connect with your clients better but also instigates a sense of architectural or artistic thinking in the public at large.
Design is not problem-solving
This is a statement I’d been hearing since my first year and every time I was told this, my Elementalist mind would respond with,” Then what exactly is design if not problem-solving?”. Well, now I know. Design is when you bring out the best from a space or a block of wood or a piece of cloth or patch of land to satisfy a certain condition. All our lives, we’ve been trained to believe that a question has only one right answer. 1+1 = 2; not 1, not 11 but 2. But architecture has taught me otherwise. The same brief can bring about a hundred schemes and all of them can be functional. There is no right design or wrong design in architecture, there are only better designs and worse designs.
Swimming in strange waters
One thing about college life that every architecture student will agree upon is the fact that architecture takes you places. But it does not end there. Architecture not only just takes you places, but also teaches you to survive there. Staying in a new place with a new culture, new people, new lifestyle, language, food, clothing, etc. opens up my mind to the prospect of a whole new way of life that exists in the same world that I live in. Travel has made me tolerant of other ideologies and mindsets. Even if they do not resonate with mine, I can now accept them with more ease and can understand someone else’s perspective better than I could before.
Introspection
Ambition is often referred to as something that one must have in order to be successful. Well, architecture has taught me that to be successful introspection should precede ambition. We must be fully aware of what we are and what are our strongpoints before we conclude on what we want to be because not everyone has the same skillsets. Nobody can read you better than you can, so simply pay attention to your own behavior and find what motivates you.
Health is wealth
There are times when you put your submissions and attendance before your health. All-nighters before a submission is a very common trend among architecture students. However, all-nighters have more than often had a negative impact on my personal as well as academic life. Productivity often reduces to almost zero after 12 in the night, hence anything you make after this time is going to the trashed the next morning. Also, sitting up till late hours has messed up my biological clock multiple times and this is a very dangerous experience. No submission is more important than your health.
Whatsoever, the most important lesson one needs to learn is how to be your own teacher. Because after all ‘Architecture cannot be taught, it can only be learnt’.
