An architectural college is exactly a place they had warned us about. Once got into it, one can experience various vehemences that they didn’t know existed in them. For several of us, the words – architecture college, opens up millions of memories. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that ‘we did it!’. But it does sometimes give me a chill when I think how did I do it anyway?
This rollercoaster ride of ups and downs (in my case, a fair share of downs) often comes with months of preparation to face multiple reviews and the dreadful final juries, hundreds of hours spent in front of the laptop screen only to see an error report before you had saved the file, the physically toxic relationship of model making and the late-night designing works only to get a redo in the morning. In between cursing the day when you decided to join architecture and finally completing the course, five years of college, flew in the blink of an eye.
5 Years Down the Memory Lane
When looking back, we realise that the initial semesters were undemanding. But as the semesters progressed, I understood why people tend to warn you before entering an architecture college. You get impartial criticism from everywhere for your lack of knowledge or skill in drafting, for modelling, maybe for poor conceptualizing of your design and also for software skills.
But the real heart-breaking moment was when you worked till early morning and when you went to submit the sheets, the professors rejected it because you missed your deadline by 5 minutes. There was a time when I had pride in myself for having a decent skill when it came to presentations. My professors and classmates nominate my name first and usually, I will be the first from my studio to present in front of a jury and that to a common panel.
Now, one who has attended a common panel will only know how petrifying it can be. eventually, I comprehended that this talent of mine is a curse! Incomplete sheets for the presentation were one of my biggest incubi.
Documentation!
This one particular episode happened when we were in our third semester. Documentation, one of the easiest subjects to clear during the architecture course. The subject usually asks the students to document and conduct a study upon any historically significant monument or place. Hence, for this project, to document a Jewish Synagogue, our class was made into several smaller groups and each group was assigned with a task like drafting plans, sections, elevations, conducting a material study and so on. Now, the hitch was that we had to make groups ourselves.
As we know, to make a group work, there should be at least one person in the group who is ready to work effortlessly. In ours, woefully there wasn’t even one. The day when we’re supposed to make these groups, I was absent. The very next day I came to know that I was in the elevation team with two of my very good friends. The three of us adorn each other but knowing our group very well, we were slightly unhappy about all the hectic works waiting for us.
A couple of months passed and after a series of re-doing the hand-drawn sheets, we were finally near to the completion stage. A week ago, before the final documentation jury, we realized that our drawings were contradictory to the section details of the building. Our group entered into a panic stage. The next whole week was a blur as we were trying to complete our drawings. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish and had to put up incomplete sheets for the jury.
The incomplete sheets affected our presentation and the assessors commented on our works by providing us with our very first arrear of architectural college life! We were devastated. The following year, we were asked to re-appear for the documentation jury with our junior batch. This time, I wasn’t scared and presented the sheets with confidence. When the results of the re-jury came, excluding me, the rest of my groupmates didn’t clear. Our classmates found this funny as we all had the same sheets to present. Later on, due to some technical reasons, it was stated that my groupmates too had cleared the jury.
Some say that the college phase changes you for the better and that one truly finds themselves i.e., who they want to become, what is their passion, and whatnot. With each passing year, you learn things that you thought would never make you the person you have become. A strong, more confident, and optimistic version of yourself.
We turned this experience of losing one of the papers of our architectural course, into a funny memory about which we still talk about and laugh. You know when people say that sometimes being with the right people can change your worst time into a memorable one. Finding that right tribe of yours is very crucial when you are in for an extraordinary ride like architecture.
