Every individual’s life can be divided into two phases, BC & AC; Before college and after college. Especially a design / architecture college where a student is bombarded with multiple sessions of seminars, nervously managing through jury visits and VIVAs, breaking their heads to think of a concept that is brand new and out-of-the box, crashing at a friend’s place to pull all-nighters just days before the project submission, painfully working through last minute redos and what not. All of this, while managing to gather as much knowledge and inspiration as possible. Although we complained for the most part of it, we did successfully manage to complete what was one the most significant steps we took towards our dreams and goals. It would be a lie if we say we didn’t enjoy ourselves a lot, getting inspired, dreaming of changing the face of architecture and designing something that would most definitely have been one the significant buildings of the 21st century. It was the inspiring stories behind the great designs that made me fall in love with the world of design and architecture.
We had the most fun and work during the project submissions, especially the last week where our classrooms would look like our art studio where every nook and corner was filled with charts & sheets, our miniature models lying everywhere and every pinboard filled with so many ideas and designs. I love the part where we took ourselves seriously and tapped into our artsy side to dig through our own potential. The feeling of contentment we experience when submitting our first project. That might have been the first taste of real success we might have had which gave us the push to move forward which made us believe in ourselves. In that one last week we my classmates and I) shared everything starting from the anabond, foam board to the misery, laughter and much more. Hard times really do bring people together.
One of the years, the projects we had to do had to be selected from any of the ongoing architectural/design competitions at that time. It was absolute fun as one competition cannot be chosen by two people of the same class. So, we made sure to scour through every architectural website available to find the one we liked that wasn’t already taken. As part of the process we were to analyse the brief provided for the competition and come up with justification of how it would be a significant part of the design world and what ideas do they have for successfully attempting to adhere to the brief and complete the design. But there was a slight twist to it though. As we started our research and understanding on our choice of competition, we were informed that the ones questioning and offering the seal of approval would be a team of our fellow classmates. That definitely made things interesting. So, the whole thing was basically this: there will be a team of 3 people as a jury who will be constantly changing for every two people. The two people would provide their argument respectively to the jury team and the team would select whose argument was more convincing, relevant and intriguing making them the winner of the two. The other has to rebuild the argument and submit.
On the first round I got to be a member of the jury along with two of my classmates. The two of the competing projects were a museum that was to be designed against terrorism and a spa that was to be designed for people dealing with sleep deprivation and insomnia. We were extremely looking forward to the design-off. Do you know how students feel the juries are extremely criticizing, attacking and ruthless? Well, we were worse. We were drunk with power and once we knew what we would have to face a similar situation we became destructive. It was one of the most exciting times of our final year.
Once the competition began, both the parties presented their arguments and it was definitely interesting to watch two of my classmates’ take and design perspective on two of the most complex design challenges. But once they were done, we torpedoed them with questions of design complications and how the design would relate with people of different age groups or communities, how it resonated with each individual and what is it going to do that’s not already been done. Although they struggled a bit, they were extremely confident in finding the answers and making a change. The spa for sleep deprivation was to be based on feng shui and other natural elements which are sleep inducing by providing a calm and relaxed environment. Further inventing an innovative sleep inducing bed to help people cope with sleep deprivation. And the museum was to be designed on a cliff so it naturally had tons of challenges on its own. She wanted to experiment with multiple art installations and incorporate it in the design of the building. Soon after it was time for the results, we were a bit confused but we had to give it for the most convincing one. So, we will leave it to you on guessing which one we chose?
This exercise made us realise a lot of things, that our competition is nowhere but next to us. Still our individuality and originality will help us crusade through the world of architecture. It helped us realise how our design will be viewed by others. It is hard for me to choose a single part from my college life as all the good things over the course of years have blended over one another which has helped us grow, evolve and see ourselves as designers of the world and understand what our designs are meant to do.
