My initial reaction to any sentence that has the words ‘humour’ and ‘architecture’ together is disbelief. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy architecture – the payback of a completed project is heavenly. But sometimes, in the frenzy of piling work and endless work, it can be hard to enjoy the process of architecture.
The moments that stand out to me – the ones where I look back and smile at all the crazy things I’ve done – are usually when I’m sleep-deprived or working with my classmates. The best, obviously, is when those two collide together.
The first year, I’d say, is the toughest. You get thrown into this world that no one really prepares you for – no matter how much you may have witnessed second hand. The work is overwhelming, learning to take critique feels herculean and finding time for a social life is a luxury. But that first study tour is this fantastic spark in all that madness. It’s the first time you really get to know your classmates, find your clique and make memories as a class. I have never worked with a random group since then, and that is what makes those memories even sweeter.
For us, our first-year study tour was our year of documentation. We’d barely grasped the basics of technical drawing before being whisked away from home and thrown into the frenzy of putting this gorgeous site to paper.
Every day we’d stand there with our measuring tapes under the hot sun, climbing roofs if needed to get the measurements we wanted. And then we’d come home and put it all down to paper, often well into the night, as you might have guessed.
Working nights was the best part of the tour, honestly. Even though we were divided into smaller groups, around 12 of us would cram up into one room and give each other company while we worked. We would laugh, joke and pull pranks on each other. Then you go to the next room and realise everyone is dancing and start to question why you’re working so hard. And then somewhere around 2 o’clock you catch a spy from the next room sneaking in, trying to steal your coffee and run behind them up and down corridors, exacting sweet, sweet revenge. Or maybe you’re on the hunt for that one generous person who’s willing to share their food with you. Study tour nights are weird, almost surreal – and I loved every moment of them.
Our last night there, however, is the one that really stands out to me. We spent the day in the frenzy of getting as much information as we possibly could – after all, we wouldn’t be going there again! And then we came back to our hotel rooms, and diligently stayed up all night trying to come up with drawings that would satisfy our teachers.
Around midnight, the lights went off! You could hear a whole building of students hold their breath in silence – does this mean no submission tomorrow morning? For those 30 seconds, it was like being part of a hive-mind. A collective of almost a hundred students abruptly stopped working, looked at the people around them (in the dim moonlight) each one grinning like the Grinch. One boy said “they told us to carry torchlights, you know” and maybe eight people pounced on him as if the teachers 2 floors down could have possibly heard us. For those 30 seconds, we dreamt a lifetime – we could sleep! We could party! We could just not work! There’s a world of endless possibilities in the dead of night! Imaginary confetti surrounded us, you could hear a band playing in the distance – the world was suddenly brighter to our delirious selves.
And then the lights came back – and it was another collective hive mind-moment. Except this time, it was a groan, of course. Now we could actually see each other again – and all the fallen faces. But behind that – a smile, a glimmer. It was our glimpse of Paradisio from the inner circles of Inferno, and that was all we needed really.
After that, we kept working of course. I spent the next three hours drawing rafters inexplicably. There was a brief pause when I scared the girls down the hall, I think someone dropped their phone into the pool and dived in right after it. The night went on, we kept working through our shenanigans – but for this brief moment in time, the world had stopped and we all felt it together.
College has always been considered a defining moment while growing up, and I think it’s fair to say that it holds true for most of too. whether you keep in touch 10 years from then, you will always have this sense of comradery for your fellow classmates. Colleges often tend to teach the field as an individualistic one – it’s your design, it’s your baby. But these absurd moments that you have about fighting over who has to pay the bill or complaining about how much work you have – the ones that you share with your classmates are the key moments that define your College Experience, and they’re the ones truly worth remembering.
