All-nighter is a trademark routine for an architecture student. While most of us swish through the CAD files, we somehow end up not having time, panicking about the deadline. But fret not, all-nighters provide you with extra work time in exchange for dark circles, lack of concentration, and clear-headedness, along with half a litre water and 200 grams of coffee powder utilized each night. I also have pulled a lot of all-nighters. But the most memorable one was during my second year, village survey group work.
10 Nights to Deadline
The physical team, a group of nine boys, tapped out all the dimensions of the village. Yet, not an inch of drawing was done on the paper. Sheets were purchased from the city, our college far from the shop. An official WhatsApp message inaugurated the battle of grades between the groups, the best sheets sent at the earliest would make the whole group get A+ in the project. Time 8 PM and ticking sheets were on the way while we waited at the apartment watching a film. The boys turned restless, two claimed to buy tea, returned with a bag of beer. The all-nighter was spent drinking, a hangover followed the next day. The design class was slept through, thanks to the lenient professor who believed in our design progress. Meanwhile, the girls conferenced about the design strategies, readying rough sheet layouts in sketchbooks.
Three Nights to Deadline
Multiple all-nighters were attempted, mediocre work led to redo. After a week, the whole group assembled to work over the weekend. Booze boys were leashed in, forced to work without getting high. Groups of people took rooms of the apartment, delegating tasks to each of them. Our room had an uptight topper, who insisted on pulling an all-nighter to ease the burden before the deadline. The clock ran past midnight. Our door was knocked, the cars and bikes were on standby, it was chai time. As expected, tea shops aren’t open at odd times. After a rough 30 kilometres of unplanned ridealong a beach, we returned with sandy toes. 4 AM, Saturday. We collapsed into our rooms, our building materials sheets for insulation. A weaving pattern of humans filled the room, stinky toes near the head, stomachs for pillows, the cramped hall could have been left free if we cleared the drawing boards earlier in the bedrooms.
The door-bell rang. The professor was home. We were the group who were the most behind work-wise. I knew that pairing up this many boys was a tragedy. He seated himself on a chair, pierced through the crowd, watched the beer bottle kept as a paperweight on a completed sheet. A beautiful brown imprint, looking like a smiley mocked at us when the bottle was lifted off the sheet. The professor eyed us. He left with us a piece of advice and three fewer bottles of cooled beer, ‘I’ll give them back if you complete the sheets’, he said. Everyone was ready to fail for the lost possession. I still thought two all-nighters were enough to complete a whole village survey project.
All-nighter 1
Saturday was intense, the sound of pencil scratching the sheet, music and random chatter of doubts and clarification only filled the apartment. Also, we shifted into a single room. The pencil draft was done, almost. It was beyond 2 AM, after eight hours of constant drafting, the group began swindling to sleep. The topper woke up. Fresh black coffee was brewed, a kick in the gut was provided if necessary. Within minutes, everyone was up and wailing in pain. 4 AM, tea shop open time. Since it was the inception of the next waking day, an all-nighter was pulled. So, no pressure of attending the beautiful lullaby sung in theory classes. Without sleep, it would be nap time.
All-nighter 2
The second all-nighter was tough. With just a three-hour sleep and a kick to the stomach, we continued to work through the darkness. Drafting went on with red eyes, the progress of sheets was updated through WhatsApp. While the pencil work was complete, the girls were done with the presentation, sheets inked, and rendered with water colouring. A few hours later, an Instagram story of the girls’ team showed them holding buckets of popcorn and Coca- Cola, watching a superhero film that was released on Friday. Tickets were reserved for the next night. Pencils and rendering pens scratched paper, another all-nighter was pulled successfully. Lines began twisting and turning in the sheets.
Day of Deadline, 1 Hour to Viva-Voce
Unfortunately, the topper had slept enough too. We contained the sheets into the holder and rushed to the campus. The roads danced, the surroundings were shaky, my head felt floaty. After the hallucinating walk, we reached the panel. The sheets were boarded up, the work extent of the girls looked similar to ours. We sighed constantly, but they were still explaining better. Surprisingly, we answered many practical questions relating to the working of the village. The juror was dissatisfied with our sheets and our unbathed stinky selves presenting the viva. We got more marks in the viva owing to the practical knowledge in subjects including the details from the girls’ group. We won the classic studio wars, beating toppers.
We learned the importance of time management and understanding the site and context before working on documentation or a design. Making out a whole night awake is not cool if one couldn’t work effectively through the period.
