Architects progress from students to professionals, from measuring houses with tape in the first year to applying suitable dimensions to the spaces they design in an instinct. The extensive five-year-long learning that architecture offers doesn’t only prepare the students to observe and infer professionally but allows them to grasp skills that are an asset outside academics. As we expand in this field, we learn how architecture impacts our lives, behavior, and community. Subsequently, we sustain a sense of responsibility towards our society and the environment. What are we taught before designing great spaces? It is our perception of our surroundings. Architecture makes you observe things differently from untrained eyes.
Eye for details | Observe and Infer
Any creative field starts its lessons with the basics of design. Eventually, we find ourselves as designers applying these principles in our daily lives. Whether clicking a photograph or simply sketching, an eye for harmony, proportions, and colour balance comes naturally. In architecture, anthropometrics is exercised in instincts. Place an architect in a room, and it won’t be difficult for them to analyze it in terms of volume.
Architects learn more about space-making with a multidisciplinary approach. Willingness to learn outside of experience and listen to others helps develop design more. Apart from the technicalities, understanding how the space will make one feel becomes a habit. Observing a structure in the flesh allows us to use our senses wholly. We see how the said architect worked around the problem areas, felt the materials used, and analyzed their management of light, hierarchy, and circulation. At that moment, we are aware of the impact the space creates.
Observation changes outcome
Awareness is necessary for architecture. It is encouraged from college to acquaint ourselves with not just architectural news but the social situation around the world. We learn from observing our immediate surroundings and later branch out to study unfamiliar contexts. Sharpened observation skills lead us to ask better questions. As David Macaulay said ”learn to interrogate the photograph”, it is when we dissect the picture in front of us we identify the problems.
Design is highly subjective, and architecture exposes us to different approaches to a single problem. We learn to view it through divergent perspectives to identify and imply the best-suited solution. Architecture, from the moment you start your journey, forces you to observe with a keen eye for details. The more we question, the more we can give for the best outcome.
For the people | Observe and Infer
Imagine you are back in your hometown. The summer breeze fills the room as you lie on the floor for your evening nap. The space shared a Zen-like essence. Now, in contrast, the compact living in any major city with its busy streets confines us to four walls. The volume of space isn’t the reason for the difference. Instead, it is the material used and the context where the structure resides. Architecture has the ability to affect human behavior. As designers for the people, we learn to study the context before designing to make space lively and sociable.
Architecture gives people an opportunity to create stories through spatial experiences. Locals of Kotachiwadi, a Portuguese-influenced village hidden between the high-rise buildings of south Mumbai, celebrates its identity. The distinct cobbled streets, lush greenery enclosing the pastel-colored houses, antiquated wooden doors and jalied windows have preserved the stories of generations. The visual memory scape that Kotachiwadi has is under no protection from being engulfed in the concrete jungle. Conserving its architecture will allow the weaving stories and heritage to be preserved in its spaces. As an architect you are sensitized to see beyond the beauty this village holds in a dense urban setting. Is it worth devoiding heritage of such places dictated by the development, new materials, and techniques?
A building is praised for its external beauty, but architecture allows us to look beyond it’s face value. The questions of how we are affected by the spaces inside and between the buildings. How does the constructed environment allow us to live, work and create community? Architecture is powerless in its purest form. It isn’t just about building structure but a responsibility to change society’s social and environmental aspects. Architects learn to empathize with the people they build for. A collective approach to design is a rich combination that results in impactful structures.
No matter how grueling it might be to complete the extensive five years, no one can deny the fact that architecture equips you with a habit of staying curious about every day, which is an essential skill for a designer wanting to create suitable solutions for problems. Architecture is not a privilege nor a luxury. It is simple to observe and interact with our surroundings. With time, you look at things more profoundly, picking up a certain quality that can help you in school and practice.
References
30X40 Design Workshop, 2018. Learning to See Like an Architect.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQvHQK6swzg>
TEDx Talks, 2014. Why I’m an architect that designs for social impact, not buildings | Liz Ogbu | TEDxMidAtlantic.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0MnGZ1gB4k>
Sushantuniversity.edu.in. 2019. THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE : LIFE LESSONS FROM ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL | Sushant University blog. [online] Observe and infer and respond. Available at: <https://sushantuniversity.edu.in/blog/the-value-of-architecture-life-lessons-from-architecture-school/>
TEDx Talks, 2015. The Impact of Architecture | Donald Schmitt | TEDxUTSC.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVsCHMj5_Bo>
Quora. 2016. How does one develop an ability to observe and analyse buildings as more than just buildings?. [online] Available at: <https://www.quora.com/How-does-one-develop-an-ability-to-observe-and-analyse-buildings-as-more-than-just-buildings>
Nast, C., 2022. The history and stories from Mumbai’s most beautiful neighbourhood, Khotachiwadi. [online] Architectural Digest India. Available at: <https://www.architecturaldigest.in/story/the-history-and-stories-from-mumbais-most-beautiful-neighbourhood-khotachiwadi/>
