Architecture has the magic to transform our way of thinking, sleeping, and even alter our perspectives forever. The experiences one has during and after architecture school is entirely different from other graduate colleges. Furthermore, internships and jobs add valuable and unforgettable memories of all kinds. Along with a degree and essential skill set, we also become someone who views the world in lines, dimensions, and graphical representations for becoming an experienced architect. From micro to macro, the surroundings around us become our playground.
1. The Monochrome Syndrome | Experienced Architect
At one point in architecture school, some of us contract the urge to create and design everything in monochrome. The symptoms might involve rigorous work, lack of ‘social’ colors, overthinking of concepts, and laziness. It does not just restrict us to work but also starts reflecting in our wardrobes and the way we take coffee. Mother’s suspect that old age and slipping into depression might come sooner.
2. The Plotter Room
A plotter is a lifeline of 21st-century architects. Printing shops during our class submissions resembles migratory birds that crowd the habitat during a particular season. A person visiting the shop to scan his document witnesses the best example of space utilization in minimum dimensions. Every corner of space around the plotter is occupied by the working, sleeping, worrying, and “This color seems different, can you print it again?” young ones. Crying at the rising price of each print, one realizes the scope of business opportunity in the printing field and dreams about a printing start-up with whoever is present there.
3. Spotted! | Experienced Architect
Spotting familiar faces in a foreign country gives us the utmost satisfaction. But an unsaid bonding with a stranger at the sight of architectural lettering while filling a bank form is priceless. That being said, the only people who can spot architects are architects. A person with a cool sketchbook, a camera pointing at everything other than people, and carrying a professional yet rustic bag is probably an architect. Even though they might not strike a conversation, the quiet presence of a fellow mate can feel surprisingly secure.
4. Nolaphobia
Just like NoMophobia, the fear of losing mobiles, the fear of losing a laptop, and the data on it is completely real. Laptops and PC’s are extended body parts of an architect. The experience of laptops crashing should never be faced by anyone. Contents of it are as precious as CIA intelligence data and software’s like huge processing units. For instance, commanding a grass hatch in a landscape master plan takes about four hours of worrying, two hours of sleeping, 1 minute of “A closed boundary could not be determined” and a black heated screen. The sheer horror of this might be equivalent to what a heart attack feels in a second.
5. The Eye Of Architecture | Experienced Architect
Unlike the all-seeing eye of Mordor, the architectural eyes have the power to see in three-dimensions from over and under any standing structure or layout. Walking on the streets is never the same once architecture gets into you. In such instances redesigning the elevation to hide hanging wires or dreaming and capturing the view and functions of ruins from the middle of a road can turn more than a few eyes and even make us unaware of honking vehicles.
From critiquing and complaining over absent ramps to calculating the approach roads for iconic structures in the middle of a market, this superpower once acquired will follow you to “Why is there no railing?” to the stairway to heaven or hell.
From the initial bewilderment of entering architecture to the pride of submitting the final thesis, we start realizing our growth and potential. The experiences we encounter during this time, in internships and jobs related to any field imbibes in us both the spectrums, practical and emotional/sensitive. According to the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor, “A structure (design) is not only perceived through an analytical outlook but also through our past learnings and memories”. Similarly, our BTS (blood, sweat, tears) and memories too start developing into revolutionary and unimaginable ideas.
6. Bewildered!
If one has to describe the first semester of architecture school it would be a dilemma. From a naive student listening to a regular but inspiring introductory lecture to a confused one writing A B C.., architecture starts. The expectations of having to do mathematics (only a few though) and right away designing iconic buildings are obliterated by a subject called Basic design. Composing black squares and presenting colors as emotions the student gets truly lost. Somehow after multiple breakdowns, stolen rotrings, and torn sheets, the anticipation of what the next five years are going to be dawn.
7. Stress Reliever | Experienced Architect
Internships are real when the only place no one expects anything out of you is the washroom. Multiple times, while executing the 100th change in a plan or struggling with advanced software commands, the need to escape the stare of a junior architect leads to a visit to the washroom. Although because of this hourly visit, it subconsciously becomes a thinking space where one gets the most innovative ideas and also realizes how important it is to place washrooms in our abstract master plans.
