If I were to assume what architecture graduates will tell you how they’ve changed since joining architecture, I assume that they’ll tell how they can now relate architecture to different ideas or concepts from other areas of knowledge. It could be seeing architecture in politics, architecture in music, or basically anything. Due to how much architecture could affect a person, it is not a weird thing to hear that from an architecture graduate.
Starting the first year in my architecture journey at university was daunting. As a start, I could not draw and the concept of what architecture really is was superficial. It was how to build buildings and add aesthetics to them. After following the classes, reading tonnes of materials, and having conversations about the different aspects of the discipline, I started to see architecture from different perspectives.
Arguments brought forth by Adolf Loos in his writing Ornament and Crime became debatable with his points about the economic effects and material wastes personally agreeable but the whole idea of totally abandoning ornaments in architecture is seen as a bit extreme. Rejecting ornaments entirely could create a dull, generic building but then again if we look through the perspective of futurism, the lack of ornaments does not reduce the sublime state of architecture.
There really are different ways of interpreting architecture and by the time of graduating from architecture school, my horizon was quite broad. However, despite accepting and knowing that architecture could co-exist with any kind of subject, I still could not understand a class that my friend took which looked at architecture through the lens of a soundscape. It is understandable that acoustics performance is also an important aspect of architecture but really, where is the intersection between soundscapes and architecture? Just like how every human might not be able to comprehend certain things, I believe this is where I draw my line in the profession at least for now.
Other than the idea that architecture could relate to almost anything, I also learned that aesthetics in design alone does not mean that it would work. Just like how people in the arts put a high value behind the thoughts and ideas of artwork, architecture does that too. On the surface, an aesthetically designed building could very well still be built but it might not work in terms of providing human comfort, withstanding loads, or others. Lecturers and tutors have always told me that a good design is not just a beautiful design but one that is well thought and gives benefits to users.
With the existence of tools such as Grasshopper and Dynamo, we as designers can now make prototypes and assess whether our designs work or not, and easily make iterations. Computers might not be good in designing unlike the human mind but it is very well capable to help us determine which design options to follow. Architects like Arturo Tedeschi and Frank Gehry have shown how computers can help us make a design work meanwhile the aesthetics of it are still within our control.
Talking about Frank Gehry and his funky works brings me to the next point which is about the technicalities in architecture that I’ve learned. I’m almost certain that architecture will be referred to as an intersection between science and art at least once by anyone in the profession.
As I was progressing through my undergraduate years, things I read from Matthew Frederick’s book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School became more and more relatable. The book is simple, concise, and short but is also very spot on with the things I am experiencing myself. “Where’s the north point?”, “I can’t see the different line weights?” and “Are you sure the scale is correct?” could be among the most frequently asked technical questions that I was asked by my tutors. Those are minor technical things but always emphasised.
However, these minor details are where I learn some crucial technical things in architecture such as understanding how to read a drawing, how to ensure that I’m not missing components that could damage the structures of my building, or even to make sure that the design is maximising sunlight as much as it should. People always say that it’s the small details that matter but in architecture, we extend it a bit with “… because without the small details, the big picture is gone”.
There are so many things that could be learned in architecture schools and because of its nature of combining the different aspects of life to make it habitable, architecture graduates would usually end up able to relate it to other disciplines. Worthy of the generalisation that architecture is the intersection of science and art, an architecture graduate like myself would learn the different things to make it work and not just as in getting it built.
