Education logo

Architecture School: What You Should Know... In Advance

Design Process, Studio Culture, and More...

By Alex MapplethorpePublished 6 years ago 7 min read
Like
*Architecture Studio, Northumbria University

Starting at architecture school is quite an otherworldly experience. You happen to study interesting projects, develop a wide range of skills, and grow as a creative professional. Nevertheless, it can be pretty hard if you are a novice to this because it is a very specific yet ambiguous field and most of the pre-university education does not really cover its fundamentals. Things can get even more complicated if you are an international student studying abroad. I have moved to my second year of architecture school in the UK and would like to share my experience for those who are interested and possibly uninformed about the course. I will mainly cover the article with studio culture, design process, and tools, and skills needed for an architecture student. So, here we go...

What does it mean to be an architect? Key skills?

*Heydar Aliyev Centre by Zaha Hadid, Baku, Azerbaijan

An architect is the one who transforms the daily needs of people into a creative, functional, and lasting piece of art; they mainly design buildings, houses, pavilions, and even furniture. In order to become a good architect, one needs to possess a wide range of abilities such as sketching, three-dimensional thinking, modelmaking, digital modeling and rendering, photography, presentation skills along with the knowledge in photography, contemporary art, history, and literature. Oooh, that's kind of a lot, isn't it? But it's actually not that complex, as they are actually very close and interchangeable, and over a time you can develop and perfect your skills. Sure these are not properly covered in high schools, so you may want to try going to art college/courses, or just learning on your own by reading and practicing.

Studio Culture

*Charette Presentation, INTO Newcastle University, 2016

The studio is probably the most exciting facility of architecture schools. It is where you are about to spend most of your time, meet your peers, create projects, and have crits. The best thing about the studio is a so-called "I know what you're going through" environment, because you will be working on the same project as your peers and it feels chill to be surrounded by people who are going through the same things as you: "I have no idea what to put in my sketchbook"; "How do you figure out the scale again??"; "My tutors keep giving me completely contradictory advice LOL." You can connect to people by simply listening to them and trying to help each other or understand some specific criteria or tutor's advice because it is indeed vague. You are the one who is supposed to figure it out, but it is more fun and less lonely to make it with friends. Furthermore, everyone has different views of approaching a design, rendering a drawing, or inclining to a specific movement or a concept, so it will be very informative to learn stuff from your peers, while they can learn something from you. For your notice, some students work at home; it's OK, depends on which one makes you feel more productive. However, there have been times when I would feel so stuck in design while being lonely at home, and keep overthinking on every single detail... If you feel like this, just stop and go to the studio. If the there is no one in the studio or it's closed, try to gather with your friends and work together. That was basically how I got through my foundation course—doing what I like but doing it with friends, and you know that there are always people beside you who will lend you some help if something gets wrong.

Tools

*Charcoal is an optimum tool for creating atmosphere in renderings.

All you need to produce your work are tools. There will be manual and digital tools, but, for a start, I'll mention the most significant general manual tools:

  • Sketchbook. It may sound cliche, "oh that's just a stack of papers," but it is the most important tool, where you don't just draw but jot down your ideas, sketches, basically your design process. You can also have your personal one, for sketching in the street or at home, whenever and wherever you want.
  • Rendering Media. This is the way to colour/shade sketches or drawings in order to make them more appealing and real. This actually depends on which media suits your style the best. There are watercolours, pencils, liners, charcoal, pastels, these are all very different from each other and they produce different qualities. Watercolours are more for delicate/coloured drawings, while charcoal conveys atmosphere and all the shadows, lighting and contrast. Try experimenting with each of these and eventually you'll find your favorite.
  • Materials. I don't mean like brick and mortar, cause you won't make your 1:50 final model out of those, will you? I mean materials like paper, cardboard, mountboard or tracing paper, which are used for creating either experimental or scaled/final models. These also include glues, tapes, and blade cutters.
  • Drawing Board. They are usually large, like the A0 size and most orthographic or axonometric/isometric drawings are done on boards, for the sake of accuracy and placed on these with tapes, then usually produced with set squares as a starting (see below).
  • Rulers. Well, I mainly categorized these as:
  1. Normal Rulers.Those that we're using from high school, they mostly for making perspective outlines or measuring materials for models.
  2. Set Squares. These are for creating straight lines on drawing boards, usually for orthographic or axonometric drawings.
  3. Scaled Rulers. Mostly for measuring drawings and models so that it will be to scale.

Design Process

*Always work with your sketchbook during the process.

So as you will be/are studying architecture, you know that you will spend pretty much all your time on projects, which is the process. The process will depend on the type of the project; usually, they are either abstract or realistic. The former one usually starts with some general theory or a replication of something architectural in an abstract way, where you do not consider the scale, construction, or even gravity. These are to improve your understanding of different architectural qualities such as form, space, light, textures, and modules. So, abstract projects are usually divided into the following stages:

  • Concept / Research
  • Experimentation / Sketchbook
  • Final Product / Presentation.

The process will depend on whether the product is a model, a rendering, or collage. Nevertheless, working with a sketchbook and experimenting with different spatial or conceptual conditions is the key. The final aim should be to present a coherent product that follows a concept. The concept can be based on architectural theories ("Space is the machine"), or an art movement (Expressionism), or even an object or quality. I will more extensively discuss design concepts in my upcoming article. As opposed to abstract ones, realistic projects can actually be built in a specific place at a specific scale so your process will usually be as follows:

  • Site Analysis / Research
  • Overall Concept / Experimentation / Sketchbook
  • Scale / Construction Strategy / Materials
  • Final Product / Renderings / Presentation
Here the concept can actually emerge from site restrictions, brief criteria or the type/typology of the building. In this one, you will have to consider in what kind of environment your product will be built, what conditions may affect it, what system will support the structure and internal climate. There will be more articles on these as well. Last but not least, always have your sketchbook next to you. I know there are gonna be some people who will finish the project and then be like "Ohh, what should I put in my sketchbook...?" Don't be like that. Try working out the process through the sketchbook, all of your potential ideas, sketches, explanations, etc. should be there. It's gonna be strange and hard at first, but getting used to it will benefit a lot later.

Ambiguity

There will be a lot of misunderstandings, confusing criteria from briefs, or enigma in understanding some abstract spatial quality or even tutors' comments. It's completely natural, and you just need to read more, explore and observe more; try to read the brief four times and actually trying to grasp the sense. The most important lessons which I have learned during my studies is that first, no one's gonna teach you how to draw or how to make a model. I know it sounds pretty terrifying like, "it's a university, they are supposed to teach." Well, they do teach, they just more focus on architecture itself and projects, briefs, how you solve contextual and design-based problems. So, it will be handy to learn these in advance. I'll soon share my article on some tips and books that helped me to improve my graphics.

Second, don't compare yourself to others. It can be pretty discouraging when you make a model and you think that it's the best work you have ever done so far and suddenly you see someone's work next to you, which kind of looks better than yours. You should remember that everyone's project is different and unique in its own way. A model which tries to emphasize tension and looseness will probably not be triangular or deconstructivistic, because it has a different quality. Just because you see something from someone's design which might lack from yours, it doesn't mean that your work is in any way bad or incompetent, you're just unique. I have been struggling with it for a pretty long time until I found peace with my own style and concepts, doesn't matter how cringy that sounds. So, just keep focusing on your creative work and its concept, as long as they complement each other and make sense, you are on the right track.

So, that's all for now. Hope you have enjoyed my article. I will be sharing more related articles soon, so stay tuned.

*All images in this article were taken by the author.

student
Like

About the Creator

Alex Mapplethorpe

I like writing poetry and performing music, sketching while walking in the street, and photographing with the inclination of black and white and polaroid pastel colours. And yet. Keeping it very personal. Hope you enjoy my stories.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.