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inspiredbyhiswords · 8 years ago

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10 Facts Of Life They Don’t Teach You In Architecture School

1. Sleep remains a beautiful, precious, and rare commodity.

It’s 4 am, the last deadline of your degree is fast approaching, and your vision is getting blurrier by the second… Still, after pinning up your drawings for the final time, at least you won’t haven’t to suffer through any more soul-crushing all-nighters, right? Well, that may well depend on where you work.

Believe it or not, if you land a job in a large commercial firm, your life may just be that little bit easier: studios with plenty of staff can better shift resources to meet the demands of a major deadline. However, if you sign up with a small practice, be prepared to stock up on coffee and Red Bull. It is likely that you will have to stretch your time and energy thinly, working on a number of smaller commissions. The rewards can be great, but—just as in school—sleeping and eating will remain fleeting highlights of your working week. Savor them!

2. You will be a jack-of-all-trades, master of… hopefully at least one.

Okay, so you’ve got design nailed. Now, become a master at project management, marketing, networking, business, economics, law, and while you’re at it, learn how to draw a real construction detail! There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “Architects know a little about almost everything and an engineer knows a lot about almost nothing.” If it’s true, then I envy those engineers.

Do your best with every aspect of the job, but try to hone your greatest strength as well. If you are interested in sustainable design, research it to death so you are a certifiable expert; if you are a smooth operator with Rhino, learn every modeling trick in the book. Once you have a specialism, you will soon find yourself indispensable to your firm.

3. It’s not what you know…

We spend years accumulating all manner of knowledge in relation to architecture, from history to technology, socio-economics to law. But what you may not realize is that none of these will be the key to career progression. No, the path to success is building your relationships with people: clients, colleagues who will support you in the studio, and your bosses, who have the capability to give you the experience you need… and a sweet reference when your next employer comes calling.

So, when a client changes their mind for the thousandth time, or your boss gives you yet another hilariously impossible deadline, stay cool, smile through those gritted teeth, and do the best you can for them—it will come back to reward you in the end.

4. Words are as powerful as drawings.

My tutor once said, “If your drawing is good enough, it should communicate the idea behind your design without any need for words, spoken or written.” Now, this was an insightful comment on the potential power of one, beautifully detailed section drawing to convey the concept behind my dystopian, pseudo-industrial metropolis (yes, we’ve all been there). However, once you join the legions of firms bidding for that game-changing commission, you will need to hone those linguistic skills to a tee. A confident pitch or a succinct written piece could persuade a key client to appoint you. So, if you are strong in these areas, step forward: winning words are priceless!

5. Money talks.

Perhaps that should be “shouts”… In architecture school, emphasis is placed—rightly—on the power of high quality materials and detailing to achieve beautifully functional and atmospheric spaces. In the real world though, you may find that your clients have other priorities. For developers of large-scale projects, the profit margin is at the forefront of every decision made. The term “value engineering” will become increasingly familiar, and often misused, as you are ordered to cut corners in an effort to cut costs. Whatever happens though, make every effort to persuade your client that quality adds value��don’t give up on good design, even if it seems that they have!

6. You will (probably) not earn big bucks.

A common misconception remains among many that once qualified, your seven years of mind-boggling hard work will be rewarded by a gold-plated salary as you walk over the threshold to begin work as a Professional. Now, I’m not saying that you’ll be destitute, but compared to those professions with a marathon of training similar to our own, the pickings are slim.

You must hold on to that oft-stated romantic ideal: do it because you love it, not for the dough. Of course, if you happen to create a brand of sculptural modernism that gets you commissions like those of, say, Santiago Calatrava… then you should do just fine.

7. Regulations will haunt your waking hours.

In university, your concerns may revolve primarily around questions such as “How far can I stretch that cantilever?” and “Can I 3D print this parametric globule of architectural wonderment?” However, at work you are likely find yourself preoccupied with issues pertaining to the maximum distance to the nearest fire exit, the required R-value for your insulation, and the minimum energy performance you’ll need to gain those extra LEED points. Yes, in the current climate we’re all swimming in a veritable ocean of regulations, but remember: don’t let these shackle your creativity. The rules are important, but if you are inventive, you can comply with them without compromising your inspirational concepts.

8. You will learn to love business management.

When you are powering through the night, completing your detailed model and epic renderings to perfection, savor every moment. As you move up through the ranks in practice, you will soon find you are drawing and modeling less and less. Your daily schedule will begin to fill with management mayhem: juggling meetings with clients and consultants, delegating jobs to your colleagues, writing up fee bids, and attending all manner of events in an effort to win further commissions. Learn to love these tasks as part of your architectural calling. If you’re lucky, you may just find time to sketch a concept on a cocktail napkin, Libeskind-style.

9. You will learn more on site than anywhere else.

Don’t get me wrong: I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the studio at university, dreaming up the next architectural “moment” for the backstreets of Madrid, and designing that kooky “inhabited wall” in Edinburgh. In reality, though, I might have been better off frequenting the less exotic but infinitely more insightful of locations… a bog-standard building site. Watching contractors at work will soon teach you how much—or how little—you understand about the realities of construction, and this will ultimately effect your approach to detailing in a fundamental way. So get out there and study the bricks and mortar first-hand.

10. Ten two letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

In school, the utter panic that comes with that big deadline approaching can often conceal the truth of the situation: You are in the wonderful position of having complete authorship over your submission, and the destiny of the project is entirely in your hands. Enjoy it while it lasts—in practice, you may find your creative ambition is at the whim of tight-fisted clients and whip-cracking practice directors.

If you feel your inspiration draining away though, make sure to plug the hole: find something outside of work you feel passionate about and run with it. Squeeze in a design competition entry (even if you don’t win, it will likely provide some fantastic portfolio material), hone your architectural photography skills, or start a blog and vent your frustrations with dry-witted glee. Therapy for architects comes in many forms!

http://www.iam-architect.com/they-dont-teach-you-in-architecture-school/

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inspiredbyhiswords · 8 years ago

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ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAM TUTORIAL

Programs Used

Rhino3D

VRay

Illustrator

Image to emulate

The above image is the diagram we are going to recreate but with a more skewed view, below is the view we are going to develop in the same style

Rhino

The process is broken down into a few steps that include setting up the view for all image layer extractions and setting up the view in a way that will make creating the drawings as simple as possible.

There may be drawings that need to be extracted that you want to optimize for post processing in the following steps I will show you how to set up and create the diagram above with Rhino, VRay, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

VRay Setup

One of the most important aspects of creating a good diagrams is making sure that you have a view saved, having a view saved can help you in many ways such as; being able to create multiple iterations of different geometry from the same spot, creating cohesiveness between drawings will set your graphics apart from others, being able to change your drawing at any time in the process of development of the mass, giving you the opportunity to create nice overlays and the history of your design process.

To create a saved view in Rhino you can either type in Command: Namedview or you can go to the properties tab and on the options wheel in the upper right hand corner, click on that and a drop down menu will appear, make sure you have named views checked, if not go ahead and check the box.

Choosing the right view is all up to personal preference and hidden within Rhino are ways to dramatically affect your image. Just go to your perspective view and right–click to bring the options down start playing around with these settings to get a desirable view that will convey your ideas and what you want to showcase

Shown above is messing around with the lens length, start playing around until you find the right view for you.

After you are satisfied with your view go ahead and save the view by clicking the save icon in the named views tab to the right and a window will pop up for you to name your new view.

VRay

Now it’s time to set up the rendering to get some realistic shadows that will help accentuate your geometry

The first step is to setup your sun, I always use the directional light instead of the native sun in Rhino, so go to the right of the screen and same as where the Named Views are located you will find the lights tab, go ahead and turn off the Sun and lets add a new VRay Directional light to the scene.

To get the directional light into the scene type Command: _DirectionalLight or go to your VRay light options in the VRay menu and select the directional light.

Set up the direction of your light, I use the gumball to adjust the X,Y,Z, direction but the direction will matter more later when we start to adjust the settings of the camera and brightness, and you can change the direction at any time.

Setting up a soft shadow

Hard edges from a shadow rarely look real so let’s go ahead and soften the shadows up a bit, this is a very simple process

First select the directional light and go to the properties tab on the right and the third widget over will be the light options, click on that. What we want to focus on is the shadow radius, it currently is set to 0.0 I have it set at 0.05 for this render but you can adjust to your liking. The closer to 0 the harder the shadows will become and vice versa for softer shadows.

Material Application

For the material I have chosen a prebuilt material I have found online with a few minor tweaks, it can be found here:

http://vismats.com/plastic/plastic_material_22.html

The material has plastic characteristics that work well for diagrammatic images.

For the changes made to the white plastic, I have only made minor adjustments in terms of plastic color, transparency and reflection.

Color: to set the building apart from the ground I have changed the color to a light grey // Value: 241

Transparency: I want to see the geometry behind for this image so I have made the material semi transparent // Value: 65

Reflection: Should be already set but you can bump it up or lower it per personal preferences, I didn’t change it for this image.

The most important setting is the camera settings, this works just as a real DSLR works, just copy my settings and to make it brighter or darker change the shutter speed setting up or down to get the desired effect.

Since we are not going for hyper-realistic (Use Maya/MAX for the realist of real) we don’t need to change a lot, so I just choose Exterior and a quality, the higher quality the longer the render.

Make sure the view you have in frame gets captured, click on Get View Aspect to make sure that happens, if you can’t press it unlock the aspect by pressing the L.

Make sure to lock the aspect ratio after you get the view aspect so when you change the render size the proportions stay the same. I have my size set to 2000x899 which is sufficient for what I needed but if you want to blow that sucker up BIG, then blow those numbers up!!!!!!!!!!

NOW HIT RENDER!

See what all these settings gave you, you should have something like what is above, if now well shit, go change some settings and if that doesn’t work email me and we can figure this out together.

Linework

Select the geometry that you just rendered and type in the command:Make2d

The most amazing command in the entire world of 3d Modeling

Make sure you have maintain layer source and show hidden lines checked if you don’t, go fix it and meet me at the next step.

The lines will be translated to the 0,0,0 position on the model space, go grab your lines and export them as an illustrator file and . The lines are already set up for adjustment since we are only adjusting the hidden lines.

Open your file in Illustrator

You might have to adjust your artboard, or scale your lines to fit the artboard, the only thing you need to know when scaling is do it proportionally so when we underlay the render it all matches up.

First pass

Hidden Lines: .25 pt dashed line

Visible Lines: 1 pt solid line

We might adjust this once we over lay the render but let’s see how it looks, so let’s import the image into illustrator. You can adjust the levels in Photoshop but I am satisfied with how the render came out raw, so le t’s run with it.

Your image will come in off so here we have to do some manual scaling to match the corners until we get it lined up.

Once we are lined up, the question is, do you like the lineweights?

Right now I don’t, way too thick, time to slim up.

Feeling the burn

I have changed a few factors, the line weight scale, color, and Opacity. All these changed elements seem to be working in perfect harmony.

Hidden Lines: .10 pt dashed line // grey // 50% opacity

Visible Lines: .5 pt solid line // black // 70% opacity

Great now let’s add some people for a little stylization, I have added the website I use for the vector people:

http://all-free-download.com/free-vector/download/people-silhouette_557039.html

Adding the details to all the little people, what is this a center for ants!!??

Since I skewed the perspective, I had to adjust the people as well, to get to this menu, select the objects to transform, right click and scroll down to transform each. Once you are there adjust the angle that you feel is appropriate.

Now zoom out to 100%…………….BOOM you did it!

The Final Image

Look at that you’re done, what a beautiful image you have created. You now have a new illustration style to add to your already established graphic arsenal.

-Christopher Voltl

Want a daily dose of what a recent Architecture grad does on the daily or keep up to date on more illustration tutorials, follow my Instagram to stay up to date

IG: Christopher.voltl

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inspiredbyhiswords · 8 years ago

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Life of an architecture student . All I want is my bed and pillow , lights out .

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inspiredbyhiswords · 8 years ago

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Let’s go! #deadlines

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inspiredbyhiswords · 8 years ago

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19 Things To Know Before Starting Architecture School

You’re in a Permanent, NO WAY OUT, Relationship.

Yes. You need to understand this, absorb it, and create your own mantra out of it. You are taken for LIFE. You will be in a permanent relationship with Architecture. You need to realize this, and even announce it to your friends, family, acquaintances, basically everyone in your social circle. You are married !

Insomnia is NOT a disease.

Before starting architectural school, remember to catch up all the sleep you can, because once you start your school it will only be a fragment of your imagination in a distant memory. All the sleeping hours are going to benefit you, staying up for days with just a couple hours of sleeping in between, you need to be ready for that. If you have insomnia, bravo! It is the key over here. Sleep Deprivation? Forget it ! So this is a positive point, if you have insomnia, you are doing it right. All of us have billions of last minute additions to make.

Coffee/Tea (Hot Chocolate in my Case) is your best friend.

Trust me, staying up when people around you are sleepy is an important issue! Falling asleep usually ends up in you running late for submissions, and you DON’T want that at any cost. So, I have to introduce you to your new friend, “Coffee”, who helps you to stay up all the night, boosts your energy and keeps you charged. For me, coffee, gives me palpitations, that is why I prefer hot chocolate, and when I am out of THAT, tea does the trick.

Be open to ‘Criticism’.

You are going to have countless crits ! So, be prepared !! Architecture education is all about ‘criticizing’ your work, what else could this be for? Make a shield around you; All the while learn from it. Absorb it, and turn it into something productive. That’s the best of what you can do. It may not always be bad, listen to what the other person has to say. Develop your listening skills.

Existential Crisis.

This is one of the major things you should be ready for. It’ll be customary to question your existence, once a day, twice a week, half a month, every other day of the year. Especially after a crit. It’s okay. You are doing the right thing, don’t worry. This is how it is.

Sleepless night or Power Nap

The coffee might help you, but you need those power naps. DO NOT MISS THEM OUT. Otherwise you are going to end up blabbering stuff the next day. You might think you are funny, but trust me; you won’t be making sense to the other person. They will think that you have gone bonkers and have lost it. You won’t even remember what you have said half the time. You will have mood swings and be edgy. Really, take the NAP; you don’t want to do all this during your jury !

Treat yourself.

You need a healthy diet to help you survive the strenuous day. Make it a point to consume fresh fruits and vegetables now and then, preferably in the morning. I munch a lot while working, the crisps and chips and the dips. The carbohydrate intake is quiet high, and it increases exponentially as the date of the jury comes closer. Goodness, it is disastrous for your health. A little fiber in your diet is very much necessary. ‘An apple a day, keeps the doctor away,’ it’s true ! Once in a while, to unwind, go to a fine dining restaurant and treat yourself.

Invitations to parties.

Before I’ve got into architecture school, my colleagues were inviting me to their birthday parties, but when I started college, I had too much work to do. So, the discussion I was to have, as a result, Why I could never make it to those parties. By time, the number of invitations I got, reduced, and when I asked my friends why I wasn’t invited, they would reply with a hint of sarcasm, ‘oh! We thought you had a studio. You never come anyway.’ But I couldn’t blame them. It was true.

So you better be ready for this. It’s not that you would regret it, surely you will miss out on some stuff, but please remember our first point? That should be enough to console you. You are, after all, in a relationship with architecture. So don’t mind them, you will make friends that will be your buddies forever after, because they will go through the same ordeal. Party with them, you will meet your school fellows in the vacations !

Trips/ Study Tours.

After a project ends everyone needs a break, where you aren’t chained to a chair or a desk, plan trips with your class and teachers, it’s mandatory. Make it a study tour and go visit historical sites, areas with interesting geography which help you relax. After days of bending over your laptop staring at screens, one needs to unwind and de-stress and traveling to exotic places is the best way. This even helps you bond with your advisors and fellows, who you probably thought were creepy. You listen to music, talk and have dialogues with people you couldn’t relate to before. (I come across some of the best people in my life because if this). Plus anything can inspire you anywhere at any time, so why not?

10. Bond with your teachers.

You will need to do this ! The more you talk, even if about random things, it is going to be easy for you to discuss your work with them. You will get to know them, and your ideas will mature under their mentorship without you realizing it. They will provide you with constructive criticism, and although sometimes it can be harsh, and you might not always agree with them. But this will only help you make your argument stronger. They will have ideas and opinions, listen to them. But at the end of the day, do what YOU want to do.

11. Write.

You might have thought that enrolling to an architectural school wouldn’t help you writing that much, and it would just be all visual or working on a computer 24/7. Well you, my dear, are in for a reality check. Writing is very much obligatory/necessary/compulsory. Keep a note book with you at all times, and write whatever you are thinking. Inspiration could strike you anywhere ! You may need these ideas later for your design concept. Just write, even if it’s a word. Write if someone says something, and you find it somehow relevant. Just write, because you wouldn’t want to regret not remembering something important.

12. Sketching.

While you are writing, you will need to sketch as well, because let’s face it, you are an artist, and you can express yourself best when you sketch. You need to sketch and sketch to help you understand your forms, lines and spaces. Remember, you won’t be writing much on your sheets, but your sketches are going to be up there. This helps you to have a strong command on your hand. Where writing helps you have a clarity of ideas, the sketches help you visualize those ideas.

13. Your first plan is trash.

The sooner you realize this, the better. When you are applying to any architectural school, regardless of the area, remember, your first design proposal is going to be ‘REJECTED’. It’s an unsaid rule,so don’t be heartbroken and don’t go into a silent depression. Don’t let the dejection get to you. The teachers or advisors are going to be drawing over your plans and sketches; they will break your model from here and there. This, my friends, would last for ever as long as you are in architectural school ! You will never be done developing your ideas, even few minutes before your final jury!

14. Postures and Backaches.

Recently, a friend of mine got really sick. She couldn’t walk nor sit! She had a severe backache a couple of days before the jury, though she had been complaining about it for weeks, but it took its toll on her. She was on best rest for a good two weeks.

The reason? It was her posture. Crouched and bending over her models for hours and hours, she got the severe pangs. Her posture, according the doctor, was the worst of all.

So remember, lie down and straighten your back every couple of hours or so. Keep a cushion in your studio, a table and with a comfortable chair so that while you are making models or working on your laptop for long hours, you at least have a good comfortable back support.

15. Music is your companion.

When you are working in your studio, and your friends are away, and you don’t want any disturbance, you’ll be listening to music, and hopefully the choice is good. Music will help you get through and not to get bored. After all, silence will only make you dose off, and random friends gossiping will be a distraction. In our carrier, its well known that background music seems to help architects focus more while working, which is weird for other people !

16. There is no Pot of Gold at the end.

Please, if you are delusional that you will get paid well as soon as you graduate, get this idea/thought out of your mind. No you won’t be Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid as soon as you are out. You need to work hard after graduation for that, for many many years. Life of an architect is NOT easy.

17. Its Hard.

Yes, it is. As the years have passed by, I wish I knew how hard this was. I would have done some research, studied some of the architecture, read up on history before I started the school. This would have made a huge difference to my life. Knowing the theory only helps you understand the little details with increased level of clarity. It helps you in your conceptual designing, and would make you develop stronger valid arguments. There is already so much research you have to have to do, plus you have to go through the list of readings assigned by the teachers. Its hectic, and you end up falling down !

18. Documentation.

Photograph everything and anything. Document all the data you have even the crappiest of sketches. Photograph those study models and models from each and every angle. Photograph while you are going somewhere or anywhere. Just keep on snapping pictures. It will help you with your portfolio and your projects and you will be surprised by the end of all of that. These images are going to be your treasures and they would be worth every second.

19. Backup.

Remember, this is the thumb rule. Back-up all your data, all your files, everything. Even that little, tiny and crappy sketch you drew on a torn piece of paper. And make a habit out of this. Because with the kind of softwares we work with, you never know when your system will crash. You also don’t know which USB will actually bring the virus that will destroy everything. I have seen people miserable at the last minute, because they lost their data and ended up not giving the crit. You, literally, DON’T want that.

SOURCE: http://www.arch2o.com/19-things-to-know-before-starting-architecture-school/

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