What's Architecture Studio Like?

Ever wonder what the hype is?

(That's my studio!! During the Lunch Break!!)

Down here- since the studio is underground- it's a critic-eat-student world. Most of the time, for the first years, they're all into fighting the system and working together to survive each class. Eventually they will learn to fend for themselves. Like a pack of wolves.

Each day starts off by exposing ourselves and our work that we either spent all night or all weekend putting together. That is not an exaggeration. It takes a long time and precision to complete projects. Time spent on projects include the following activities: Listening to music; texting; calling other studio partners; deciding if you should email your studio critic; regretting emailing your studio critic; regretting using ink on Mylar paper; resolving issues; offering to write essays for non-Architecture students so they will pay for your museum board, Mylar, Vellum or trace paper.

After most of us (and the one guy who did their project perfectly) are done sweating ourselves, we then start working on the next project that's usually due 36 hours later. You pull out your T-square, triangle, pencils, drafting tape and end up being asked four times-by the prettier girl in your studio group who somehow always forgets her materials-if they could borrow things. As long as it's none of your expensive material, by all means, TAKE IT! The rest of the time, when we need a break from our work, we're free to roam around the studio and visit other groups and look at their work. It's always interesting to see the possibilities each project has. It's also interesting how each student has their own signature pattern that they incorporate into their designs repeatedly.

There are the occasional moments in studio where everyone shares in a laugh. What the joke is? No one knows. We don't get enough sleep. And no one has had breakfast yet. So we're laughing at the perpendicular someone just dropped. [Inside joke].

Here is where I will tell you that you should not complain about your life. You get sunlight, you get food, you get to have a social life (Note: I didn't say you have one). We have nothing, we spend more, and we're always being disapproved by a critic. We're taught to think freely by following a guideline. Comparative to learning to tread water in a shark-infested ocean.

Life. Enjoy it, dear reader.