Make the most of your summer

So here we are in early July. Personally I love the summer time for a few reasons. The gorgeous weather, getting actual sleep & No Studio!! I am always so ready for summer by the time exams roll around at the end of the spring semester. Summer is a time of relaxing and de stressing for me. But it’s also a time to prepare for the upcoming school year. I mean summer is for relaxing, and you will defiantly need it after a semester studying architecture, but it can also be a time where you can get ahead in architectural learning. I often find myself with a little time to kill in the summer, especially on weekends when I’m not working. So take a break from your Netflix marathons and follow some of these tips to get ahead of the game.

1] Get an Internship

Or an architecture related employment job. Remember your friend IDP? With the new guidelines for reporting there is no longer a time limit for how long an internship has to be in order for it to count. Imagine how many hours you can get towards IDP working an architecture internship for the summer. I’ve been lucky to have internships the past two summers, but getting one is not easy. If you find yourself not in an internship for the summer, try and see if your summer job counts for IDP. If you work for a construction company, landscaping firm, interior designer, work at a nonprofit etc. those hours can count as long as you report them according to the guidelines outlined in the IDP handbook. On average the time it takes to complete IDP hours (all 5600 of them) is 5 years. Working over summer break, winter break, weekends, anything that counts and you can record helps you cut this time down. Not to mention working in an architecture firm or architecture related field give you valuable experience to put on your resume and portfolio and will teach you things you can’t learn in the classroom.

   

2] Update your portfolio

I always take time during the summer and winter breaks to update my architecture portfolio with my work from the previous semester. It’s always a good idea to do it sooner rather than later because it can take a big amount of time to get done. And this way your portfolio is always up to date with your latest work. You would never (or should never) show up to a job interview with an outdated /incomplete portfolio. Take the time when you don’t have the stress of deadlines and projects to get it done; you’ll thank yourself during the semester.

3] Get up to date with software

Most software producers come out with a new version every year that may contain updates, a new interface etc. Save yourself some time by playing around with the new versions before the semester starts. You don’t want to waste time trying to find a command that moved right when your start a project. This can stress you out and make you struggle. And also take some time to learn how to better use these programs. Sites like Lynda and YouTube have hundreds of tutorials that teach you everything from the basics to advance techniques.

4] Architecture Road Trip

One of my goals for the summer time is to take a small road trip and see some architectural icons in the US. I’ve been to Boston several times but I would love to go on my own and see icons like Trinity Church, buildings on MIT’s campus, Boston City Hall and the Elizabeth Gardiner museum. Boston is only an hour and a half away from me so I hope to find a free weekend and go. Other road trips I would like to go on, Falling Water. Arguably the most iconic of Frank Lloyd Wright’s residences, Falling Water should be on everyone’s architecture list. This road trip is a little more out of the way though, seeing as it’s located in rural PA. It’s about an 8 hour drive from RI. Hopefully when I get a little extra $$ for gas I’ll take the trip. The point is get out there if you can! Make a list of things around you and go see them. Take pictures, explore and see if the things you learned in school were right. I’ve always believed the best way to learn is from experience, and there is no better way to learn about the Farnsworth House or Gropius House than to go see them for yourself.

5] Create your own Entourage Library

This is still on my to-do list for this summer, but I think it will arguably be the best thing I do for myself all summer. This will save you TONS of time when it comes to creating renderings and adding entourage. I always spend the most time on websites like http://www.immediateentourage.com/  searching for scale people, plants, cars and textures to add into my renders. By preparing and organizing them into a folder on your computer/portable hard drive, you won’t have to waste time searching for them, downloading the file, removing the background and so on. By building and maintaining your own personal library, you’ll set yourself up for success.

6] Sketch, Draft & Letter

Read about the importance of being able to do these three things in one of my older posts here.

7] Take time to pursue other interests

Whether that be art, dance, music, sports, running, kayaking, Netflix marathons, what have you. Take the time to enjoy your other hobbies and people in your life. I believe happiness is the ultimate key to success, and you must be able to balance architecture with other aspects of your life to maintain your sanity. And don’t just do this over the summer, do this for life. 

Hope you find these tips helpful! What other things do you think architecture students should do over the summer?

-A

How to write like an architect

Architecture school can do some funny things to you. For instance, it makes you very particular about pens. Architects and architecture students alike are obsessive about their pens, many even have a favorite one that they will use for everything. If you take an architecture students favorite pen, prepare yourself for WWIII. Why are we all so obsessive about pens you ask? I think it’s simple. Part of the craft of being an architect is being able to sketch, draft and letter. 

 If you ask around today, most people will tell you it’s a lost art form. And in some aspects I agree with that. You will never ever ever ever see an architecture firm today produce a set of drawings by hand. Why? Because it takes a painstakingly long time. I have had the pleasure of rummaging around the storage room of the office I currently work in, and have spent time gawking at the hand drafted sets they have. The level of detail and consistency in these drawings was amazing. But then I had to go back downstairs and draw floor-plans on CAD. 

What I really love about hand drafted sets is the lettering. It’s all so consistent and neat, almost like I’s been printed. Compared to that my own handwriting looks like chicken scratch. Learning to letter is a skill that takes a lot of time and a lot of practice, both of which are things you do not get a lot of if you are in school perusing this career. I am lucky to be at a school that has a great balance between sketching, hand drafting, lettering and technology. The first two years of my architectural education, everything I did was by hand. At first, I thought I sucked. I couldn’t even draw a straight line, and they make you over and over again until you do. And line weights? Forget it. My old professor called me “the girl with the heavy hand” because to him all my line weights looked the same. And then there was lettering. Architects write in all caps, and that’s what they tried to teach us to do. Why? Because it’s legible. If your handwriting couldn’t ben read clearly on a blueprint, your building could fall down. 

Architectural lettering is characterized by a few things. Letters are not written in one stroke like cursive, but rather they are made up by lines and “strokes” of your pen or pencil. The main character though is the verticals of the letters. We are taught by the book Architectural Graphics by Francis D. Ching (see picture above) to being by using a straightedge to create guidelines and a small triangle to create the verticals of each letter within the guidelines. Guidelines are a way to keep your letters consistent in height. This allows your lettering to communicate to the reader and not distract from your drawing itself. 

The only way to become good at architectural lettering is to do it. If I try really really hard and write really slow my lettering in OK at best. I’ve decided that from this point on, I will write only in architectural lettering. This is why architects are so obsessive about pens. They are the tool in which we display an art form that identifies us with our profession. So I’m going to stop typing and go practice lettering with my Pilot V-Ball 0.5m Pure Liquid Ink Pen. It’s my only one so if you take it, I’ll find you!

-A