Last week marked the final review sessions for many of the architecture and design students at ASU. While most people were deep asleep from studying or a night out on the town, the lights in the architecture building (aka Architraz) remained on at all hours of the night and day.
One could walk into the architecture building at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night and, sure enough, there would be students building models and rendering computer drawings as if it was 3 p.m. As an architecture student myself, the lack of sleep involved with the major has been a difficult nuisance to overcome. Yet, while it is an accepted part of the major by most students, is it actually necessary?
Many friends have posed the question to me: Why must you stay up all night? Are you procrastinating? Does building a model really take that long?
"When people say that, I want to kill them," first-year architecture student Whitney Hughes said.
While it is easy to lash out at those not in the architecture program, there are some actual reasons as to why the work takes so long. "I think it is that there is no end. And as much as you work [on your project], it can never be right," said another first-year architecture student Erin Anderson.
Perhaps this idea is somewhat accurate. If a project is not finite, how can one tell when to stop?
"I think it is the time limit that really tells you when your design is done," said Lynn Holmquist, a first-year architecture student. "When you have a deadline to meet, you only have a certain amount of time to actually produce it, so then you just quit your design process."
It may seem absurd to say the design of a building, in school at least, is dictated by the amount of time you have, but this may not be so far from the truth. Architecture students realize that producing the proper materials for a final review (drawings and models) require that a design be finalized. If a design is not finalized it would be impossible to represent it in 2D or 3D media.
So, why not finalize your design sooner, leaving ample time for the production of materials? The answer harks back to the earlier question: If a project is not finite, when can the design process stop?
As Holmquist said, "It's never done; there is always something you can change on it." Basically, there is no perfection or a word limit like there would be if writing a paper.
Hughes elaborated, "There are so many people that go above and beyond. Even if you do finish the minimum requirements, it looks like you didn't do anything." Thus, even if a student has completed all their work, there is no guarantee that they will receive a good grade for their efforts.
Another first-year architecture student, Mark Riley, believes his lack of sleep may be due to unfamiliar territory. Having just begun school, Riley was "new to the materials such as basswood and Plaster of Paris," which made it difficult because there were no classes available for students to learn how to work with such foreign elements.
Whether it's about time constraints, projects that could go to infinity or learning to use new materials, we might as well agree that the nature of the architecture school demands that students stay up late at night. It seems appropriate enough -- I'm writing this column in the confines of Architraz at 4 a.m.
Noah Lewkowitz is a graduate student in architecture. Find him late at night in Architraz at noah.lewkowitz@hotmail.com.
