Iteration_04: "Architects Without Architecture"
Architects Without Architecture
Design is the creative act of living. A-architecture students pride themselves on being able to design beautiful buildings and provocative spaces, but we forget that we can design much more than just space. Here we bring attention to those everyday, habitual, contingent acts of design -the often forgotten fringe cases- in which you express yourself. How have you or the people you know designed your world? What do you consider design in your life? How else do you remain creative when studio gets overwhelming? How do you design without architecture?
Editor in Chief: Daniel Girgis
Graphic Designer: Shane Wintermute
Social: Jimenna Alcantar & Stephanie Rojas
Reclaiming Creativity
Samantha Pyne
Design… Create… Perfect…
During the semester, students are stuck in a loop of creation. Although this is the reason I and many others have chosen this major, the action becomes synonymous with work rather than freedom. This has caused my view of designing as a whole to shift to thoughts of stress, perfectionism, and self-criticism rather than a fun personal outlet. How can I create freely when I constantly hear my thoughts saying:
“What would my architecture professors think of this?”
“Is this good enough?”
“This has to be good, my major is design-based.”
I often found myself avoiding open-ended creative activities like drawing, writing, and digital design as I could not separate creativity from expectation.
During the summer, outside of architecture, I was stuck in a rut. I lacked a creative outlet and was scared to try one. For so long, my creative outlet was architecture; now that this outlet has been tainted by school, I had an opening to try new things. It wasn't until weeks into summer that I finally decided to try to design for myself rather than for an assignment.
Paint on an empty canvas…why not?!
Instead of overthinking the concept, and shoving it away as an intimidating thing to start I decided to try it and reclaim my passion for design. There were no limitations, no expectations, and no pressure of it even being good at all. It took time for me to fully let go of these preconditioned thoughts of pressure, but once I did I found that having a blank canvas subject to purely my ideas and whims was a perfect outlet.
A blank canvas doesn't have to be scary.
I began painting more and more in my free time. I no longer had thoughts of what others would think or needed to have an exact plan for what I was going to execute. It was no longer work, but rather just a passion.
Design was no longer “solely owned” by my major
Throughout this journey of finding an outlet outside of architecture, I have let go of the idea that “design is my work”. I have found that using other mediums to expand my creativity has allowed me to discover the freedom of creating once again. Being able to view design as a creative outlet is important. One cannot limit creativity to architecture. By viewing design as a limitless subject, you can expand the possibilities for yourself in your creative and design “work”.
Exit Ticket
Gaia Saravan
Late in the fall, as the holidays loomed (that is, during final critiques) is when I write the most. I mostly post on my blog, series of rambles that will be archived after Winter break. These writings fill the void between looking out the library window and flipping through Noguchi catalogs.
The weeks approaching final critique is when I make the ill guided decision to explore the city. It’s a much needed pregame of culture and inspiration intoxication, necessary to recharge the being; I visit friends in Brooklyn and walk through the Richard Gilder Center feeling completely miniscule in that giant cave. These are the things I do to avoid the actual process of creation - I experience, untethered to the responsibility of designing. That feels exhaustive, feels quite different than taking in other’s creation & design. It doesn’t feel as fascinating in the process, but the trip has fueled me for another two weeks.
Back in my room, I search my bookshelf for something to read. I’ve gained a fondness for the prefaces in books; It’s always a beautifully mundane recollection of the early days of writing their novel. It’s awfully normal and humanistic, all before the literary stardom. I lie in front of my bookshelf and read every preface on the shelf, my favorite being the 4 pages in Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He recounts his year teaching in New England, watching Twin Peaks in the faculty housing. The pleasantly mundane helps me come to terms with sitting in studio shaving away at wood blocks for days at a time.
A few weeks after the completion of the solar year, I continue to write in my blog. I type about first semester and the media I’ve consumed and my newfound love for Peter Zumthor. The process is a shedding to make space for the next rush in the Spring. I rethink Design, walking in the woods and underneath branches, away from the buildings, making way for new spaces.
LLLegos!
Emily Gosselin
Legos are an incredibly expressive form of creativity. Studio can be stressful and a bit overwhelming with our minds often running 100 miles per hour. With all of these thoughts my brain tends to get crowded and there is no room for creativity. Legos are the one thing that clears my mind and allows me to express my creativity in its purest form.
When you sit down with legos the possibilities are endless, unlike in the studio when you are constantly reminded of the constraints or deadlines of a project. It lets your mind run free without the extra thinking. With blocks of legos you are technically designing without restraint. You act as both architect and builder, two roles that used to be one. As the builder you can easily excite any design you create. As stated before the possibilities are endless so the creativity is at an all time high.
I often build legos that include instructions which helps relax my mind even more because there is no real thought process behind the placement of pieces. It truly lets my mind focus on the directions and the lego pieces rather than the assignment for the studio. Many times when I am building with legos it sparks an idea for a studio project, bringing the process full circle. Legos are a design without consequence.
Slipping Away
Diya Kumar
At this point, architecture has completely engrossed my life, studio is on my mind 24/7. I’m thinking about ways to improve my design or mentally go through my to-do list. There isn't enough time in the day to fit my classes, homework, projects, and get enough sleep.
When I did have free time, I would enjoy watching movies, hanging out with friends, and watching F1 races each weekend.
My list of must watch movies has been getting longer and longer with no future prospect of it getting any shorter. I have canceled so many plans that now sometimes they do not even bother asking me, my response will always be “sorry I have a project to do”. I have not seen a race live in ages, that I do not even bother turning it on.
They talk about having a work-life balance, but how can I find a balance when the scales are tragically tipped in one direction. Trying to do the things I like is an increasingly uphill battle.
(The Architect and the writer)
Lasya Musty
The first time I was questioned on my hobbies, the word “writing” was top of the list. But, as I grow up, I find myself doubting my own words. I hardly write anymore, and yet I still am. I’ll contradict myself further by finally writing a story to explain this.
Long ago, there lived a little child. She set out one day with a piece of crumpled paper and a pencil that produced shaky letters and with these materials crafted a tale that was topsy, turvy, and ultimately made no sense. But the grown-ups clapped as she read it out. She thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to live a life making beautiful stories for others?
That was when I was born: The Writer.
Other kids used their growing bodies for athletics, but I used mine for writing. I created worlds with only my imagination as a boundary.
Years after she discovered writing, she sat amongst a set of children chosen to watch a presentation. People from a company showed her a video on the new smart board about a beautiful house that sat atop a waterfall. The child thought to herself, wouldn’t it be wonderful to live a life making beautiful lives for others?
That is when she was born: The Architect.
The body the two of us shared was growing, and one of us had to grow with it. I didn’t want to, so she went in my place. She is the one who sits in lectures and presentations and will someday become an adult who sits in meetings and zoning panels. I am the one left as a child.
{..}
I was a writer before I was an architect, and I am an architect because I am a writer. Whenever I can write through my architecture, I do. But the separation is clear in my body: my hands cannot write for myself anymore. They’ll get up robotically to click out a section and plan, but won’t budge for just one story. My mind didn’t get the memo, which makes it all the more frustrating, because it writes every day, and is constantly spinning some sort of new tale throughout the day, and I wish I could give body to it and comb out its tangles into a woven tapestry that shows the world just what my mind is capable of. But my hands won’t. This isn’t their job anymore. I suppose because of this, I can no longer say I am a writer, for my body is now an architect, and it belongs to her: The Architect.
Reader, I hope you realize that there is no me and there is no her, for we are one in the same. I, the writer, will always be an architect, and she, the architect, will always be a writer. The worlds intersect, but sometimes I selfishly wish I was just a writer, and that I could live in my own world forever. That can’t happen, so I suppose while the architect builds a world for others, I’ll stay in the one I built for myself in our mind, and I’ll be there whenever she wants to join me in it.
What is Life?
Dan Girgis
“Studio is Life” - A common phrase among architecture students: one I've uttered myself from time to time.
Reflecting on that saying now I find myself scoffing…life cannot JUST be studio…right? I have struggled with this before because I truly love architecture. I love studio and all the chaos that comes with it. I’ve historically spent a vast majority, almost 80 hours a week, designing in the dark rooms of HCAD. Surviving off of Forte’s pizza and vending machine apple juice was my paradise.
Then I met a girl. I know, it’s cliche, boy meets girl and all of a sudden his priorities change. But truly, my fondness for trace paper sketches and the void of rhino was replaced. I no longer looked forward to what I knew would be a long night in studio. All of a sudden studio was no longer my life. My horizons had been broadened and I began to partition my life, giving time to more than just architecture.
Now I will say, I still absolutely love what I do, but it’s harder to find the same all encompassing joy in it as I once did. I’ve spent the last two semesters struggling between spending all my time on studio, and giving up some of that time for her. At first I resisted, I wanted to spend late nights figuring out exactly how my system would work and drawing beautiful plans. I was worried that if I didn’t spend enough time on studio my work would degrade. Most of all I was terrified of not achieving everything I wanted to achieve. Because I love this discipline, I want to be amazing at it, which resulted in me overworking myself.
A year later, and I’ve come to know that I can absolutely give some of my time away and still excel. Architecture will always be there for me, and I probably still spend too much time on it, but I also give time to other parts of my life. My life…isn’t just studio. Being ok with this realization has taken me a little while, but I can without hesitation say that I am better off now than before.
The theme of this issue is ‘Architects without Architecture’. I had marketed this as a way for students to express their creativity outside of studio. You may also remember the first line of the issue statement “Design is the creative act of living”. Outside of studio I creatively express myself in a few ways: I write, I take photos, I read, but most of all, I live. I am constantly aware of the difference between ‘existing’ and ‘living’, doing my best to live and not just exist. I view purely the act of living day to day, with everything that comes with it, as an act of design in my life.
Hand Covers Bruise, Reprise
Shane Wintermute
Architecture school is an easy thing to hate on and we all know why so I’ll spare you my take. Over the years of getting posterized by professors and guest critics, I’ve developed a strong ability to separate myself from my work, as is necessary in any creative field. But on the occasion where I find myself making decisions for someone else and their idea of “good design,” I force myself to take a step back. There is an infinite range of possibilities that can make good architecture, but there’s only one of me and I like to try to keep it that way (leaning into these infinites usually means leaning into the generic anyway, cite Chloe Zhao’s Eternals).
This is when I usually look for an outlet: sketches of intricate mechanical systems, the graphic design for this publication, rating and categorizing movies on Letterboxd, designing covers for my Spotify playlists. A creative act to reset my design thinking inwards instead of outwards.
It’s a grounding process; nobody is forcing me to be here. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make cool shit surrounded by friends who are also making cool shit. Guys, there’s no stakes here!
The quote that I have sticky-noted to the bottom bezel of my monitor comes from music producer Rick Rubin: “We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun.”
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