Iteration_07: "Ambition & Ego"
How far is too far?
Those in the world of design have their own definition of what goes on inside of it; for those on the outside, the image of design is marked by lofty castles and skyscrapers alike. When a new brief is passed into your hands, do you feel the hunger of ambition tug at your heart, or do you find that fire to have been snuffed out over the semesters? If your visions tend to push past your own capabilities, how far have you gone to satisfy your imagination, and how far will you go to achieve your ideals? Have you learned where your limits lie, or have you forgotten what life inside the comfort zone is? Where is the line drawn between a student who happens to design and a champion whose designs measure their power, and do you still want to cross it?
Editor in Chief: Daniel Girgis
Graphic Designer: Shane Wintermute
Social: Jimenna Alcantar & Stephanie Rojas
Architecture, My Love
Arlene Matos
Architecture, my love.
My back hunches and my knees buckle as I sit in bed trying to fix the line-weights of my floor plan. And then….my laptop crashes. “Why? Why me? This shit only ever happens to me” I mutter to myself. I check the time and it’s 9 pm. I know I wont finish if i don’t use a different computer,so I decide to make my way to school. After a whole lot of begging, my mom gives in. She knows i’m not sleeping tonight…but she also knows I won’t sleep if I don’t finish my work either.
I get to school and to my surprise a few of my friends are here working on their boards as well. One friend in particular is struggling to finish her renderings so of course I offer to help, on the condition that she lets me work on my board on her desk top. And so she leaves and I begin.
I really hope my crit does like my board. I hope they all like my board. I need to make them like my board.
My eyes are really starting to burn and my stomach hurts too. But I have to finish. If I dont im not going anywhere. I need to finish.
Shit. why does my stomach hurt so bad. Now that i’m thinking about it my head is pounding too. It’s fine though I just need to finish.
It’s been hours since i’ve had a meal. Hey at least my board is really starting to come together now.
I’m so thirsty.
Alright, I’m done. I just have to finish my model. Ugh. I have to finish my model. 4 hours has to be enough right? Yea it’ll be fine.
5 am. 3 double shots later. Im almost there. It’s starting to look really good if I do say so myself. Alright let’s just keep pushing.
Ouch. I just cut myself. At least I’m not bleeding too much. Just gotta patch up and keep working.
A day and a half later.
… “falls asleep during review”
I can’t breathe. My heart feels like it’s about to explode. I’m just glad I finished my work and my presentation went well.
Reader Discretion is Advised
Brianna Kailas
⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
Reader Discretion is Advised
The publication you are about to read is based on cold, hard facts. Upon entering design school, you will encounter a sea of students who truly believe they descended from heaven with a vision that the world desperately needs. You’ll soon learn that people won’t always listen when you speak. You’ll be taught to assert your own design, while being reminded to keep your mind closed to anything that doesn’t align with it. Over the next five years, you’ll discover there’s only one “right” style, and that stubbornness is the key to survival. You’ll be convinced that your opinions are worth more than gold. By the end of it all, it’s every designer for themselves—trust no one. Collaboration? Forget it. It’s all about competition. Ego will break you, if Advanced Studio doesn’t first. By graduation you will wonder if it was all worth it.
For more information go to www.egoarchitect.com or call 1-800-ARROGANCE
Through a Screen
Daniel De La Cruz
I grew up watching architecture through a screen. YouTubers documented their lives with shaky cameras and sleep-deprived voices, drafting late into the night, building study models out of cardboard and glue, chasing some higher form of themselves with every new idea. It looked like magic. A life of purpose, community, creation. And somewhere between the laughter and late-night studio shots, I stopped being a viewer and started seeing a future.
Before I even stepped into architecture school, I had already decided what kind of person I wanted to become. The version of myself I dreamed up didn’t rest. He pulled all-nighters like it meant something. He lived for the deadline, thrived in the chaos. I romanticized the mess: the cluttered desks, the quiet hunger to keep pushing. I thought that was what greatness looked like.
And when the time came, I gave everything. First year felt like a dream made real. I stayed up. I outworked myself. I lived like the students I once watched. But somewhere along the way, I started wondering who I was really doing it for. I said I loved it. Maybe I did. But maybe I just loved the idea of being someone who could endure it all. Maybe I was trying to prove something, not just to others, but to the version of me I imagined on the other side of success.
It started to wear me down. What once felt like dedication to studio began to feel more like fear of being left behind. The rush of overworking faded. I wasn’t connected to what I was making anymore. I was just stuck trying to catch up. And even then, if someone had given me a reason to stay a little longer, I would’ve said yes. Just to believe I was still moving forward.
I built an identity out of ambition. Out of staying hungry. Out of never being satisfied. And when the silence finally caught up to me, I realized how loud that chase had been all along.
I Think About Architecture A Lot
Elena Abreu
As a freshman, the semesters haven’t yet had a chance to get rid of my ambitions, but the expectations of my capabilities have changed. I went into architecture school with the motivator: “I want to make architecture that makes people feel things”. I did not know this would be the topic of my whole first year here, constantly looking at architecture through the lens of human perception.
I try to include psychological thinking in my designs, it’s in many of my thoughts , every building I pass, every crack on the sidewalk, every window placement. I notice these things in the most mundane of places, and am aware of my feelings as I enter every place. I run my hands against the building, I notice the invasion of green vines through gated walls. Every cramped hallway, uncomfortable passage, every open-but-empty room.
Every empty “study lounge” I wander past, I go into thought. I can tell the architects’ idea was to make a comfortable gathering space, and I wonder why it isn’t being used. Is this failure, and why did they fail?
I enjoy the feeling of smallness in a cathedral. I am driven by the way a space can change people’s feelings by its size, crampedness, lightness, and overall essence. What brings feelings of comfort, and what brings discomfort?
I’ve learned my limits (for today) and I’ll learn them again tomorrow. To be in architecture school is to constantly reestablish them, so much so that I have forgotten what comfort is. Not in a depressing way, it is hard, but being uncomfortable is something I’ve learned to push through. In architecture school comfort is knowing that the effort (which you are constantly going to have to redefine for yourself) is enjoyable to you. It’s seeing a realistic future, a future you’re building upon, and what you hope to achieve. Learning what keeps you going, a deep sense of misplaced ego, is necessary for any architect to succeed.
You don’t create something novel by having no unrealistic drive, skittishness at discomfort, or no willingness to redefine your limits. It’s a bit crazy, but doesn’t any passion sound a bit crazy?
My first semester was frantic and confusing. This semester is frantic with a weak–but existent–sense of calm understanding of my capabilities and ambitions.
I know to learn is to be uncomfortable, but I find some enjoyment in the discomfort, because it means something to me. Passion is driven by feeling.
In my elementary school years, switching I had to switch schools once because the first one shut down. They were both small, so switching schools from one cramped school to another, I saw the impact of architecture first hand. I was envious of the open hallways one could get lost in, and the feeling of exploration that my hallways were lacking in. I knew there was something better that could be created.
In hospitals, the coldness penetrated my skin in cold blue and white tiles. There is something to be done.
In a library, the cramped wooden dusty spaces provide a sense of comfort.
How do you successfully grasp any type of control on people’s feelings?
wet dream / five year plan
Emma Fernandes-Santinho
i want to move to chicago. i swear to god, i’ll do it. the architecture there is supposed to be great; it’s like a bigger newark, a smaller new york. i applied to three jobs this week and stalked the linkedin page of a phd advisor at uc berkley. a year ago i swore up and down i’d leave jersey. i thought i could walk and walk and walk forever, keep going until the end credits started rolling, until i found where my feet were supposed to settle. now all i feel is the ache in my legs. all i want is to go to bed at two and wake up at five thirty and give years off my life for the damn glory of it. i want to be a man in the way where i am respected, the way where i am seen as a precision machine, where i am so efficient it’s sexual. i want to fuck; i don’t want sex, i don’t want love, i want release. i want to get on a plane with no bags and my eyes closed. i want to move to chicago.
Bullshit White Concept of the Architect’s License
Gaia Saravan
They build weaved straw roofs over their heads and the floors are layered granite slabs to keep the termites out - who would know this except them, them who live on those floors and under the roof perfectly knotted to let the breeze in and the leaves out, architects of their own homes and masters of their crafts, the ones underneath the stars and amongst the heat. And I imagine, them, building, community, together, the drive to build because that’s what they have to do, and independence in their make; and me, in my room, designing luxuries for posh prosperous posers saying yes, “I like the tropical aesthetic in this highrise, it’s a touch of culture”, but you don’t even know what it is to build from the dirt, freedom to use the land you were born on for yourself. Do you know the power within the hearth at the center of the home? Do you enjoy that heat from the incandescence? They, the weavers and the crafters, know they don’t answer to rules of perfect modernism and anti-ornamentalism and proper form; tragically, the white architects bask in their own glory and piss and wine, fighting over if the Villa Fucking Savoye or Falling Water exemplifies the architectural promenade more.
They sit far away. Unobserved. Knowing. They feel the land.
If everything is meaningless, nothing matters.
Johnny Sasidhar
If I’m going to stay up for something meaningless in the grand scheme of things, I might as well find joy in it. Am I really about to crash out over a clump of cardboard right now?- a thought process I frequently have when I find myself going insane in the studio, more than I should. My running joke with my friends is always: “See, yall will never catch me crying about studio, because how the hell am I gonna shed tears for a piece of paper that’s about to get shredded in 3 hours”- that might be some pride with a bit of nihilism talking. But devaluation doesn’t stop me from doing the absolute most either. I love the things we do in this major. I love the versatility of where I could end up with this degree. I’m not doing the absolute most for the end goal- exposure, validation, or an A as a twisted reward for the unhealthy behaviors I resort to for that “great project”- but for the process, for genuine improvement, for the act of learning how to create spaces for others. I thought this was the end goal, but it turns out that shifting that weight of a high GPA to the pressure of upkeeping scholarship requirements as a form of duty also has its setbacks. The late nights may have gotten easier, the need to self-improve may have gotten stronger, but am I having space to be the best if I’m crushing my chest with my obligations? How much more can I accomplish when ambition stems from the joy of being able to exhale than the suffocating desperation to not be stagnant? I want to be great at what I do, to the best I can, but I want to be a greater man. Even if I sometimes miss the mark. Even if I disappoint at times. Even if it turns to nothing. Because it still matters. If my accomplishments mean I’m not present, I’m a selfish, awful friend, or an even worse partner, then it’s not greatness, nor is it nothing. It’s just shitty.
Sacrifices
Samantha Pyne
I haven’t slept in 48 hours… I’m killing my body, but my mind ignores the signs of pain and exhaustion. I have sacrificed more than enough to be where I am. So much so that my body is begging me to stop. 2 foot infections and a lost voice are what I have taken on just this semester in order to feel as though I have given my best effort.
But it shouldn’t have to be this way.
Maybe I’m an outlier– a rare and unfortunate combination of perfectionism and self-applied pressure, that formulates this toxic work ethic. But I’ve realized it’s not just my fault– it’s also the field itself.
The world of design places a heavy weight on the gas pedal of production:
“If you’re not pushing yourself and dedicating your time, then what are you doing?”
“It’s a waste of an education if you’re not dedicated.”
“This field is all or nothing.”
Why do architects pride themselves on how much they sacrifice for a project? The important things given up for the betterment of a project shouldn’t be something to brag about. However, this sickness still festers, infesting each design student’s mind throughout their education. Being overly dedicated to your work doesn’t make a designer more elite or stoic; it’s just sad.
I do love putting my all into my projects... metaphorically speaking. I enjoy spending hours perfecting a drawing, developing a concept, and iterating on a single idea. It’s just when these tasks begin to swallow my life whole that my weakness is shown. When given a prompt, my stomach tends to sink. My heart pounds, my hands perspire, and my mind races to rationalize all that is being asked of me. Despite all these downsides, I really do love this field and the effort it requires. However, it is the anticipation of knowing how much my mind is willing to sacrifice that worries me…
I wish I had boundaries. A limit to my dedication.
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