Year One

~Rohit Choudhary, ll Semester

    Architecture, a course we usually relate to designing only buildings. We usually get a wrong or an incomplete impression about anything in the beginning and that is exactly what has happened with us as first year architecture students but this has changed towards the end of the first year.

    One day we just made up our minds that we want to study architecture only for the reason that it is very different from engineering. But there are some who have wanted to study architecture from the beginning. We always used to think that in architecture it is always about being very creative and thinking or designing very creatively. Well, of course it is true but to what limit is it true? We have never thought about this. At the beginning of our course, we had a very casual approach to anything we saw. For example – if we were to talk about a painting of a scenery, we would probably look at the painting for a few seconds and say, “Oh, what a beautiful painting it is”. Well, of course any painting of a scenery would look beautiful. But even an illiterate person would say that. But then what is the difference between an architecture student and a student of any other course or just any other person? Well, how much can you expect from a first year architecture student at the beginning of the academic year.

    If we put some pieces of junk in front of a student of any other course and ask him/her to make something out of it, it would be a hard for that person to think of what could possibly be made out of that junk. Even if that person did make something, then explaining that model would be a really tough job. This is the exact situation of architecture students at the beginning of the course, or at least for the majority.

    Right now we are in an even semester, which means that one academic year is coming to an end. Lots of changes have taken place in a first year student from the beginning till the end of the year. The most common and the most prominent change that has taken place in all the first year students is that they now think of designing in a very different manner. What I mean to say by different manner is that we still continue to think and design in a very creative and an artistic manner but within the parameters of science and common sense. Though we still remain very artistic in our designs, the difference could easily be made out between the work of an artist and the work of an architecture student. By the end of the first year, an architecture student is able to visualize even a very simple form from junk items and is able to give a very clear explanation of the form. At this time we can actually approach anything very rationally and talk about it very formally. For example – the painting of scenery would look beautiful. But what are the elements in that painting which make it look beautiful? We are now able to point them out. But most importantly, we are able to criticize it, and if we are able to criticize something then that is an indication that we have actually gained knowledge about that something. But apart from these changes, the most common and may be the amusing change that has taken place in us is that wherever we go, our eyes are always noticing different buildings or different forms around us. I sometimes wonder what we keep thinking of while looking at those buildings.

    Architecture is a course in which there is a never ending evolution of the human mind. So if we consider a day or a week or a month or a year, we are never the same at the beginning and at the end. It is always a continuous process.