The Whole Nine Yards

~ Alkananda Yeshwanth
(8th Sem) 1MS07

What do the five years of architecture school teach us? We sit, week after week, year after year, encompassed by the four heavily embellished walls of our studios, hoping to learn what is called a “design process”. Slowly, when the smoothness of the drafting table comes to replace the comfort of a nightly pillow, we are made to understand that it is not that one flash of brilliance, that one ah-ha moment that leads to the making of an architect. It is when the proverbial 99% of perspiration meets that 1% genius over the inviting blank page that a design is born.

While we are gritting our teeth, bent over the table drafting that building construction sheet we do not see the point of, we must have the foresight to realize that what we are really doing is training our minds to pick up the details. It is what makes us who we are. At least, it should. When an architecture student walks down a street, it is the unfortunate truth that she notices the bonds in the compound walls rather than the attractive guy standing behind it; the ugly cornices and hideous facades of our neighbors houses bother us more than their noisy inmates ever could. 

It is our job to look at the big picture and say – Oh, there’s something off in that little corner, there. We are not a happy bunch – architecture school teaches us that. It is simply a harsher way of saying there is always room for improvement. No design is perfect. Thus, we strive to come as close to that evasive perfection as we can. In the process, we loose what laymen refer to as “a life”. Indicators arise. There are telling signs – by your third year, all your friends are architecture students; socializing, if any, occurs only between projects; a substitute for risqué jokes would be comparing cantilever lengths (on butter sheets, of course).

Are these worthwhile sacrifices? Is getting an A on that last jury worth giving up a personal life? Hopefully, when we are standing on the edge of our first foundation pit, watching our dreams take life and come to quite literal shape - it will all be worth it.