Study


Right now I'm working with AutoCAD, sketching and looking through architecture magazines. My sweet parents also came home with a gift for me a few days ago, some books about modern architecture, and made me happy like a little nerd. That's exactly what I need - inspiration, inspiration, inspiration.

Thank you dad

I have been sitting a few hours with dad, working with AutoCAD. I shed a tear of joy for having my dad as my private instructor who explains each step and function ten times for me to understand, unlike the lecturer at school that left most of us looking as a bunch of question marks. I have my own trainer, own criticizer and I inherited his fine drawing tool that I don't wanna pay for as a poor student.

But the very best thing about having a father who is an architect is his involvement in my daily life. He knows what I'm talking about and he understands my thinking better than anyone else when it comes to everything aesthetic. My father has encouraged my interest for this since I remember. I did everything with him, from sitting and drawing next to him when he worked at home, with his pencils, erasers and furniture templates, to making collages, building houses with Lego, drawing and painting, going to hobby shops and buying model building, doing trips to different places, listening to his stories of houses, places, people - true as fictional. I've always looked up to everything he does, and loved to share this interest with him. His opinion has always meant the most, and his praise for my drawings has always been real. He always saw my qualities better than anyone else. He still does.
And today I once again go to him first when I get home, to tell and show what I have done during the day, just as the five-year old me that came home from kindergarten and wanted to show my dad my paintings.

I'm happy to have a dad with a great commitment that has meant a lot to who I've become and what I'm passionate about. It's nothing but natural for us to once again share our common interest. Something that is only ours, something that no one else in the family understands. Something that we will share our whole lifetime, just dad and me.



I even managed to make a cheesy CAD-greeting in return. The architect's way of showing love, haha.


Inside the box is the new outside the box



The morning began with a guided tour on Beckholmen, the site of our new project. A really polluted and gloomy place, specially on a gray autumn morning like this. I looked pretty amused in my helmet and vest. Anyway, there somewhere on the island I'm supposed to make a hotel... Wish me luck.
The rest of the day I walked around in the drawing room, disturbing the others, when my brain couldn't be creative anymore. It's not always the easiest, especially if you, like me, have a hard time being satisfied with an idea. You try to think innovative, different, "outside the box" and yada yada. Everyone is always supposed to be so outside the box all the time. I think I'll start thinking inside the box. Inside the box is the new outside the box.
After school my group went home to one of our teachers to watch Star Wars movies. In educational purpose. I just love our teachers!

Architectural education

I think it's great that there are readers who are interested in architecture, therefore I thought I would write a longer post where I explain a bit about the education at the Royal Institute of Technology here in Stockholm, what it takes to enter the program, why I chose the education and about my own experience. Since I've only been at the school for two months, there is much I don't know but I hope I manage to answer your questions. If you wonder about anything, just ask! More about my days at school can be found under the category "Architecture 1. year".

To enter the programme:
In Secondary School (high school) I studed the Social Science Programme, even though I already in elementary school thought about studying architecture. I knew I could choose to have extra math to qualify for the Architecture Programme. You can only apply for the programme once a year. There are three ways to enter the programme and you can apply in all three groups simultaneously. You can apply through your high school grades, by the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test or by doing the Architect test. It has always been a high minimum of entry qualifications due to architecture being a popular education. I entered the programme through my grades and never did the architect test, therefore I can't tell you much about it but you can read about the test here.

About the education
The Architect programme is five years long and is divided into three years of Bachelor Level (grade 1-3) and two years of Master Lever (grade 4-5). During the Bachelor years the class is divided into five groups with about 20 students in each. Each group has two architects and one artist who follows us through our projects. We all have mutual lectures, goals and requirements, but exactly what the task is in every project is different from group to group. In addition to the projects we have courses, for example Architecture Techniques and Architectural Theory/-History that runs parallelly with the projects. Here you can see our scheme of the year. The colors are explained at the bottom where you also can see the different courses we have.

Why I chose the Architect programme
Due to my dad being an architect, I have always known much about the profession and always found it interesting. I've always loved to draw, paint, build, be creative and do some kind of problem solving. Since I didn't find anything else I can think of working with during my years in school, I've stuck to the architect plan.

My experience so far 
I am very grateful that I entered the programme and started studying directly after high school (I did have some hesitations about that before graduation) because so far I am more satisfied and happier than I ever imagined I would be before I started. During the last two months I've realized that I really want to work with this in the future and it fits me very well. I am aware of that my attitude and desire may change, but right now there is absolutely nothing else I want to do. I can't imagine any better job than a job where I can express my creativity and create something myself for other people.

A very big reason that I enjoy the education is the social environment and the wonderful people I ended up with. We are a great mix of personalities and ages that all goes well together and share a common interest. Thanks to these groups of 20 people each it's still a comfortable class feeling that I thought I would lose after high school. Because our days are long, we also spend a lot of time together. Required time is 9-5 but it often happens that we sit and work after 5 because we do much practical work. The school is open 24/7. This way of studying suits me very well because I find it hard to study at home. No matter what time I get home it's so nice to come home and relax without thinking about school. However, I know there will be more studies at home when we are writing exams and when we begin to work more with computer programs.

I hesitated to start studying directly after high school because I was afraid of being too occupied by the education. Today I am occupied by the education, but I don't mind. I want to be occupied by this. I don't mind spending much time in school because I enjoy what I do and I always have other people around me that I have fun with and who are going through the same thing as me.

After this long post I finally want to say that if you want to study architecture, fight for it! It may be hard to enter the programme but there is always a way to get in, although it may take years of trial. Don't give up too easily, it is after all something you may do for the rest of your life, and I think it is very important to work with something you love.


Stockholms ugliest building and nowadays my second home.

New project

Today was all about introduction of the new project. We will have much to do, but we will work with this the rest of the semester and I look forward to start! Before we found out about the details, we made ​​a few minor tasks during the day as a part of the introduction. Me and some others went to City Hall for a guided tour. As with the castle that we visited a few weeks ago, these boring buildings become a little more interesting when you hear the story behind them. After the visit we had some time to kill at a café before we went back to school.


I just had to post the last picture of the rape snake. Observe that the head is brown hahaha... Excuse my humor.

Drawing


These drawings shows a bit of what I've been doing during art week. We have worked with charcoal drawing, line drawing and drawing with the eraser in graphite. It has been a nice week with my wonderful group. We all get along really well together. The risk that someone will have to be replaced to another group, due to us being too many in ours, seems to have strengthened the group's dynamics even more (there are five groups with about 20 people each). But luckily there won't be any replacement of anyone!
Now I've had enough time to recover after the previous project and I am ready to start with a new one on Monday!

Animals

This week we have art week in which we are mostly going to practice our drawing skills. It's perfect for me since I love to draw but need to learn more about techniques and tools. However, we started with something other than drawing...


Our class was tasked to build large animals of cardboard and were divided into two groups to make one animal each.



 There was much cutting, folding and gluing.



My group built a large gorilla.



Eventually we had two complete animals with the gorilla and the three-meter tall giraffe...

 

... which we will draw with various tools and techniques...



... and have some fun with. Awesome costume or what?



Me and my pet.



Don't mess with it.



Just give it some lovin'.



And pimpin'.


Spaghetti and glue



I came home at Wednesday but wasn't able to get out of bed for two days. After a long, energy-consuming day I really wouldn't recommend staying awake until the next morning for the flight home. It is difficult to describe the state we were in. I also felt pain in the whole body and was barely able to walk. I've really got a taste of exhaustion. As if it wasn't enough after last week...

This morning however, I had recovered enough to make it to school. After completing the first project it's nice with some change before the next big project starts. We have worked more in other courses that runs parallelly with the projects during the year. In the representation course we have begun working with computer programs, and in engineering course the class recently had a workshop where we studied sustainable constructions by, among other things, building bridges of spaghetti and glue. Fun and instructive, I must say! In the end we hung as much weight as we could before the bridge broke to see which one could carry the most. It's incredible how much spaghetti and glue can bear, if you build the construction right. Next week will be a week of art!

Due to your questions I thought I should write more about the architectural education at a later time, at least about my own experience and what I know so far. I'll be happy if what I write is useful for at least one person. I think it's great if there are any interested readers, architecture will be a big part of my life.
If there is anything you wonder about, ask!

Project 1

I have to say that I have never ever been so committed to and occupied by school work. For a few days my life consisted of the project, school, the people at school and nothing else. I went there in the morningand worked on the project, went home late at night and thought of the project, went to bed and dreamed of the project. I barely answered to any messages and was irritated everytime the phone rang, I barely saw my familyand I haven't checked my computer in four(!) days, which is a long time for me. Everything took much longer timethan I expected, and since I yet haven't learned how the computer programs work I had to do all the drawings by hand. I came home at one o'clock last night after struggling with preparation of the presentation (Note to self:always leave a full day for preparations) and was so up in high gear when I got home that started to cut and crop images to three o'clock. When I realized how obsessed I've become I went to bed to get at least a few hours sleepbefore the criticism today, which by the way went great!

As a final task, which will be evaluated together with the previous sub-tasks, we were supposed to create a "safehouse" to protect against an optional threat, everything from the end of the world and natural disasters to stress. To make it short, my house has protection against intruders, and has a circular rotating inside. When it rotates it covers windows and doors with concrete mass, and has some other features too. It took a very long time to build a model with a rotating inside, I'll tell you! The inside of the colorful drawings can also be rotated. Great that I thought of that after struggling with the model.













Project 1 of 3 in grade 1 is done! What a great feeling. I'm proud of myself. But I'm so exhausted, both mentally and physically, that I need a few days of sleep now.

Tuesday

Left school at nine o'clock today. In the evening, that is. It is my record so far, but there will probably be sleepovers at school when we have major projects. I can comfort myself with the fact that I'm not alone! We are always a bunch that stays overtime, some of us are more ambitious (read: slower) than others. Our workroom is catastrophic after only a few weeks, you have to climb over all the waste on the floor in to get by. The last two days we have also worked with gypsum, in other words, it looks like someone has walked around and poured flour all over the place. My hands are also a mess. They are full of smudges and ink that can't be washed away, just like they were when I was younger and colored pencils were my best friends. Neither can I wash away the super glue on my fingers. Superglue is nothing to play with, I have noticed. The best part was when I read the warning text out loud and said "Haha, how the hell do you get it in your eyes!? Those who manage to get it in the eye shouldn't even get to touch the bottle." Next thing I know my mascara is running down my cheeks and I have to run to the toilet to rinse out. But I survived a little glue in the eye. I don't mind my messy hands either, they remind me that I'm spending my days creating something with my own hands. Architecture rocks.

Architecture school










1. My desk. 2. One of my models from last week. 3. The guys playing in the working room. 4. Adnan and me doing a battle of who will build the tallest in one minute. 5. I won. 6. A lot of pieces. 7. My clay model from last week. 8. My still half-empty pedestal drawer. 9. Lunch with Jasmin. 10. Encouraging sticker on the train after a long day.

Even more architecture

How do I manage to fall behind the schedule after three school days? I don't know if I should laugh or just feel sorry for myself. Tomorrow I must finish two models because we have the presentation on Friday. Therefore, I must go to school an hour earlier tomorrow, and probably stay afterwards just like yesterday and today. I will probably be one of those who sleep there. The second year students wasn't kidding when they said that the school becomes one's home. Today I was in school to six o'clock and didn't get home until ten because of the student union's theatre afterwards. Huh. Expect less updates for a couple of days.


This is the first model I made, when we was supposed to be inspired by and interpret the lines of the object we got. It was an eternity work with the wire, but I liked the heart of the mirror effect. In the second picture you see my "object", the fresh duck skull...
I know that my nagging about architecture is uninteresting to many, but architecture and everything else about the school is what my life revolves around right now. Feel free to wish other things, then I might have more to update about later.

Self-building

The first task is completed! After planning and building a model this week, it was now time for the presentation and to build the structure in real scale. From the material each group was given we had to build tents/houses to stay the night in. Today most of us got to experience that everything does not quite go as planned. Good thing I'm not going to be a construction worker, others are welcome to build what I design. Anyway, we solved our problems and eventually we had a complete tent, watertight if anything! If it had been warmer I would have stayed the whole evening to hang out, but since I didn't want to sleep there, I went home earlier. Camping is not my thing, I figured that out many years ago...
I'm exhausted after today (how weak can you get?) so now I'm going to bed early for once.


More architecture


We started the day working with our first group assignment. It was much pottering around the model building and there was finally some life in our ugly work room. It was also a big mess, I can only imagine how it will look like in a few months. In the afternoon we went to Sweco's office where we were invited to dinner and listened to lectures about the company, profession, their projects, etc. Tomorrow we will visit another architect's office. I'm glad we can make these visits, and that we during these reception weeks have been able to see and hear a lot about what we actually will be doing in the future. Besides that I get much inspiration, I also realize that I really am studying for my dream job.

Thursday


It's getting more and more fun and interesting every day, and every day I get to meet more and more friendly and social people! Yesterday we had lectures and field trips to different places, dinner and party in the evening. Again a long, but fun, day!
However, I chose to skip today's activities, I needed sleep and I needed some own time. These reception weeks is luckily optional. Instead I spent a large part of the day with Karin, Monday's catch-up was not enough for everything we had to talk about. Tomorrow another long day awaits at the Royal Institute of Technology.
I forgot the memory card for my camera yesterday, so these pictures taken with my phone will have to do for now.

First day

I am so full of impressions after just one day at the School of Architecture! After the roll call this morning we had lectures, tours of the school and a opportunity to get to know those in one's own group. There seems to be some nice people in my group! The schedule for these two reception week is crazy full, from morning to night (and to morning again for several times). This weekend between these two weeks are also full. Dad's birthday is comming up, Jasmin returns home and I finally have my beloved girls in Sweden, they got home today! I have not seen them in almost two months(!) so I'm going out with them already tonight. I'm about to burst!

Get ready


Can you realize that it is my first day at the Royal Institute of Technology on Monday? I can't. Where did the summer disappear? I recently graduated and now it's already time to head off to the School of Architecture. Honestly I don't know what to feel or expect. Of course it is exciting, but I have not been that excited because I'm still not sure if I really want to study this year, I had almost decided to take a break and work this year. It was, however, harder than I thought to decline when I got saw that I got in... Anyway, I won't lose anything if I give it a try, I can always drop out if I feel like it and apply again in a year. We'll see how it turns out!

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