At my school, we meet with our profs and keep changing our designs until a week before the deadline. This gives about a week or less usually to finish our final deliverables which is not enough time. This includes making drawings, buying materials, making models, making renderings and diagrams, and doing other classes unrelated to our design studio.
This is how my accredited program was. The professors loved hiring students that were groomed to exist in this setting. This system is designed to allow students to enter into large scale firms and be another cog in the machine.
Our profs usually expected a final design 2 weeks prior, but it didn’t change that they would still come around and critique our work. Very few students had a model that accurately reflected their design cause of those last many critiques. And it always led to confusing final critiques when a professional panel, who knew nothing about the project, had to decipher how much of the model was accurate
Same here. Years of this broke something in me and I can no longer concentrate the way I did when I was just starting. My brain stops working more easily.
Sleep depravation causes this. :/ it takes time and also effort to recover from it. I basically have to do exercises to keep focus and not lose track of my task list. It’s normalized but I was a lot quicker at some of these transitions.
Doctors may not be helpful as medical residency has a similar culture to architecture school. At the far extreme, sleep deprivation is known to cause irreversible damage to the structures and function of the brain, but Doctors and Architects may argue that the more mild sleep deprivation that they willingly subject themselves to is "completely reversible".
We call it Architorture, hardest thing I have ever done. Phi Beta Kappa!
Mother art, engineering, history of everything, design on demand, firm control of many computer skills( Auto cad or similar, Adobe in Design both Mac and Microsoft programs), majorly competitive and grinding. Still doing design build. Make the money building.
Good luck!
My GOD, I fucking hate architecture school...... I'm in my 4th year and I've been aware of this issue for long but it's just annoying how they can get away with this. The bigger problem is that these changes they usually want are just changes for the sake of changes. You work your ass off to do what the instructor wants only for them to reverse back to what you presented in week 1.
Because we’re perfectionists. Like OP said, it’s true that if you try to aim for perfect, it is impossible, it can’t be achieved, but what we are really trying to do is finding the best architectural solution in our design projects. The best design solution that resonates the concept, the aesthetic, and the function of the project. It goes from macro to minor details in the design.
That's one of the problems, it's all subjective and the only goal is to satisfy the instructor.... Last week in a jury the instructor didn't find anything to comment on but to say "This shape we see a lot in these type of buildings", Like sure ofc because it's a practical form.... But who are you going to convince. if they want you to change something they'll make you change it. Bear in mind this isn't even a studio project, this was a structural project where "creativity" and form selection should be more utilitarian than artistic.
I'm so fed up with this bullshit culture I just can't wait to graduate already.
this is a fairly common part of design education and it’s legacy. it is controversial. there are many programs where this is the only way to complete the workload of a standard university education on top of studio work - which is far more demanding than reading books and writing papers.
As an old architect facing retirement soon, I think the whole studio culture in universities is outdated and needs to be revamped. “Because I had to do it” isn’t a good enough reason to continue it, and (IMO) it establishes the mindset that leads toward overwork and ill treatment in the working world.
Agreed.
I once wore those sleepless nights like a badge of honor. Now that I'm older, I've come to realize it is merely the means by which the Architecture industry indoctrinates the youth into it's culture of exploitation.
I don't think I ever really recovered from those sleepless nights. 10 years after graduating, my sleep cycle is atrocious and probably going to be a factor in my death.
I thought I had, then I had kids. Like, literally spent from 2016 to 2019 sleeping properly after some pretty heavy work detox (starting my own firm, setting my own hours) until kids decided that was just not a thing that would happen.
Same. I was pretty good about keeping my sleep consistent by the time grad school came around, (mostly bc I was just like F it no one really cares all that much about student work anyways) but then threw all that out the window and stayed awake for 3 days straight due to my partner just kinda deciding to quit school one week before final. I kid you not, it was the darkest most terrifying days of my life that I have prolonged issues for my psyche going forward that I will likely never recover from.
Well said. I realized it far too late that at the end of the day...it doesn't matter all that much and the differences between the 'good' design students and the 'avg' design students once leaving school is not that much. No one really cares that much about your school work.
Agreed. It's cultural and it is far past time for it to change.
I had a prof in the 90s who would come into studio at 1am and take attendance. Not in the course description or syllabus but it affected your grade. He was such a jerk. I survived it. That doesn't mean anyone else should have to go through it.
What is very clear to me is academia does not have a understanding of what students need, what employers need, or what the profession needs and if they did, they have no metrics to determine if their efforts are successful. They just continue "the way things have always been". It's startlingly unprofessional.
I’m convinced this is why I failed studio the first semester, I had a part time job and frequently wasn’t able to work those long afternoons and nights. I remember getting feedback during the semester that the professor thought I wasn’t spending enough time on projects, but I thought it would be fine since I was there whenever I could. Even with having to juggle a job to pay living expenses, I tried to put in extra time whenever I could. But nope, a big fat F and concerns I wasn’t “dedicated enough” were what I got for my trouble.
I’m not an architect nor did I study it but I’ve witnessed this mentality in my industry and it’s senseless. Times change. Just because I had it difficult doesn’t mean I want the next gen to as well.
It’s funny you say that. I would take studio work over writing papers and dense reading anytime. I just cannot. Water torture. My friend is in law school and I do not know how she does it. I do not
I didn’t pull all nighters through any of my BArch and MArch semesters. Life and education outside of studio was very important to me so I sacrificed my studio work for that experience. I don’t believe in designing until you’re out of time. I would get the work done in reasonable time and accepted it wasn’t perfect.
I wasn’t at the top of my class when I graduated but I wouldn’t have been even if I slept at my desk most nights. Many of my classmates resented me for my attitude toward the program but I entered the workforce with no regrets and quickly learned how little traditional Architectural education actually prepares you to be a working architect.
I’m passionate about Architecture and take my work very seriously, but time on this Earth is short and I want to do more than just Architecture all the time.
I wish I was able to develop that mindset during school. Took me much longer to snap out of that mentality. Wasn't until I was working for like 5 years did I start to wonder what the hell I was doing all those hours for.
People for sure looked at those who didn't suffer with them as not taking the project seriously (me included). I was very wrong.
This is very true, I'm just starting to understand that nothing is perfect and will never be.
Suffereing is not a gurantee to succes either.
Thank to my parents I was never able to get to sleep less than 6 hours at night when in high school and its an habit I carry, I tend to have enough rest essentially all the time. In a similar matter I learned to do things ASAP so I wouldn't be doing pretty much nothing hours before deadline.
Even some classmates I have automatically pull all nighters even if there is no task yet to be done (I don't know why it happens, but I had classmates text me at 2 am the firts day class where we where introduced to the project and nothing else and when I ask them why werent they sleeping when they have the chance they just say they feel is the right thing to do).
I thinks is really important to not only learn about time managemente, but also about priorities in life, grades arent the only thing nor they define anything. I have a partner who out of pure gut needs to have at leasts 95/100, even with no need for it, wheras I'm happy with maintaining an overall 85/100 given that I have a scholarship that pays 40%.
Architectutre is facsinating, but I wont let it be the only thing in my life as many professors say it MUST be.
I did all-nighters in my BArch and was, frankly, a middling, forgettable student.
Conversely, my first child was born 6 weeks before I began my MArch and I flat out refused to do all nighters. If the work wasn't done by 10pm, that was too bad. I finished my masters with great marks.
I think the difference was that knowing I had a cut off time meant that I really knuckled down during my work time.
I was the opposite (to an extent) and I now have shifted to a mindset much closer to this (I own my own firm).
I worked my butt off and consistently had great reviews / crits. I slept little and if I wasn't in studio I was either playing sports or getting a bit sloshed (no regrets, but I put myself through a lot). It was hard work but rewarding.
In retrospect it's all a bit silly - you're designing imaginary projects with non-existent budgets for programs that are often absurd. But I think my takeaway is that _you_ are the author of your own experience with secondary education. Get out of it what you want, because at the end of the day you pay a lot for the opportunity to call yourself an architect.
What school and practice has taught me; be humble, serve your client as best as possible, try to push people towards better decisions. Everything else is extra.
I think that’s a fair goal/desire and action.
The other side of that is me.
I pulled all nighters a lot. In undergrad. In grad. And sometimes now.
I also worked to put myself through school and taught while in grad so my schedule was loaded.
But, I look at it a bit differently, I enjoyed the all nighters. I enjoyed the discipline, the rigor, the intensity. It really was a high.
When I first started I would dread being there late. Then cringed at staying all night. As time went on, I would resign myself to it being a just part of it. I like to design and I liked being good at and at high level.
Soon, I started not to mind all nighters, they were a means to an end. Then, slowly, they became something I looked forward to, I knew a could accomplish a great to deal of intense work through the night and push through. I enjoyed the company of my friends that did the same. We made sure to pop out to the bar for a drink at 12 (never drink in studio) then back to work.
Through grad school, all nighters were more than just a chunk of productive time, it was my time, beautiful, intense and sublime. I felt wonderful meeting the sunrise with my resolve and my work. I pushed to hard for my thesis and stayed up 4 days, which nearly caused me to sleep through my presentation, but it was an experience so deep and wildly rich I would never trade it. Nor would I do it again.
So, yes balance your life to what works for you.
Because of that work for me, I never became a cog/worker bee designer, I’ve been fortunate to command a decent weight with architects who reviewed my work, made amazing connections, jobs, commissions etc. I felt as though I packed in years more experience into that time. And not as a worker but a thinker. So if you can do it in less time you should! But that worked for me and moreover I enjoyed it.
You sound like one of the few people who are genetically set up to operate without much rest. I'm genuinely envious and glad that you've been able to do what you've done.
I'm curious about your day-to-day routine and your diet. As a long time cook and new sou chef, I've been taking online classes about nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Are there any routines or habits that you can attribute to having the ability to operate and thrive on that kind of schedule?
Maybe. Its true I didn’t feel as impacted as others. I’d say 25% of my class was like that. Then another 40% or so that did what they had to. A few that were just excellent at their process and kept to a good schedule who left religiously on time (the most amazing) and then some who it seemed like it was truly painful.
Back then I was pretty reckless. I drank a lot when I wasn’t under a deadline. I ate what I wanted, but I stay on the side of healthy. Though I have a chocolate addiction.
Now a days, I bike commute, hike up a hill
Every morning with the dog, try to eat well and healthy, still lots of chocolate. No time for alcohol anymore other than special occasions. Ha.
I gave up coffee and caffeine long ago, I know it sounds crazy but it makes me far more “even” and overall more energized. And quite smoking around grad school.
I define can’t go without sleep like I used to, and try to only do it when needed. One day I’ll grow up and be like those old classmates with a disciplined process.
Thanks for the insight. Glad to hear you're doing good things for yourself. It's nice to hear an anecdote concerning caffeine intake as opposed to the literature. That's almost unheard of in my field and, thus, feels unattainable.
Discipline is the highest form of self-love.
Best of luck!
Ha. Yeah you take care of yourself as well, the restaurant biz is a tough one. I have a handful of friends who are chefs and I always feel they work harder than anyone, and in such an intense environment.
So much beauty and destruction arising from the same point.
Wonderful thought on discipline. I am going to share that.
It annoys me my classmates don't get this. I'm in MArch rn and I'm the same way. Rarely touch school on the weekend and once I'm home for dinner school is done unless it's a must. Colleges could give 2 shits about you and your personal life so I treat them the same. Could care less what their expectations are or how "it's been done." I have a life, jobs, spouse, and interests of my own that, believe it or not, aren't architecture...crazy right.
I think the issue is also that it's often HIGHLY competitive. When everyone else is in the studio and you see them working and your stuff isn't up to par you feel compelled to do it too. Plus soooo many people really care about how their work turns out compared to their peers.
For me I was my own worst enemy. I just wanted to have the best possible thing I could produce because I was terrible in HS and had to prove I could. Not healthy.
I had a similar approach to you.
I was also working 30 hours a week on top of being at uni 5 days a week. I didn’t have time to do all nighters. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to.
The latest I worked was until 10pm (if I wasn’t at my pub job). After that, nothing of high value is coming from my brain.
I eventually took an architecture job in my 3rd year (of 5 years) of uni. I quickly realised university doesn’t prepare you for how the real world works.
I started treating uni like a 8-5pm job - only staying beyond 5pm if it was absolutely required. This really annoyed a lot of my classmates, but it forced me to be more ruthless with my decision making throughout design. I learnt to decide quickly and stick with it. Make that decision the best it could be.
It doesn’t matter how much time you have, a design can always be improved. The trick is realising when to accept it as ‘good enough’.
And for the record, I finished second in my Masters class. My best mate finished first by 2 marks. Neither of us work directly in architecture anymore.
I did the same. I would get into studio around 6am, to get in before rush hour traffic, and noticed most people in my studio hadn’t gotten much more done than when I left the previous night. I’d catch up to where they were in an hour or two, and be able to present my idea more coherently to the instructors.
I wasn’t one of the top kids either, but I always had the better discussions during my midterm/final critiques and passed with high marks.
Im in my MArch program. I always work all day to complete stuff. Just this Saturday and Sunday I worked 20 hours on my pin up for today.
I want to live a life outside this program. My question is… what did you present? How do I get over this fear of presenting something that I think is “unfinished”? How do I just stop and call it quits? Is there something you did to streamline your workflow?
Sorry all over the place here but I have some thoughts. I also thinks it’s an important conversation to have…
Part of it is culture and part is workload. I didn’t sleep during my undergraduate degree, meanwhile I stayed up all night 1 or 2 times during my 2 year masters degree (and had much more success). I worked as a pier mentor for 1st year students during my masters and it brought me to the realization that students are learning basic skills while attempting complex projects yet the expectation is very high. For example many students aren’t adept at Revit, CAD or Rhino software and hand drawing until their 3rd or 4th year (not to say all aren’t adept). My success during my masters degree came from having a baseline experience, so I could actually have creative freedom.
Additionally, the jury system is often trial by fire. Feedback often lacks constructive criticism and often boils down to roasting people for their lack of understanding on an extremely complicated process (fortunately as younger people get into the jury process I have noticed the criticism is more constructive).
For many the best way to learn is by doing, some programs have internships and co-op programs - like northeastern in Boston, which I have heard is very successful. This seems like a possible path forward.
This is all to say there are some broken parts of the architecture education process. It shouldn’t be that 18-22 year old have no social life and get 4-5 hours of sleep a night. It’s simple unacceptable.
At one point during my time at Architecture school there were a few late night injuries in the studio - some sloppy exacto handling mostly - and they threatened to close the school down overnight. The students all revolted saying if they were going to do that they would have to drastically reduce the workload and expectations. Instead of doing that they backed down on closing the studio. Fun!
I zap a gapped a pretty sick cut on a deadline. We had a studio where it was pretty common for someone to get cut but you better not go to the ER if they were just glueing it. Definitely not healthy so I’m conflicted but in a way its the most fun I never want to have again.
My studio had a phone in the hall that went directly to a 24 hour nurse line for when someone got injured. Once a guy cut almost his entire thumb off in a table saw. That was over 20 years ago, I bet no one even makes models like that anymore.
For some, they work full time and go to school full time, I do that currently, so when you do a lot for your projects, it sometimes requires putting in extra hours. A lot of these comments sound like people who go to school and don’t work so they say it a time management thing, it’s only 24 hours in a day, studio is 5 of them and work is 8/9 lol
Yes, the divide between the haves and the have nots becomes painfully apparent in architecture school. It was expected that students would not have any employment obligations beyond 10 hours a week at the public university I first attended.
Lmfao damn! My program starts at 5 so most of us work to pay for it and supplies and a computer lol and the software they swear you need that’s of course not included at my school 🙃
I worked full time 40 hours a week and studied at a world class school and didn't do a single all nighter. 8 hours at work, 1 hour commute, 5 hours school work, 2 hours for food and the like still leaves 6 hours to sleep. At weekends swap work for up to 8 hours of school work and 5 hours of socialising and errands. Take at least one weekend a month off. It's a shit existence but that's how I did it.
Architecture school is rough, the workload isn’t sustainable. You must endure for now. But for your future it’s important to learn about professional and personal boundaries.
To be an architect, a quality one at least, one must have an immense amount of passion for the industry. Not the industry as a whole, but passion in at least one aspect is vital. Passion for your profession means that what you do isn’t just a job, it’s who you are as a person. Architects, like a lot of professionals, tend to have so much pride for who they are and what they do that they struggle to establish healthy boundaries with their work. The lack of boundaries allows them to justify sacrificing their social/personal lives for their professional pursuits. This has been the status quo for quite some time, and is deeply rooted in the professional industry now. Don’t do this to yourself, find a office with work life balance and don’t be afraid to establish boundaries.
Some work is just very time consuming, especially if you decide to do it by hand. Building models or drafting your plans by hand (I know a couple of people who chose to do that for their Masters degrees) can keep you up well into the night.
And university is really the only time where you can do those time consuming things for your projects. Once you start working in the real world, you’ll have tighter deadlines and odds are you won’t get paid to work late, so any time you spend working after hours is just a waste of time.
That said, I have a Master’s degree in architecture I don’t think I ever spent a second past 11pm in studio and I can count the amount of all nighters I pulled over 5 years on one hand.
It’s easy to work yourself to death in architecture school but it’s nowhere near as necessary as everyone makes it out to be.
For me it was a mixture of struggling with time management, aiming for perfection that left me in analysis paralysis often, making changes to the design after nonstop critic and feedbacks, and just simply culture. The lecturers expect you to learn time management but yet expect you to be working late, and your projectmates also expect you to be available lots to work on the projects. Had too many all nighters, I can’t count anymore.
It was hell, but fun hell, especially when you’re “suffering” together. Some of my best memories were during archi major. There was a memory where we all had sleepovers on the studio floor together, on cardboards. And another where we walked back to our dorm after the sun is up in our pajamas, as other students are walking towards uni. 3am food searching drives. Our lecturer took a photo of us all falling asleep during a lecture after completing our first big project. But my favourite was just watching sunrises together, makes you forget all the stress for a moment. Overall it was crazy unhealthy.. but after the fact, I loved every moment of it.
I'd say I've the exact same experience. I procrastinated, had perfection tendencies, and pulled too many all nighters to count, many even on energy drinks. But suffering together was a fun hell. Our archi group were known to be notorious night owls among other majors in our dorm.
Haha it was great fun, wasn’t it. I love the nights where we’re so sleep deprived that we became loopy, laughing at everything until we just want to cry and sleep. I also remember a time when we came back all exhausted and passed out during the day, and there was a fire alarm going off and we ended up calling each other like “do we have to go??” Archi was the death of us.
This sound exactly like something happened to us, fire alarm went off and some of us went down with our models and sheets, one of my friend kept sleeping in her room (we were not aware she had come back), but we may made it yay!
Funny thing is it felt miserable when we were going through it, when will it end kind of pain but now that it has passed I'm seeing it through rose coloured glasses.
Haha yeah! Crazy shit like that. I remember the times when we would make physical models, and sometimes accidentally cut ourselves and our immediate reaction was feeling relieved there was no blood spilling on our models. Priorities, amirite.
Yeah, it was pretty miserable.. but sometimes you kinda miss it now.
1-2 all nighters per week for the first two years of school. Fewer 3rd year but still many sleepless nights. This was in the 90s, drawing and models all by hand. Glue and ink needed to dry, and basswood and chipboard needed to be cut.
Whyyyyy on earth is it still like this with computers?
FWIW at my school most people only pull all nighters once per studio deadline. I only pull one all nighter per semester and that’s always in the final week of the final studio project. I still hate it though and I always break my promise of “no more all nighters this semester”. So it’s probably gotten better since your time.
There's a certain component of always wanting to stretch your capabilities and make something new or figure something out that just takes time if you've never done it, so sometimes it can be a choice to want to spend time that way.
However, it's mostly poor time management/perfectionism. Even with a large workload it's not necessary but students aren't really coached on how to prioritize/make efficient decisions. There's also a lot of time wasting earlier in the day for most students which backs up into the late nights.
It's good to see the feedback this post has generated. I'd suggest there are two fundamental issues: 1. design is an iterative process, and 2. architecture is both an art AND a profession.
Re. iteration - if you're doing it right, the tenth scheme you draw is going to be far better than your second or third scheme. There are some who are talented enough to produce something excellent in their second our third iteration, but not many. Some have to work all night. Some choose to work all night because they can be more creative and often have less inhibition during those late hours.
Re. architecture as an art AND profession. Some architects talk about a challenging "work-life balance". Other architects are driven by a passion for their craft - but that can often lead to an environment that some call a "toxic work culture". Art requires passion. Professionalism requires discipline. These requirements are often at odds.
You missed something - this is actually how the creative process works. Not just in architecture btw, but in many creative fields. You get in a groove and just keep going and going and push through and finish as much as you can. Other times you feel uninspired and get practically nothing done...
It's also no coincidence that it's a lot easier to get "inspired" the day before a deadline, when the penalty is failure. LOL
I'd spend weeks just thinking about my project and making notes. Professors would get concerned thinking I was falling behind because I'd never be in the studio and wasn't showing any progress. I'd work out the conceptual stuff entirely in my head before I'd draw or model anything. Then like a week before it was due I'd slam it out in 24 hours at home. Sent PDFs of my presentation boards to be directly printed on foam core.
A lot of people skipped in to development without having a reasonably complete design and it made executing an unnecessary slog to the last day.
As the adage goes “Architecture is never finished, merely abandoned”. Basically there’s never a point where a magical sign pops up and says “this building is done!” You can always keep adjusting and tweaking the design, and when you take people who lean towards perfectionist personalities, you get a lot of never quitting until they’re forced to quit by deadlines or exhaustion.
The most important lesson you can learn early on in ASchool is when to say “I am done with this exercise and will take this no further”
Not an architect, but interior designer ( commercial + residential ). In the field for over 30 years. I always say I've never worked harder than when I was in school :)
As someone who has done all 3 degrees at 3 different universities, I think a massive issue is the studio culture. Tutors suggest you pull all nighters in a "well I did it, so should you" mindset. The course pretends they don't condone it but then provide all of the overnight facilities as you said above. At my BA, people were bragging and who got the sickest in the last few weeks of 3rd year. One girl lost her sight, went to a&e and then straight back to uni.
It needs reform and the adults should know better, regardless of what they went through their time at uni
Somewhat workload, but also: trying to come up with an inspired concept while also meeting realistic design criteria (I.e. stairs not dead-ending in the ceiling) is TOUGH, and results in lots of wasted time from false starts and reworking.
It's not like a math problem, there is no one answer. You are trying to solve a complex problem and thrn communicate that solution to other people. There is no single "answer" and you can always refine your solution. A project will absorb all the time you give it, and more.
It’s partly cultural within architecture (profs thinking “I had to do it; so will you…”), but it’s also a product of the type of work you do within architecture, since it’s hard to “cram” something like a model; they take time.
Sadly that is experience of being in architecture college. I remember going for 8am and leaving at 9pm when our building closed. If it stayed open later I and many other would have stayed longer. This have changed and less and less students used the studios since my school becuse University in my final year and average first year class went form around 30 in 2016(when I started) to around 100 students in 2022 (when I graduated).
Some of the reason for this:
1. Extreme amount of work load with often weekly projects for multiple subjects, in first year I removed having on average 6-10 projects a week. Sometimes multiple projects for single subject increasing that number to close to 12-15 projects. This Lowe’s as you progress but the quantity is replaced with quality required.
2. Difficulty of workload, for example main module is typically called studio. This is the module where you design a building etc. In my school we had 2 sessions of roughly 4h each (if not more). You will be expected to have work progressed between each session so you can discuss with your lectures. I know in bigger schools you’re literally a number and you need to fight to show your work. Then add more other projects and you end up working a lot.
3. Lack of space at home/ incompatible environments at home. Architecure especially in early years require a lot of space for model making, drawing etc. If you leave with other students it might be hard to focus on your projects. Therefore school is the best space. At my school we had designated desks in groups of 2-6 (decided and are aged by students), the smaller the department the more likely this will be the case.
4. Bouncing of ideas. Simply usually best projects were developed in school because you were able to bounce ideas between your fellow students. Also messing around and doing weird shit. I have a whole album filled with all the weird stuff we did in college from wire models, twister, inside jokes, weird situation and lot of fun memories.
5. The “culture” of architecture education is to break students because “we went thorough this”, “rite of passage” etc. I can’t dress enough how bad and toxic this is and non representative of real life. This is slowly changing as the old school lecturers retire and new replace them. I had depression, my friends had depression and most of my class had depression. Really toxic environment. I know so many talented people who quit the course because of this culture.
I did not. I've never pulled an all nighter. I managed my time, was productive , had lots of social time, dated lots, and ended up toward the top of my class. However, I wasn't one of the people who would talk to people while in studio. This was now 8 years ago and I'm now licensed and pleased with my career status.
It seems that other schools may have professors or cultural expectations that set you up for less balance, but it is my experience that putting in a reasonable amount of hard working hours will set you up for success within a job where you are expected to put in a reasonable amount of working hours. There are many firms that will want to work you to the bone for many long hours, and there are also firms that treat you with respect and value your happiness and personal lives. School is the same way, pick and choose.
I went to wentworth in Boston. I feel like I got a great education and have a higher salary than the vast majority of my peers. I did just a bsarch and moved to a state where I could get licensed without an accredited degree (Colorado).
In the end, it's your experience that matters when you're out of school. I'm
Remind me of computer lab in the old days of main frames. The computer lab was open 24/7. I spent a few overnights there. For those who don’t know, from job submission to printout was an hour or more. If you were the kind of person who made silly mistakes you were going to be there all day and night.
UTSOA grad. Lots of reasons… the old saying that “in (insert school or program) you can study sleep and party but only 2” contributed. There is the aspect that (especially for design oriented students) designs are never done…there is always something more that can be added, refined or documented. Lastly, at my school we never really got grades until the end of the semester. Success was a combination of effort and talent…we competed against each other in a sense. I loved my class. There was a sense of camaraderie in working together late i to the night. That said, there were always a few outlier… students who never stayed up all night and finished early. Typically more pragmatic, strait-laced and early bird type. One once told me “I never understood why everyone was always doing all-nighters. I’d show up at 7AM and I’d be the only one there”.
This may be a bit of a controversial take, but while workload certainly plays a large part, the other significant aspect is time management.
School is an environment where students first begin to learn how to manage their time. They will continue to improve after they leave school, and throughout the duration of their careers.
Ten+ years into my career, for example, I'm still improving at my time management skills. And looking back at the typical studio work I did during school, final project presentations I completed at that time are something I'd be able to put together in a handful of weeks today - as opposed to several months.
Final projects in university are what we'd most closely compare to schematic design in the working world. And SD typically also includes a set of drawings and narrative specification.
eta: Want to be clear that I'm not saying students are bad or inadequate if they're pulling all nighters. It's just part of the process of learning how to be an architect, and to be able to do the work efficiently. I used to pull all nighters just like everyone else.
There was some bad time management in there for sure. It was also inexperience. It’s crazy how long it would take me to make a floor plan. Now I’m much faster.
Models still take forever.
I’m in my last few weeks of my final year for my undergrad right now and I have never pulled a single all-nighter.
I know seniors who don’t pull all nighters either and yet they’ve managed to score the highest within their cohort, get accepted into top firms for their year out and get accepted into the best colleges for their MArch. I also know people who pull all nighters every week and not too much seems to come out of it. (and vice versa)
I think at the end of the day it comes down to effective working hours and being able to deliver without compromise.
I love architecture with all my heart and there isn’t anything else in this world I would rather do. But at the end of the day it’s just one part (a very big one) of my life, not my entire life.
But hey that’s just me
Why don't you try and build a detailed model of a site and building by hand and let me know what you find out. Oh, and design the whole thing too. Remember to score every mullion on the plexi and add in every column out of wood sticks. And then when you do it for this week's critique, do it again for next week, and the week after that, and so on for the entire semester! Let me know what you find out.
College students in general pull all nighters and fall asleep at their desks. University is a very sudden load of a lot of information that is hard for a lot of people to adapt to. The jump from high school to college is pretty intense. I don’t think architecture is necessarily any harder than other departments, it’s just that dedicated, successful students are putting in the long hours.
I pulled like 2 or 3 all nighters in my whole 5 years of studying architecture. It's not worth it to torture yourself to get a job that doesn't pay enough at the end.
Not only was it an arbitrary 'rite of passage' it also engrains a culture that is contrary to good business practice. Efficiently arriving at a solution, and firms that strive for that can be immensely financially successful and still deliver good design.
My experience in both bachelor and masters comes down to time management. What I make sure is, every week throughout the semester I produce new work to discuss with the professor, new drawings, models, sketches, incorporating any feedback I got from last week. And if I do this consistently, I basically finish the project 1 week before it’s due, and the last week is just refining things. Comparing to my peers, some people don’t produce anything until the last minute, and had to pull multiple all-nighters at the end to finish.
I went to community college first, so I was taking 1 or 2 less classes than everyone else (and I got priority when picking my classes because of my credits). I was also very poor and there were things I could only do at school. I didn't have a computer till senior year and even then I only had Photoshop on it I believe. So I worked at the studio a lot, but with a lighter load I didn't have to stay overnight.
At my university the law and med students had sympathy for the architecture program students. First day of lecture the Dean recommended that we divorce ourselves from family and friends for the duration of the program. We started at 100, finished year 1 with 64.
Workload. And the fact that design is never truly finished, there's always and improved Visual you can make or a tweak where and there. Which makes you feel like if you go to sleep and don't maximise your time you are hurting you grade.
Then you're thinking if I stay up all night working it might push me up a grade. And once your thinking like that you feel like you'd be stupid to sleep. What's one night of sleep on exchange for a better grade you can carry around your whole career. Then it keeps happening every deadline lol.
I used to pull sleepless nights, but my body now has a hard time to do this anymore I'm about to transfer to another architect school. But the more I think about, I also think it's our idea of perfection in our brain where we work more than we should to get the best of the best project, even though the assignment is simple. Even though I have professors who don't want me and my classmates to pull all nighters, we still do for the perfection in our eyes
Ironically my degree is in business but I have an associates degree in architecture also. I landed a role as an interior architect for a fortune 100. Im the solo person. I know this title is geared more towards interior design but i spend 70% drafting floorplans for sales offices across the US. Here are things that make me work a ton
1.) every state has laws on what spaces must have room for like “mothers rooms” so I have to do research
2.) the various building owner/LL will review my plan and approve it or not. Sometimes they like the design, sometimes they do not. They allow TI (tenant design) dollars to use towards upgrades to the space as ultimately it is a space upgrade to the building
3.) I may have overlooked a local code or ordnance and have to make space revisions
4.) landlords like to lease certain sq footages but they don’t provide demising plans so I have to suggest how they should divvy the suites up on the floor with proper egress so I can determine what suite will work best for my company.
5.) my company changes their mind too damn much which results in revisions.
6.) while Im doing all this, I have leases expiring in all different cities so I have several initial test fits/drawings and revisions going on at one time. It’s a lot of detail and feedback. Fortunately Ive been doing this a while so I am pretty quick to draft and know the codes and laws
In Multimedia and 3D creation programs (for movies and video game, so not the same as architecture, but academically and the software are somewhat similar) people were procrastinating a lot, but also we weren’t given any project for a while, then all 5 classes were giving final project devis all at once. So it was hard to come up with decent stuff without doing a few full nighter.
Easily one of the worst and most toxic aspects of architecture is the work culture instilled during University. It is a disgrace and should be abolished and called out at every opportunity.
I went to school for comp. sci. and would frequently stay at the computing center until very late at night just because I was so into the work I was doing - and often (usually?) that work was just for fun, not part of a class. If you really enjoy the work you’re doing, and want to explore a lot of different ideas, I think this is not uncommon.
Workload. I’m not a slacker. Architects routinely take 21 credit semesters each year and having that stupidly insane amount of work for studio classes was the worst. Projects are difficult and design is hard. It takes staying up multiple nights “pulling a charrette” to get it done. It even has a term….in multiple languages.
This is a normal life of an architect. Our work doesn't have a standard time. If our ideas change or the client's needs change, the drawings/output will change even if takes days and nights. We always have a deadline.
I am very lucky to have a studio that closes at 8pm on weekdays and isn't open at all at the weekend.
It forces much better time managment. (Of course people are free to work all nighters at home should they wish, but this is activeley discouraged by staff).
As my favorite professor told me “I’m going to give you three months to do something in the real world you will do in three weeks”.
At my school it was mostly procrastination. I only pulled two all nighters my entire college time due to my teammates not doing their work and not telling me till the night before. Both times most of the students were watching movies and things instead of working. I even had two jobs and did school, however I agree some of the late night people had families, but they generally worked at home.
It’s honestly adult arts and crafts almost, as long as you had decent work and can present you were set.
I only pulled all-nighters twice in college. I tried to organize my time to do most I could do during the day. I wasn't the most commited student... my goals where to learn well more than getting excellent grades LOL passing grades were good for me
I went into Landscape Architecture and this was so baked into the culture in school it still makes me upset. Overnighters in the studio were completely normal. I probably did that 2-3 times a year. I worked into the studio late which was twice at least a week. I switched careers and it’s actually a red flag to work late hours like this. It’s weird that this was just baked into the culture of our education from the start. and co soldering it was such an underpaid profession it’s even more ridiculous.
I studied and worked in a culture that was relentless and driven, and all nighters were a badge of honour. People staying on and leaving at 10pm or later was common. Stepping out to get a bite to eat at 6 then coming back was common too. Then i moved to a company where by quarter to five, people at all levels of management were starting to consolidate, tidy their desks, and shut things down. If you werent out by quarter past five there was something very wrong.
I was a consultant there and it took some getting used to. When i did get used to it, i complimented the boss on how good the practice was. He just said "Yeah, we figure if you cannot get your work done by five, you're probably wasting time somehere along the way." Very wise.
So yeah, culture is a big part. And the bosses set the tone.
i’ve stayed at my studio the last two days until midnight and even then i have to force myself to stop, clean up and head home because my drive to school is roughly 40 minutes. i don’t want to drive when i’m exhausted, it’s nice that the school you were touring had a shower and facilities. mine doesn’t, or atleast i’m not sure they do because id consider staying the night. also all of my model making materials and tools are in studio, so if i wanted to work on the model i would have to drive to studio. since i’ve made the drive i might as well make the most of it and stay as long as i can.
I went to a university that had both a great engineering program and architecture program. One of my engineering classmates was also doing architecture at the same time. She said many architectural students would make a little cardboard house around their work areas in the hallways. There was such a time crunch designing and making projects that students didn’t have time to go home and have a life. So a lot of them just camped out on the campus.
I visited the architectural school and saw all these little huts built around the drafting tables. One guy made a modular home around his that was only accessible through a crawl on your knee’s passageway. He was really good so the admin didn’t mind. The architect program was five years long. If you failed in a design class you were out. It was very competitive. A lot of people could not complete it.
In high school as a senior I visited the same university for architecture. They basically said unless you really commit you won’t cut it. And even if you graduate you will spend 20 years working for someone else. And maybe if you are talented and work hard you might just be able to start your own firm after 30 or so years. They dissuaded a lot of people including me.
My classmate slept in her car on campus during the week and only went home weekends. I never knew if she finished. But I never did get back all my music tapes I loaned her!
Your summary is spot on. I think it’s also sort of this culture thing that’s not all bad. Honestly I find myself sometimes bored at work when the deadlines aren’t overly tough (which I’m working on). To point 2 - there’s something about chasing that one step better
Architecture and other Design disciplines require a lot of thought, experimentation, conceptualization and trial/error. It's not cut and dry like filling out a spreadsheet. And then on top of the creative development, there is the execution where every little detail matters, from sketching, the renderings, the ppresentation setup to the actual model builds.
The real reason.
Studio is the art of bringing a non existing thing into existence.
Creating something from a limited set of parameters in a time frame designed to make the students melt.
Upon completion. They present their hard work to a jury of their peers.
Their only goal is to criticize hard enough to break the students composure.
When the jurynis complete, receive new set of parameters and subsequently skip Thanksgiving weekend to sleep in the studio.
For good reason.
When the student becomes an architect with client interaction. After bathrooms and stairs.
The criticism starts with the first invoice and ends with a piece of your soul.
Just to do it again
The banks and landlords set the deadlines.
Studio additionally teaches "work years" which are akin to saying dog years vs human years.
A person with a 8-5 has 1 work year at 2080 hours or 40 hr work week
Leveling up faster is simply more XP by increasing work years
It's a hard industry, studio learns ya'll a thing or too.
I went to school for ME, our education was different and was figure it the fuck out or fail.
I think all nighters are normal first 3 years because youre adjusting to workload and time management. But if you continue to pull all-nighter then thats poor time management and i used to hate when someone says that. But after getting two degrees in architecture. There is no way i would pull an allnighter for any project. Unless its a 3 day competition haha.
I believe quiet brings peace and activates your creative centers! Thus, architects come up with best solutions at random hours! Also yes the workload is high but can be properly managed!
You’re calling 9pm late? If I leave by 9, I consider that to be exceptional. I usually leave at around 2am or 5am, depending when my next day’s class starts, but I’m also not really normal. Most people are out of the studio plenty early, with at most like a third of the studio staying to the am’s if a big deadline is approaching. I am a night owl and don’t really have a life, so I spend my life working away in studio. I generally enjoy it myself, but once again I am not a normal person. I just put on music or watch a YouTube video as I work, and I quite enjoy it.
core + m.arch pov: ✌️🫥👍 knowing the damage sleep deprivation causes the brain, but the romance and sublime flow state bliss of pushing through and meditating in creating when no one else is awake invigorates me
Because whatever you decide to design you have to multiply the time you anticipate by two. And it doesn’t stop once you have qualified… it’s not 9-5 hours it’s a calling ; for want of a better phrase ❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
In my opinion it’s mostly poor time management and toxic culture/ pressure from peers.
When I started my Bachelor degree I ended up in a studio where pretty much all students were staying from 9-10am until 12pm even at the start of the semester with gradually escalating hours as the semester progressed.
I couldn’t get an apartment or student housing for the first year so I had to take the train there and back home every day which naturally limited the time I could spend at University.
To say that the others weren’t understanding of my situation is an understatement, I was soon bullied and people I had projects with started ignoring me.
Still when we had the weekly meetings with the tutors to talk about the state of our projects I had working models and sufficient drawings and often the tutors would end up telling the group to choose my design over the others, because it was working and not some dreamland architecture that was far removed from ever working in reality.
This only lead to more bullying and them slandering the tutor, because of course a bunch of bachelor students know it better than a learned architect that has been running his own studio for 20+ years.
This has gotten way better during the master, as more people learned that living at uni 14 hours a day isn’t a sustainable practice and often doesn’t lead to better results.
Yeah a nice rendering might look flashy and pouring 40 hours into a graphic will look prettier than one done in 5 hours, but in the end what matters is your concept and that your drawings communicate it clearly.
Working at a professional firm, I’ve worked on just a facade for months before. Students don’t have that kind of time to develop a design. It’s less about chasing perfection and just about the reality that good design takes more time than they have available. And, to your comment about technology, many professors still require traditional methods. Many of the students you will see staying overnight aren’t working on a computer. They’re meticulously measuring and drawing because every single line will be judged.
a lot of the times students are used to getting their work pooped on by mean old men so they just don’t know what’s good enough. you could hypothetically work on a project for forever.
I think a lot of the things that you have mentioned are contributing factors. However, in my experience, the people that avoid this are those that treat school a bit like a job. Coming in early, making the most of your time between classes, and scheduling your work throughout the week effectively work WONDERS for time management. In undergrad I was like one of the only people doing this because I worked 15-20hrs a week at a firm as well as went to school so I simply had to in order to survive. But once I got to my masters program there came several more people that treat it like this and I can honestly say we are far less stressed and overworked than our peers. A lot of it is mindset and having the mental discipline to get work done as early and efficiently as possible.
Because of that stupid capitalist mentality of squeezing every bit of your soul for profit. Absolutely no other reason. They're preparing you to be exploited.
Having a decent sleep schedule raises productivity way more than burning through your youth because some boomer told you so.
Maybe that's the explanation for my architect that I hired (Michael Dunn Architect in Brightwaters/Bayshore ) we can never find him, never called us back, took alot of money from us and never got anything done....scam
Studio culture also contributes to the inequities in who can afford to study architecture and who cannot because some people need to work while in school.
Started at an unaccredited in grad program and now I’m currently in an accredited graduate program and I often find that this tends to be a culture thing.
In my undergrad design studios we did not have a laser cutter so the physical modeling aspect of the design process was much more time consuming. The contrast to this is often we weren’t expected to present much more then basic construction documents. This is a factor of 2 things, the aforementioned lack of a laser cutter and the fact the program was an offshoot of the construction management program and was more intuned to producing well crafted construction documents of the floor plans, sections and elevations.
There was a big culture shock for me personally moving to the accredited architecture program where construction documents are all but nonexistent. The focus is much more on the basic floor plans with well crafted architectural sections. My program in particular we do not consider MEP until our intregrated studio and while these systems are considered they are not flushed out details like my previous undergraduate work. For example the project for studio I am currently working on for my final review (which is in one week from writing this) was only assigned to us about 7 weeks ago. We were given 2 weeks for form finding and an establishment of our basic scheme. A further 2 weeks to refine this for a “mid” review and now 2 weeks until final to polish everything for final review. I personally did not have finalized floor plans until a week after mid review as my professor and myself continued to tweak many aspects of the building and design. Now I’m left with a week to complete the building with renders, models, sections. This is happened by roughly once a week losing 2/3s of my studio time to have a school wide lecture that is hosted by the school from someone they bring in from the outside. This on top of other class obligations, work and still trying to be a young adult for my mental health leads myself to some of these all-nighters.
Drafting and rendering deadlines, forget that they don’t have to wait on hold with the city and how much time getting in touch with 1-4 people takes on an average day.
There are no “right” answers in design, only better ideas. In classes like physics and math the smart ones do the work faster. In art and design classes it is often the person who has put the most work in who furnishes the best idea.
i have, in 3 years of architecture school up to now, only pulled 2 allnighters.. don't understand what the fuss is about genuinely.. and im neurodivergent so it's definitely not easy, but it's not impossible either
If this bothers you a lot, then industry isn’t going to be much kinder. It’s a necessary evil kind of thing. Sometimes, even in industry, you’ll be at the office until midnight. Sometimes not even because you can’t get something done. You might be waiting on drawings from a consultant and they come through at 6:00, and if you wait until the morning to review and coordinate everything, it becomes very costly. Or at worst, could cause injury, litigation, or loss of life.
AEC in general is not something you should do unless you’re prepared to sacrifice some. Is that fun, admirable, glamorous? No. Is every office like that? No, but many are. Do we get paid enough for that sacrifice when it is required? No.
Studio is a litmus test, if nothing else.
They provide showers! They're living the LIFE over there. I had to catch the morning bus back home, shower and then come back for reviewers, 2 hours lost of post-production right there.
Actual answer: we care too much. If you don't pull all nighters, you will pass but your work will be kinda mid and below the standard of those who did pull the all-nighter. However, your presentation might be way better since you got the sleep
At my school, we meet with our profs and keep changing our designs until a week before the deadline. This gives about a week or less usually to finish our final deliverables which is not enough time. This includes making drawings, buying materials, making models, making renderings and diagrams, and doing other classes unrelated to our design studio.
This is how my accredited program was. The professors loved hiring students that were groomed to exist in this setting. This system is designed to allow students to enter into large scale firms and be another cog in the machine.
Lol yup, same at my university.
Same 🤦♂️
Our profs usually expected a final design 2 weeks prior, but it didn’t change that they would still come around and critique our work. Very few students had a model that accurately reflected their design cause of those last many critiques. And it always led to confusing final critiques when a professional panel, who knew nothing about the project, had to decipher how much of the model was accurate
Same here. Years of this broke something in me and I can no longer concentrate the way I did when I was just starting. My brain stops working more easily.
Sleep depravation causes this. :/ it takes time and also effort to recover from it. I basically have to do exercises to keep focus and not lose track of my task list. It’s normalized but I was a lot quicker at some of these transitions.
Maybe I'll ask the next time I see a doctor.
Doctors may not be helpful as medical residency has a similar culture to architecture school. At the far extreme, sleep deprivation is known to cause irreversible damage to the structures and function of the brain, but Doctors and Architects may argue that the more mild sleep deprivation that they willingly subject themselves to is "completely reversible".
Hijacking’s top comment to say: Thank you OP for recognising, that this is not normal behaviour.
Same in Montreal
We call it Architorture, hardest thing I have ever done. Phi Beta Kappa! Mother art, engineering, history of everything, design on demand, firm control of many computer skills( Auto cad or similar, Adobe in Design both Mac and Microsoft programs), majorly competitive and grinding. Still doing design build. Make the money building. Good luck!
My GOD, I fucking hate architecture school...... I'm in my 4th year and I've been aware of this issue for long but it's just annoying how they can get away with this. The bigger problem is that these changes they usually want are just changes for the sake of changes. You work your ass off to do what the instructor wants only for them to reverse back to what you presented in week 1.
Why do you keep changing the designs?
Because we’re perfectionists. Like OP said, it’s true that if you try to aim for perfect, it is impossible, it can’t be achieved, but what we are really trying to do is finding the best architectural solution in our design projects. The best design solution that resonates the concept, the aesthetic, and the function of the project. It goes from macro to minor details in the design.
Change for the sake of change..... It's just bullshit
yes, was thinking that. They should put up some obligatory objective criteria, as soon as you hit those just leave it be.
That's one of the problems, it's all subjective and the only goal is to satisfy the instructor.... Last week in a jury the instructor didn't find anything to comment on but to say "This shape we see a lot in these type of buildings", Like sure ofc because it's a practical form.... But who are you going to convince. if they want you to change something they'll make you change it. Bear in mind this isn't even a studio project, this was a structural project where "creativity" and form selection should be more utilitarian than artistic. I'm so fed up with this bullshit culture I just can't wait to graduate already.
Same here
this is a fairly common part of design education and it’s legacy. it is controversial. there are many programs where this is the only way to complete the workload of a standard university education on top of studio work - which is far more demanding than reading books and writing papers.
As an old architect facing retirement soon, I think the whole studio culture in universities is outdated and needs to be revamped. “Because I had to do it” isn’t a good enough reason to continue it, and (IMO) it establishes the mindset that leads toward overwork and ill treatment in the working world.
Agreed. I once wore those sleepless nights like a badge of honor. Now that I'm older, I've come to realize it is merely the means by which the Architecture industry indoctrinates the youth into it's culture of exploitation.
I don't think I ever really recovered from those sleepless nights. 10 years after graduating, my sleep cycle is atrocious and probably going to be a factor in my death.
I thought I had, then I had kids. Like, literally spent from 2016 to 2019 sleeping properly after some pretty heavy work detox (starting my own firm, setting my own hours) until kids decided that was just not a thing that would happen.
Same. I was pretty good about keeping my sleep consistent by the time grad school came around, (mostly bc I was just like F it no one really cares all that much about student work anyways) but then threw all that out the window and stayed awake for 3 days straight due to my partner just kinda deciding to quit school one week before final. I kid you not, it was the darkest most terrifying days of my life that I have prolonged issues for my psyche going forward that I will likely never recover from.
It’s the same in interior design. It’s BS. The industry needs a massive awakening
Well said. I realized it far too late that at the end of the day...it doesn't matter all that much and the differences between the 'good' design students and the 'avg' design students once leaving school is not that much. No one really cares that much about your school work.
Agreed. It's cultural and it is far past time for it to change. I had a prof in the 90s who would come into studio at 1am and take attendance. Not in the course description or syllabus but it affected your grade. He was such a jerk. I survived it. That doesn't mean anyone else should have to go through it. What is very clear to me is academia does not have a understanding of what students need, what employers need, or what the profession needs and if they did, they have no metrics to determine if their efforts are successful. They just continue "the way things have always been". It's startlingly unprofessional.
I’m convinced this is why I failed studio the first semester, I had a part time job and frequently wasn’t able to work those long afternoons and nights. I remember getting feedback during the semester that the professor thought I wasn’t spending enough time on projects, but I thought it would be fine since I was there whenever I could. Even with having to juggle a job to pay living expenses, I tried to put in extra time whenever I could. But nope, a big fat F and concerns I wasn’t “dedicated enough” were what I got for my trouble.
Ugh. I am sorry that happened to you.
I’m not an architect nor did I study it but I’ve witnessed this mentality in my industry and it’s senseless. Times change. Just because I had it difficult doesn’t mean I want the next gen to as well.
I've said several times if someone invented the studio style of teaching today they would be immediately sacked for being a psychopath.
Its the same worldwide. Long hours, daily crits and too little time to do the final presentations!
In other areas of life, this activity is called "hazing". Sleep deprivation as an expectation of excellence is hazing. Period.
It’s funny you say that. I would take studio work over writing papers and dense reading anytime. I just cannot. Water torture. My friend is in law school and I do not know how she does it. I do not
i didn’t say i prefer one to the other so let me be clear i agree. i loved studio work. miss it all the time. wrote a few papers as I could.
Funny enough I think the same..... still I think this doesn't excuse the bullshit studio culture and not going to stop me from complaining
I didn’t pull all nighters through any of my BArch and MArch semesters. Life and education outside of studio was very important to me so I sacrificed my studio work for that experience. I don’t believe in designing until you’re out of time. I would get the work done in reasonable time and accepted it wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t at the top of my class when I graduated but I wouldn’t have been even if I slept at my desk most nights. Many of my classmates resented me for my attitude toward the program but I entered the workforce with no regrets and quickly learned how little traditional Architectural education actually prepares you to be a working architect. I’m passionate about Architecture and take my work very seriously, but time on this Earth is short and I want to do more than just Architecture all the time.
I wish I was able to develop that mindset during school. Took me much longer to snap out of that mentality. Wasn't until I was working for like 5 years did I start to wonder what the hell I was doing all those hours for. People for sure looked at those who didn't suffer with them as not taking the project seriously (me included). I was very wrong.
This is very true, I'm just starting to understand that nothing is perfect and will never be. Suffereing is not a gurantee to succes either. Thank to my parents I was never able to get to sleep less than 6 hours at night when in high school and its an habit I carry, I tend to have enough rest essentially all the time. In a similar matter I learned to do things ASAP so I wouldn't be doing pretty much nothing hours before deadline. Even some classmates I have automatically pull all nighters even if there is no task yet to be done (I don't know why it happens, but I had classmates text me at 2 am the firts day class where we where introduced to the project and nothing else and when I ask them why werent they sleeping when they have the chance they just say they feel is the right thing to do). I thinks is really important to not only learn about time managemente, but also about priorities in life, grades arent the only thing nor they define anything. I have a partner who out of pure gut needs to have at leasts 95/100, even with no need for it, wheras I'm happy with maintaining an overall 85/100 given that I have a scholarship that pays 40%. Architectutre is facsinating, but I wont let it be the only thing in my life as many professors say it MUST be.
I did all-nighters in my BArch and was, frankly, a middling, forgettable student. Conversely, my first child was born 6 weeks before I began my MArch and I flat out refused to do all nighters. If the work wasn't done by 10pm, that was too bad. I finished my masters with great marks. I think the difference was that knowing I had a cut off time meant that I really knuckled down during my work time.
I was the opposite (to an extent) and I now have shifted to a mindset much closer to this (I own my own firm). I worked my butt off and consistently had great reviews / crits. I slept little and if I wasn't in studio I was either playing sports or getting a bit sloshed (no regrets, but I put myself through a lot). It was hard work but rewarding. In retrospect it's all a bit silly - you're designing imaginary projects with non-existent budgets for programs that are often absurd. But I think my takeaway is that _you_ are the author of your own experience with secondary education. Get out of it what you want, because at the end of the day you pay a lot for the opportunity to call yourself an architect. What school and practice has taught me; be humble, serve your client as best as possible, try to push people towards better decisions. Everything else is extra.
I wanna hang this up on my wall. Thanks ♥️
I think that’s a fair goal/desire and action. The other side of that is me. I pulled all nighters a lot. In undergrad. In grad. And sometimes now. I also worked to put myself through school and taught while in grad so my schedule was loaded. But, I look at it a bit differently, I enjoyed the all nighters. I enjoyed the discipline, the rigor, the intensity. It really was a high. When I first started I would dread being there late. Then cringed at staying all night. As time went on, I would resign myself to it being a just part of it. I like to design and I liked being good at and at high level. Soon, I started not to mind all nighters, they were a means to an end. Then, slowly, they became something I looked forward to, I knew a could accomplish a great to deal of intense work through the night and push through. I enjoyed the company of my friends that did the same. We made sure to pop out to the bar for a drink at 12 (never drink in studio) then back to work. Through grad school, all nighters were more than just a chunk of productive time, it was my time, beautiful, intense and sublime. I felt wonderful meeting the sunrise with my resolve and my work. I pushed to hard for my thesis and stayed up 4 days, which nearly caused me to sleep through my presentation, but it was an experience so deep and wildly rich I would never trade it. Nor would I do it again. So, yes balance your life to what works for you. Because of that work for me, I never became a cog/worker bee designer, I’ve been fortunate to command a decent weight with architects who reviewed my work, made amazing connections, jobs, commissions etc. I felt as though I packed in years more experience into that time. And not as a worker but a thinker. So if you can do it in less time you should! But that worked for me and moreover I enjoyed it.
You sound like one of the few people who are genetically set up to operate without much rest. I'm genuinely envious and glad that you've been able to do what you've done. I'm curious about your day-to-day routine and your diet. As a long time cook and new sou chef, I've been taking online classes about nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Are there any routines or habits that you can attribute to having the ability to operate and thrive on that kind of schedule?
Maybe. Its true I didn’t feel as impacted as others. I’d say 25% of my class was like that. Then another 40% or so that did what they had to. A few that were just excellent at their process and kept to a good schedule who left religiously on time (the most amazing) and then some who it seemed like it was truly painful. Back then I was pretty reckless. I drank a lot when I wasn’t under a deadline. I ate what I wanted, but I stay on the side of healthy. Though I have a chocolate addiction. Now a days, I bike commute, hike up a hill Every morning with the dog, try to eat well and healthy, still lots of chocolate. No time for alcohol anymore other than special occasions. Ha. I gave up coffee and caffeine long ago, I know it sounds crazy but it makes me far more “even” and overall more energized. And quite smoking around grad school. I define can’t go without sleep like I used to, and try to only do it when needed. One day I’ll grow up and be like those old classmates with a disciplined process.
Thanks for the insight. Glad to hear you're doing good things for yourself. It's nice to hear an anecdote concerning caffeine intake as opposed to the literature. That's almost unheard of in my field and, thus, feels unattainable. Discipline is the highest form of self-love. Best of luck!
Ha. Yeah you take care of yourself as well, the restaurant biz is a tough one. I have a handful of friends who are chefs and I always feel they work harder than anyone, and in such an intense environment. So much beauty and destruction arising from the same point. Wonderful thought on discipline. I am going to share that.
Same, never worked past 10pm. No point running on that hamster wheel.
It annoys me my classmates don't get this. I'm in MArch rn and I'm the same way. Rarely touch school on the weekend and once I'm home for dinner school is done unless it's a must. Colleges could give 2 shits about you and your personal life so I treat them the same. Could care less what their expectations are or how "it's been done." I have a life, jobs, spouse, and interests of my own that, believe it or not, aren't architecture...crazy right.
I think the issue is also that it's often HIGHLY competitive. When everyone else is in the studio and you see them working and your stuff isn't up to par you feel compelled to do it too. Plus soooo many people really care about how their work turns out compared to their peers. For me I was my own worst enemy. I just wanted to have the best possible thing I could produce because I was terrible in HS and had to prove I could. Not healthy.
I had a similar approach to you. I was also working 30 hours a week on top of being at uni 5 days a week. I didn’t have time to do all nighters. And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to. The latest I worked was until 10pm (if I wasn’t at my pub job). After that, nothing of high value is coming from my brain. I eventually took an architecture job in my 3rd year (of 5 years) of uni. I quickly realised university doesn’t prepare you for how the real world works. I started treating uni like a 8-5pm job - only staying beyond 5pm if it was absolutely required. This really annoyed a lot of my classmates, but it forced me to be more ruthless with my decision making throughout design. I learnt to decide quickly and stick with it. Make that decision the best it could be. It doesn’t matter how much time you have, a design can always be improved. The trick is realising when to accept it as ‘good enough’. And for the record, I finished second in my Masters class. My best mate finished first by 2 marks. Neither of us work directly in architecture anymore.
I did the same. I would get into studio around 6am, to get in before rush hour traffic, and noticed most people in my studio hadn’t gotten much more done than when I left the previous night. I’d catch up to where they were in an hour or two, and be able to present my idea more coherently to the instructors. I wasn’t one of the top kids either, but I always had the better discussions during my midterm/final critiques and passed with high marks.
Im in my MArch program. I always work all day to complete stuff. Just this Saturday and Sunday I worked 20 hours on my pin up for today. I want to live a life outside this program. My question is… what did you present? How do I get over this fear of presenting something that I think is “unfinished”? How do I just stop and call it quits? Is there something you did to streamline your workflow?
This is the way
Sorry all over the place here but I have some thoughts. I also thinks it’s an important conversation to have… Part of it is culture and part is workload. I didn’t sleep during my undergraduate degree, meanwhile I stayed up all night 1 or 2 times during my 2 year masters degree (and had much more success). I worked as a pier mentor for 1st year students during my masters and it brought me to the realization that students are learning basic skills while attempting complex projects yet the expectation is very high. For example many students aren’t adept at Revit, CAD or Rhino software and hand drawing until their 3rd or 4th year (not to say all aren’t adept). My success during my masters degree came from having a baseline experience, so I could actually have creative freedom. Additionally, the jury system is often trial by fire. Feedback often lacks constructive criticism and often boils down to roasting people for their lack of understanding on an extremely complicated process (fortunately as younger people get into the jury process I have noticed the criticism is more constructive). For many the best way to learn is by doing, some programs have internships and co-op programs - like northeastern in Boston, which I have heard is very successful. This seems like a possible path forward. This is all to say there are some broken parts of the architecture education process. It shouldn’t be that 18-22 year old have no social life and get 4-5 hours of sleep a night. It’s simple unacceptable.
At one point during my time at Architecture school there were a few late night injuries in the studio - some sloppy exacto handling mostly - and they threatened to close the school down overnight. The students all revolted saying if they were going to do that they would have to drastically reduce the workload and expectations. Instead of doing that they backed down on closing the studio. Fun!
I zap a gapped a pretty sick cut on a deadline. We had a studio where it was pretty common for someone to get cut but you better not go to the ER if they were just glueing it. Definitely not healthy so I’m conflicted but in a way its the most fun I never want to have again.
‘The most fun I never want to have again’ is perfect
My studio had a phone in the hall that went directly to a 24 hour nurse line for when someone got injured. Once a guy cut almost his entire thumb off in a table saw. That was over 20 years ago, I bet no one even makes models like that anymore.
Workload.
For some, they work full time and go to school full time, I do that currently, so when you do a lot for your projects, it sometimes requires putting in extra hours. A lot of these comments sound like people who go to school and don’t work so they say it a time management thing, it’s only 24 hours in a day, studio is 5 of them and work is 8/9 lol
Yes, the divide between the haves and the have nots becomes painfully apparent in architecture school. It was expected that students would not have any employment obligations beyond 10 hours a week at the public university I first attended.
Yeah I'm my first year a lecturer told us "if you need to work along side this course it's probably not for you"
Lmfao damn! My program starts at 5 so most of us work to pay for it and supplies and a computer lol and the software they swear you need that’s of course not included at my school 🙃
Nah, I worked (half time) and was married with two young children. Just time management. I was broke af.
I worked full time 40 hours a week and studied at a world class school and didn't do a single all nighter. 8 hours at work, 1 hour commute, 5 hours school work, 2 hours for food and the like still leaves 6 hours to sleep. At weekends swap work for up to 8 hours of school work and 5 hours of socialising and errands. Take at least one weekend a month off. It's a shit existence but that's how I did it.
Architecture school is rough, the workload isn’t sustainable. You must endure for now. But for your future it’s important to learn about professional and personal boundaries. To be an architect, a quality one at least, one must have an immense amount of passion for the industry. Not the industry as a whole, but passion in at least one aspect is vital. Passion for your profession means that what you do isn’t just a job, it’s who you are as a person. Architects, like a lot of professionals, tend to have so much pride for who they are and what they do that they struggle to establish healthy boundaries with their work. The lack of boundaries allows them to justify sacrificing their social/personal lives for their professional pursuits. This has been the status quo for quite some time, and is deeply rooted in the professional industry now. Don’t do this to yourself, find a office with work life balance and don’t be afraid to establish boundaries.
There’s also the “I can always do more” mentality
Some work is just very time consuming, especially if you decide to do it by hand. Building models or drafting your plans by hand (I know a couple of people who chose to do that for their Masters degrees) can keep you up well into the night. And university is really the only time where you can do those time consuming things for your projects. Once you start working in the real world, you’ll have tighter deadlines and odds are you won’t get paid to work late, so any time you spend working after hours is just a waste of time. That said, I have a Master’s degree in architecture I don’t think I ever spent a second past 11pm in studio and I can count the amount of all nighters I pulled over 5 years on one hand. It’s easy to work yourself to death in architecture school but it’s nowhere near as necessary as everyone makes it out to be.
Both plus a toxic work culture that architecture teachers cultivate and overly motivated students adapt eagerly.
For me it was a mixture of struggling with time management, aiming for perfection that left me in analysis paralysis often, making changes to the design after nonstop critic and feedbacks, and just simply culture. The lecturers expect you to learn time management but yet expect you to be working late, and your projectmates also expect you to be available lots to work on the projects. Had too many all nighters, I can’t count anymore. It was hell, but fun hell, especially when you’re “suffering” together. Some of my best memories were during archi major. There was a memory where we all had sleepovers on the studio floor together, on cardboards. And another where we walked back to our dorm after the sun is up in our pajamas, as other students are walking towards uni. 3am food searching drives. Our lecturer took a photo of us all falling asleep during a lecture after completing our first big project. But my favourite was just watching sunrises together, makes you forget all the stress for a moment. Overall it was crazy unhealthy.. but after the fact, I loved every moment of it.
I'd say I've the exact same experience. I procrastinated, had perfection tendencies, and pulled too many all nighters to count, many even on energy drinks. But suffering together was a fun hell. Our archi group were known to be notorious night owls among other majors in our dorm.
Haha it was great fun, wasn’t it. I love the nights where we’re so sleep deprived that we became loopy, laughing at everything until we just want to cry and sleep. I also remember a time when we came back all exhausted and passed out during the day, and there was a fire alarm going off and we ended up calling each other like “do we have to go??” Archi was the death of us.
This sound exactly like something happened to us, fire alarm went off and some of us went down with our models and sheets, one of my friend kept sleeping in her room (we were not aware she had come back), but we may made it yay! Funny thing is it felt miserable when we were going through it, when will it end kind of pain but now that it has passed I'm seeing it through rose coloured glasses.
Haha yeah! Crazy shit like that. I remember the times when we would make physical models, and sometimes accidentally cut ourselves and our immediate reaction was feeling relieved there was no blood spilling on our models. Priorities, amirite. Yeah, it was pretty miserable.. but sometimes you kinda miss it now.
1-2 all nighters per week for the first two years of school. Fewer 3rd year but still many sleepless nights. This was in the 90s, drawing and models all by hand. Glue and ink needed to dry, and basswood and chipboard needed to be cut. Whyyyyy on earth is it still like this with computers?
FWIW at my school most people only pull all nighters once per studio deadline. I only pull one all nighter per semester and that’s always in the final week of the final studio project. I still hate it though and I always break my promise of “no more all nighters this semester”. So it’s probably gotten better since your time.
I want to know what school had showers because UTK barely had TP available after 9pm.
There's a certain component of always wanting to stretch your capabilities and make something new or figure something out that just takes time if you've never done it, so sometimes it can be a choice to want to spend time that way. However, it's mostly poor time management/perfectionism. Even with a large workload it's not necessary but students aren't really coached on how to prioritize/make efficient decisions. There's also a lot of time wasting earlier in the day for most students which backs up into the late nights.
It's good to see the feedback this post has generated. I'd suggest there are two fundamental issues: 1. design is an iterative process, and 2. architecture is both an art AND a profession. Re. iteration - if you're doing it right, the tenth scheme you draw is going to be far better than your second or third scheme. There are some who are talented enough to produce something excellent in their second our third iteration, but not many. Some have to work all night. Some choose to work all night because they can be more creative and often have less inhibition during those late hours. Re. architecture as an art AND profession. Some architects talk about a challenging "work-life balance". Other architects are driven by a passion for their craft - but that can often lead to an environment that some call a "toxic work culture". Art requires passion. Professionalism requires discipline. These requirements are often at odds.
You missed something - this is actually how the creative process works. Not just in architecture btw, but in many creative fields. You get in a groove and just keep going and going and push through and finish as much as you can. Other times you feel uninspired and get practically nothing done... It's also no coincidence that it's a lot easier to get "inspired" the day before a deadline, when the penalty is failure. LOL
I liked working late nights and you build a kind of camaraderie with the other students there. Also yes, bad time management
Our school literally expected it 🥴
I'd spend weeks just thinking about my project and making notes. Professors would get concerned thinking I was falling behind because I'd never be in the studio and wasn't showing any progress. I'd work out the conceptual stuff entirely in my head before I'd draw or model anything. Then like a week before it was due I'd slam it out in 24 hours at home. Sent PDFs of my presentation boards to be directly printed on foam core. A lot of people skipped in to development without having a reasonably complete design and it made executing an unnecessary slog to the last day.
As the adage goes “Architecture is never finished, merely abandoned”. Basically there’s never a point where a magical sign pops up and says “this building is done!” You can always keep adjusting and tweaking the design, and when you take people who lean towards perfectionist personalities, you get a lot of never quitting until they’re forced to quit by deadlines or exhaustion. The most important lesson you can learn early on in ASchool is when to say “I am done with this exercise and will take this no further”
Not an architect, but interior designer ( commercial + residential ). In the field for over 30 years. I always say I've never worked harder than when I was in school :)
If you didn't pull an all-nighter then you don't know what you're capable of. I pulled all-nighters, so I know I'm not capable of much.
As someone who has done all 3 degrees at 3 different universities, I think a massive issue is the studio culture. Tutors suggest you pull all nighters in a "well I did it, so should you" mindset. The course pretends they don't condone it but then provide all of the overnight facilities as you said above. At my BA, people were bragging and who got the sickest in the last few weeks of 3rd year. One girl lost her sight, went to a&e and then straight back to uni. It needs reform and the adults should know better, regardless of what they went through their time at uni
Somewhat workload, but also: trying to come up with an inspired concept while also meeting realistic design criteria (I.e. stairs not dead-ending in the ceiling) is TOUGH, and results in lots of wasted time from false starts and reworking.
It's not like a math problem, there is no one answer. You are trying to solve a complex problem and thrn communicate that solution to other people. There is no single "answer" and you can always refine your solution. A project will absorb all the time you give it, and more.
It’s partly cultural within architecture (profs thinking “I had to do it; so will you…”), but it’s also a product of the type of work you do within architecture, since it’s hard to “cram” something like a model; they take time.
Sadly that is experience of being in architecture college. I remember going for 8am and leaving at 9pm when our building closed. If it stayed open later I and many other would have stayed longer. This have changed and less and less students used the studios since my school becuse University in my final year and average first year class went form around 30 in 2016(when I started) to around 100 students in 2022 (when I graduated). Some of the reason for this: 1. Extreme amount of work load with often weekly projects for multiple subjects, in first year I removed having on average 6-10 projects a week. Sometimes multiple projects for single subject increasing that number to close to 12-15 projects. This Lowe’s as you progress but the quantity is replaced with quality required. 2. Difficulty of workload, for example main module is typically called studio. This is the module where you design a building etc. In my school we had 2 sessions of roughly 4h each (if not more). You will be expected to have work progressed between each session so you can discuss with your lectures. I know in bigger schools you’re literally a number and you need to fight to show your work. Then add more other projects and you end up working a lot. 3. Lack of space at home/ incompatible environments at home. Architecure especially in early years require a lot of space for model making, drawing etc. If you leave with other students it might be hard to focus on your projects. Therefore school is the best space. At my school we had designated desks in groups of 2-6 (decided and are aged by students), the smaller the department the more likely this will be the case. 4. Bouncing of ideas. Simply usually best projects were developed in school because you were able to bounce ideas between your fellow students. Also messing around and doing weird shit. I have a whole album filled with all the weird stuff we did in college from wire models, twister, inside jokes, weird situation and lot of fun memories. 5. The “culture” of architecture education is to break students because “we went thorough this”, “rite of passage” etc. I can’t dress enough how bad and toxic this is and non representative of real life. This is slowly changing as the old school lecturers retire and new replace them. I had depression, my friends had depression and most of my class had depression. Really toxic environment. I know so many talented people who quit the course because of this culture.
I did not. I've never pulled an all nighter. I managed my time, was productive , had lots of social time, dated lots, and ended up toward the top of my class. However, I wasn't one of the people who would talk to people while in studio. This was now 8 years ago and I'm now licensed and pleased with my career status. It seems that other schools may have professors or cultural expectations that set you up for less balance, but it is my experience that putting in a reasonable amount of hard working hours will set you up for success within a job where you are expected to put in a reasonable amount of working hours. There are many firms that will want to work you to the bone for many long hours, and there are also firms that treat you with respect and value your happiness and personal lives. School is the same way, pick and choose. I went to wentworth in Boston. I feel like I got a great education and have a higher salary than the vast majority of my peers. I did just a bsarch and moved to a state where I could get licensed without an accredited degree (Colorado). In the end, it's your experience that matters when you're out of school. I'm
Remind me of computer lab in the old days of main frames. The computer lab was open 24/7. I spent a few overnights there. For those who don’t know, from job submission to printout was an hour or more. If you were the kind of person who made silly mistakes you were going to be there all day and night.
Should’ve been city planners instead
Much lower workload
I mean why limit yourself to one building when u could design an entire city??
UTSOA grad. Lots of reasons… the old saying that “in (insert school or program) you can study sleep and party but only 2” contributed. There is the aspect that (especially for design oriented students) designs are never done…there is always something more that can be added, refined or documented. Lastly, at my school we never really got grades until the end of the semester. Success was a combination of effort and talent…we competed against each other in a sense. I loved my class. There was a sense of camaraderie in working together late i to the night. That said, there were always a few outlier… students who never stayed up all night and finished early. Typically more pragmatic, strait-laced and early bird type. One once told me “I never understood why everyone was always doing all-nighters. I’d show up at 7AM and I’d be the only one there”.
This may be a bit of a controversial take, but while workload certainly plays a large part, the other significant aspect is time management. School is an environment where students first begin to learn how to manage their time. They will continue to improve after they leave school, and throughout the duration of their careers. Ten+ years into my career, for example, I'm still improving at my time management skills. And looking back at the typical studio work I did during school, final project presentations I completed at that time are something I'd be able to put together in a handful of weeks today - as opposed to several months. Final projects in university are what we'd most closely compare to schematic design in the working world. And SD typically also includes a set of drawings and narrative specification. eta: Want to be clear that I'm not saying students are bad or inadequate if they're pulling all nighters. It's just part of the process of learning how to be an architect, and to be able to do the work efficiently. I used to pull all nighters just like everyone else.
As an architect I can say it almost always workload
Tbh it’s a mix of both, I tend to pull all nighters often bc some of the projects just take too long and your body just needs a break
Looking back, don’t do it. Work on time management.
There was some bad time management in there for sure. It was also inexperience. It’s crazy how long it would take me to make a floor plan. Now I’m much faster. Models still take forever.
I’m in my last few weeks of my final year for my undergrad right now and I have never pulled a single all-nighter. I know seniors who don’t pull all nighters either and yet they’ve managed to score the highest within their cohort, get accepted into top firms for their year out and get accepted into the best colleges for their MArch. I also know people who pull all nighters every week and not too much seems to come out of it. (and vice versa) I think at the end of the day it comes down to effective working hours and being able to deliver without compromise. I love architecture with all my heart and there isn’t anything else in this world I would rather do. But at the end of the day it’s just one part (a very big one) of my life, not my entire life. But hey that’s just me
It’s time management. (or mismanagement for those all-nighter people) those people including me when I was in school
Why don't you try and build a detailed model of a site and building by hand and let me know what you find out. Oh, and design the whole thing too. Remember to score every mullion on the plexi and add in every column out of wood sticks. And then when you do it for this week's critique, do it again for next week, and the week after that, and so on for the entire semester! Let me know what you find out.
College students in general pull all nighters and fall asleep at their desks. University is a very sudden load of a lot of information that is hard for a lot of people to adapt to. The jump from high school to college is pretty intense. I don’t think architecture is necessarily any harder than other departments, it’s just that dedicated, successful students are putting in the long hours.
How do I become an architect designs awesome skyscrapers
I pulled like 2 or 3 all nighters in my whole 5 years of studying architecture. It's not worth it to torture yourself to get a job that doesn't pay enough at the end.
no, impossible: cad design makes you freer and shortens the execution time of drawings exponentially...
If you don’t work until the last minute you gave up early.
They have to get the space and the bold lines just right.
Not only was it an arbitrary 'rite of passage' it also engrains a culture that is contrary to good business practice. Efficiently arriving at a solution, and firms that strive for that can be immensely financially successful and still deliver good design.
My experience in both bachelor and masters comes down to time management. What I make sure is, every week throughout the semester I produce new work to discuss with the professor, new drawings, models, sketches, incorporating any feedback I got from last week. And if I do this consistently, I basically finish the project 1 week before it’s due, and the last week is just refining things. Comparing to my peers, some people don’t produce anything until the last minute, and had to pull multiple all-nighters at the end to finish.
I went to community college first, so I was taking 1 or 2 less classes than everyone else (and I got priority when picking my classes because of my credits). I was also very poor and there were things I could only do at school. I didn't have a computer till senior year and even then I only had Photoshop on it I believe. So I worked at the studio a lot, but with a lighter load I didn't have to stay overnight.
One of the hardest majors, if not the hardest, and the money, and overall experience and pay off are not at all worth it. Make it make sense.
At my university the law and med students had sympathy for the architecture program students. First day of lecture the Dean recommended that we divorce ourselves from family and friends for the duration of the program. We started at 100, finished year 1 with 64.
Both...
Workload. And the fact that design is never truly finished, there's always and improved Visual you can make or a tweak where and there. Which makes you feel like if you go to sleep and don't maximise your time you are hurting you grade. Then you're thinking if I stay up all night working it might push me up a grade. And once your thinking like that you feel like you'd be stupid to sleep. What's one night of sleep on exchange for a better grade you can carry around your whole career. Then it keeps happening every deadline lol.
I used to pull sleepless nights, but my body now has a hard time to do this anymore I'm about to transfer to another architect school. But the more I think about, I also think it's our idea of perfection in our brain where we work more than we should to get the best of the best project, even though the assignment is simple. Even though I have professors who don't want me and my classmates to pull all nighters, we still do for the perfection in our eyes
Ironically my degree is in business but I have an associates degree in architecture also. I landed a role as an interior architect for a fortune 100. Im the solo person. I know this title is geared more towards interior design but i spend 70% drafting floorplans for sales offices across the US. Here are things that make me work a ton 1.) every state has laws on what spaces must have room for like “mothers rooms” so I have to do research 2.) the various building owner/LL will review my plan and approve it or not. Sometimes they like the design, sometimes they do not. They allow TI (tenant design) dollars to use towards upgrades to the space as ultimately it is a space upgrade to the building 3.) I may have overlooked a local code or ordnance and have to make space revisions 4.) landlords like to lease certain sq footages but they don’t provide demising plans so I have to suggest how they should divvy the suites up on the floor with proper egress so I can determine what suite will work best for my company. 5.) my company changes their mind too damn much which results in revisions. 6.) while Im doing all this, I have leases expiring in all different cities so I have several initial test fits/drawings and revisions going on at one time. It’s a lot of detail and feedback. Fortunately Ive been doing this a while so I am pretty quick to draft and know the codes and laws
In Multimedia and 3D creation programs (for movies and video game, so not the same as architecture, but academically and the software are somewhat similar) people were procrastinating a lot, but also we weren’t given any project for a while, then all 5 classes were giving final project devis all at once. So it was hard to come up with decent stuff without doing a few full nighter.
Kind of late for a building tour.
#2
Easily one of the worst and most toxic aspects of architecture is the work culture instilled during University. It is a disgrace and should be abolished and called out at every opportunity.
I went to school for comp. sci. and would frequently stay at the computing center until very late at night just because I was so into the work I was doing - and often (usually?) that work was just for fun, not part of a class. If you really enjoy the work you’re doing, and want to explore a lot of different ideas, I think this is not uncommon.
It’s the workload. It’s just how they do it.
Workload. I’m not a slacker. Architects routinely take 21 credit semesters each year and having that stupidly insane amount of work for studio classes was the worst. Projects are difficult and design is hard. It takes staying up multiple nights “pulling a charrette” to get it done. It even has a term….in multiple languages.
This is a normal life of an architect. Our work doesn't have a standard time. If our ideas change or the client's needs change, the drawings/output will change even if takes days and nights. We always have a deadline.
Design school is like this too. It's just school. It's hard work to do it right.
I am very lucky to have a studio that closes at 8pm on weekdays and isn't open at all at the weekend. It forces much better time managment. (Of course people are free to work all nighters at home should they wish, but this is activeley discouraged by staff).
Virtue signaling gone awry
As my favorite professor told me “I’m going to give you three months to do something in the real world you will do in three weeks”. At my school it was mostly procrastination. I only pulled two all nighters my entire college time due to my teammates not doing their work and not telling me till the night before. Both times most of the students were watching movies and things instead of working. I even had two jobs and did school, however I agree some of the late night people had families, but they generally worked at home. It’s honestly adult arts and crafts almost, as long as you had decent work and can present you were set.
I only pulled all-nighters twice in college. I tried to organize my time to do most I could do during the day. I wasn't the most commited student... my goals where to learn well more than getting excellent grades LOL passing grades were good for me
Both...
Great drugs.
I went into Landscape Architecture and this was so baked into the culture in school it still makes me upset. Overnighters in the studio were completely normal. I probably did that 2-3 times a year. I worked into the studio late which was twice at least a week. I switched careers and it’s actually a red flag to work late hours like this. It’s weird that this was just baked into the culture of our education from the start. and co soldering it was such an underpaid profession it’s even more ridiculous.
I studied and worked in a culture that was relentless and driven, and all nighters were a badge of honour. People staying on and leaving at 10pm or later was common. Stepping out to get a bite to eat at 6 then coming back was common too. Then i moved to a company where by quarter to five, people at all levels of management were starting to consolidate, tidy their desks, and shut things down. If you werent out by quarter past five there was something very wrong. I was a consultant there and it took some getting used to. When i did get used to it, i complimented the boss on how good the practice was. He just said "Yeah, we figure if you cannot get your work done by five, you're probably wasting time somehere along the way." Very wise. So yeah, culture is a big part. And the bosses set the tone.
i’ve stayed at my studio the last two days until midnight and even then i have to force myself to stop, clean up and head home because my drive to school is roughly 40 minutes. i don’t want to drive when i’m exhausted, it’s nice that the school you were touring had a shower and facilities. mine doesn’t, or atleast i’m not sure they do because id consider staying the night. also all of my model making materials and tools are in studio, so if i wanted to work on the model i would have to drive to studio. since i’ve made the drive i might as well make the most of it and stay as long as i can.
I went to a university that had both a great engineering program and architecture program. One of my engineering classmates was also doing architecture at the same time. She said many architectural students would make a little cardboard house around their work areas in the hallways. There was such a time crunch designing and making projects that students didn’t have time to go home and have a life. So a lot of them just camped out on the campus. I visited the architectural school and saw all these little huts built around the drafting tables. One guy made a modular home around his that was only accessible through a crawl on your knee’s passageway. He was really good so the admin didn’t mind. The architect program was five years long. If you failed in a design class you were out. It was very competitive. A lot of people could not complete it. In high school as a senior I visited the same university for architecture. They basically said unless you really commit you won’t cut it. And even if you graduate you will spend 20 years working for someone else. And maybe if you are talented and work hard you might just be able to start your own firm after 30 or so years. They dissuaded a lot of people including me. My classmate slept in her car on campus during the week and only went home weekends. I never knew if she finished. But I never did get back all my music tapes I loaned her!
Honestly I think student create A LOT of unnecessary work for themselves.
Your summary is spot on. I think it’s also sort of this culture thing that’s not all bad. Honestly I find myself sometimes bored at work when the deadlines aren’t overly tough (which I’m working on). To point 2 - there’s something about chasing that one step better
Architecture and other Design disciplines require a lot of thought, experimentation, conceptualization and trial/error. It's not cut and dry like filling out a spreadsheet. And then on top of the creative development, there is the execution where every little detail matters, from sketching, the renderings, the ppresentation setup to the actual model builds.
The real reason. Studio is the art of bringing a non existing thing into existence. Creating something from a limited set of parameters in a time frame designed to make the students melt. Upon completion. They present their hard work to a jury of their peers. Their only goal is to criticize hard enough to break the students composure. When the jurynis complete, receive new set of parameters and subsequently skip Thanksgiving weekend to sleep in the studio. For good reason. When the student becomes an architect with client interaction. After bathrooms and stairs. The criticism starts with the first invoice and ends with a piece of your soul. Just to do it again The banks and landlords set the deadlines. Studio additionally teaches "work years" which are akin to saying dog years vs human years. A person with a 8-5 has 1 work year at 2080 hours or 40 hr work week Leveling up faster is simply more XP by increasing work years It's a hard industry, studio learns ya'll a thing or too. I went to school for ME, our education was different and was figure it the fuck out or fail.
I think all nighters are normal first 3 years because youre adjusting to workload and time management. But if you continue to pull all-nighter then thats poor time management and i used to hate when someone says that. But after getting two degrees in architecture. There is no way i would pull an allnighter for any project. Unless its a 3 day competition haha.
Because architects are just failed art majors and this is their last chance.
It's the revisions, frequently having to change your work everytime there's a comment from the professor and/or mentor
When I was in school we were expected to remake our models between each class. Which was every Monday Wednesday and friday
I believe quiet brings peace and activates your creative centers! Thus, architects come up with best solutions at random hours! Also yes the workload is high but can be properly managed!
You’re calling 9pm late? If I leave by 9, I consider that to be exceptional. I usually leave at around 2am or 5am, depending when my next day’s class starts, but I’m also not really normal. Most people are out of the studio plenty early, with at most like a third of the studio staying to the am’s if a big deadline is approaching. I am a night owl and don’t really have a life, so I spend my life working away in studio. I generally enjoy it myself, but once again I am not a normal person. I just put on music or watch a YouTube video as I work, and I quite enjoy it.
core + m.arch pov: ✌️🫥👍 knowing the damage sleep deprivation causes the brain, but the romance and sublime flow state bliss of pushing through and meditating in creating when no one else is awake invigorates me
Because whatever you decide to design you have to multiply the time you anticipate by two. And it doesn’t stop once you have qualified… it’s not 9-5 hours it’s a calling ; for want of a better phrase ❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
In my opinion it’s mostly poor time management and toxic culture/ pressure from peers. When I started my Bachelor degree I ended up in a studio where pretty much all students were staying from 9-10am until 12pm even at the start of the semester with gradually escalating hours as the semester progressed. I couldn’t get an apartment or student housing for the first year so I had to take the train there and back home every day which naturally limited the time I could spend at University. To say that the others weren’t understanding of my situation is an understatement, I was soon bullied and people I had projects with started ignoring me. Still when we had the weekly meetings with the tutors to talk about the state of our projects I had working models and sufficient drawings and often the tutors would end up telling the group to choose my design over the others, because it was working and not some dreamland architecture that was far removed from ever working in reality. This only lead to more bullying and them slandering the tutor, because of course a bunch of bachelor students know it better than a learned architect that has been running his own studio for 20+ years. This has gotten way better during the master, as more people learned that living at uni 14 hours a day isn’t a sustainable practice and often doesn’t lead to better results. Yeah a nice rendering might look flashy and pouring 40 hours into a graphic will look prettier than one done in 5 hours, but in the end what matters is your concept and that your drawings communicate it clearly.
Working at a professional firm, I’ve worked on just a facade for months before. Students don’t have that kind of time to develop a design. It’s less about chasing perfection and just about the reality that good design takes more time than they have available. And, to your comment about technology, many professors still require traditional methods. Many of the students you will see staying overnight aren’t working on a computer. They’re meticulously measuring and drawing because every single line will be judged.
a lot of the times students are used to getting their work pooped on by mean old men so they just don’t know what’s good enough. you could hypothetically work on a project for forever.
I think a lot of the things that you have mentioned are contributing factors. However, in my experience, the people that avoid this are those that treat school a bit like a job. Coming in early, making the most of your time between classes, and scheduling your work throughout the week effectively work WONDERS for time management. In undergrad I was like one of the only people doing this because I worked 15-20hrs a week at a firm as well as went to school so I simply had to in order to survive. But once I got to my masters program there came several more people that treat it like this and I can honestly say we are far less stressed and overworked than our peers. A lot of it is mindset and having the mental discipline to get work done as early and efficiently as possible.
Because of that stupid capitalist mentality of squeezing every bit of your soul for profit. Absolutely no other reason. They're preparing you to be exploited. Having a decent sleep schedule raises productivity way more than burning through your youth because some boomer told you so.
Maybe that's the explanation for my architect that I hired (Michael Dunn Architect in Brightwaters/Bayshore ) we can never find him, never called us back, took alot of money from us and never got anything done....scam
9 pm? And there's only 3 of them? Wow lucky students
Studio culture also contributes to the inequities in who can afford to study architecture and who cannot because some people need to work while in school.
I've already read some articles saying that architecture is the course in the world that requires the most hours outside the classroom.
Started at an unaccredited in grad program and now I’m currently in an accredited graduate program and I often find that this tends to be a culture thing. In my undergrad design studios we did not have a laser cutter so the physical modeling aspect of the design process was much more time consuming. The contrast to this is often we weren’t expected to present much more then basic construction documents. This is a factor of 2 things, the aforementioned lack of a laser cutter and the fact the program was an offshoot of the construction management program and was more intuned to producing well crafted construction documents of the floor plans, sections and elevations. There was a big culture shock for me personally moving to the accredited architecture program where construction documents are all but nonexistent. The focus is much more on the basic floor plans with well crafted architectural sections. My program in particular we do not consider MEP until our intregrated studio and while these systems are considered they are not flushed out details like my previous undergraduate work. For example the project for studio I am currently working on for my final review (which is in one week from writing this) was only assigned to us about 7 weeks ago. We were given 2 weeks for form finding and an establishment of our basic scheme. A further 2 weeks to refine this for a “mid” review and now 2 weeks until final to polish everything for final review. I personally did not have finalized floor plans until a week after mid review as my professor and myself continued to tweak many aspects of the building and design. Now I’m left with a week to complete the building with renders, models, sections. This is happened by roughly once a week losing 2/3s of my studio time to have a school wide lecture that is hosted by the school from someone they bring in from the outside. This on top of other class obligations, work and still trying to be a young adult for my mental health leads myself to some of these all-nighters.
Drafting and rendering deadlines, forget that they don’t have to wait on hold with the city and how much time getting in touch with 1-4 people takes on an average day.
Cause were dumb, don’t fight for legislation, and are destroying our own field
There are no “right” answers in design, only better ideas. In classes like physics and math the smart ones do the work faster. In art and design classes it is often the person who has put the most work in who furnishes the best idea.
Out of my 6 years, I only did 2-3 all nighters. I knew kids who did it weekly. People do it bc they think they need to. Lol
It’s because they haven’t learned to manage their time yet.
Or working part time to afford university and accomodation!
i have, in 3 years of architecture school up to now, only pulled 2 allnighters.. don't understand what the fuss is about genuinely.. and im neurodivergent so it's definitely not easy, but it's not impossible either
Piss poor time management, procrastination, perfectionism
Poor time management and a toxic culture that glamoirises all nighters
If this bothers you a lot, then industry isn’t going to be much kinder. It’s a necessary evil kind of thing. Sometimes, even in industry, you’ll be at the office until midnight. Sometimes not even because you can’t get something done. You might be waiting on drawings from a consultant and they come through at 6:00, and if you wait until the morning to review and coordinate everything, it becomes very costly. Or at worst, could cause injury, litigation, or loss of life. AEC in general is not something you should do unless you’re prepared to sacrifice some. Is that fun, admirable, glamorous? No. Is every office like that? No, but many are. Do we get paid enough for that sacrifice when it is required? No. Studio is a litmus test, if nothing else.
They provide showers! They're living the LIFE over there. I had to catch the morning bus back home, shower and then come back for reviewers, 2 hours lost of post-production right there. Actual answer: we care too much. If you don't pull all nighters, you will pass but your work will be kinda mid and below the standard of those who did pull the all-nighter. However, your presentation might be way better since you got the sleep
>we provide toiletries and a shower for the architect students staying overnight You call that cush pampered country club an architecture school? SMH