Architecture Stress Thread

I have two projects due in on monday! One ive nearly finished, one i havnt anywhere near! And the print room is only open monday to friday now for some reason, and the studios are only open monday through friday, not 24 hours, so basically, i need to get it mostly pretty much all done by friday :frown:

Reply 382

yanyanyan

first post in here, but i would like to say how SWAMPED and STRESSED i am. just like you all, but yes, i just had to rant. :frown:

social life is collapsingand so is my motivation.
ARGH technical drawings, my measurements are somehow wrong and ive been to that toilet about 12 times now to measure. our project 1 just ended and now we have a storyboard due in friday for it. And a journey model which i am clueless about, will have to trek to the site tomorow morning, before tramping around for materials for model. before doing my lecture essay.
havent sleep for ages, it feels like. and its only week 4.
how did you all manage.

Reply 383

jrhartley

13

yanyanyan

how did you all manage.

between the amount of stuff you need to learn in terms of history, technology, regulations, social factors, graphics and craft, combined with the ever-changing goalposts and idiosyncrasies of staff setting the briefs and assessing them, it can be very hard. i have to say, a good deal of my architectural education has been pervaded by an overall feeling of anxiety, there not being enough hours in the day, and this can give you a constant low feeling of sickness in the pit of your stomach. i know a lot of others feel the same way. there is huge pressure to make you feel that you have to come up with something amazing, new, something that will change the world. my advice to you would be to develop your interests within the course and let your studies be governed by what you are interested in, and not necessarily by what you are told to do.

obviously there are a lot of things you need to do in terms of your competence to learn; i would say in defence of the pressure of the course, one of the reasons for that is not just to make you feel ill, its also because by unrealistically loading students, it forces them to innovate on ways of working and get faster and find techniques, most of which the tutors don't know themselves. the downside is that the feeling of 'time crisis' can be paralysing and can mean you don't broaden your horizons and just stick tightly to the brief.

if you don't foster your areas of interest, your time will become increasingly joyless and directionless. there are lots of people in my year who still don't really get it, who will just start faffing around with scrap or artist materials in the hope that an idea will come. this, to my mind, is a bit of a failing of architectural education - I call it the God Dellusion - in the sense that they seem to tell us if we work long enough and hard enough, something good will evolve. this is total BS, you need to research and find the idea, THEN craft it. no point crafting something without some sort of idea on the course, unless just for the practise and fun.

its very hard in first year as the learning curve is so steep. just stay on top of it. you won't really know enough about where your interests lie at this stage, so just don't suffocate, make sure you plan time for you and get outside enough. its not worth killing yourself over, and first year doesn't really count - you've only got to pass. as you find out more about the subject, start researching the things you are most interested in and bring those into your work. you will start to know more about a very small thing than others in your year, and quite quickly, your tutors. this gives you 'an angle' from which you can grow. the worst students in my mind are those that completely lack this, they don't have an ideology, a focus, a stance.

Reply 384

2nd year seems to be such a step up from 1st year! I'm not finding it harder, theres just so much more to do! Well actually, there is the same amount to do, just in a shorter time scale.

Oh well, project deadline monday, hopefully it'll get done!

Reply 385

Quiller

Yeah well worth a shot! When I did it I didn't have to submit a portfolio, as I was the only person going in my year, and was the only person that had gone in some 3 years.... I think the schools had a set up an individual agreement whereby equal quality could be assured (so the portfolio wasn't necessary). Anyway, all the paperwork was in german my Erasmus coordinator filled it all out and I just signed my life away.

RE the crit - chin up, I was repeatedly told stuff like that and right up to my final BSc crit I was told I was in serious danger of failing the year. I didn't fail the year at all, infact I did quite well. With the briefs i'd expect them to give you one in the first semester of second year. As the years go on you tend to just get a topic or a side or two of A4 and you have to build your own brief.

no worries mate. I noticed tutors are blunt one day and then totally nice the next. In fact, I agree when my work is ****, because it probably is. when its redone again it looks miles better.

nah, we have to build our own briefs for 2nd year. i thought it was a bad idea, but now i am loving the freedom!
from researching on victorian gas holders, i decided to research on trade and then from there, i reckon im going to build a market/ trade/ exhibition.

Reply 386

can anyone answer my question? i posted it in the computer section.

my computer is really slow and im not sure why. do i need to upgrade my graphics cards?

i seem to have no problem with big photoshop files etc, but when it comes to cad files. it takes forever to open one up ad edit.

I use both vectorworks 2008 and autocad 2009.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=22207309#post22207309

Reply 387

jrhartley

13

vista is obviously a complete RAM whore, so you might want to go to Windows 7 to see if that helps at all. 256mb ram is what i use on my mbp for vw2008, but 2009 i get v. slow redraws, you really need 512mb graphics for the newer CAD software on the regens. Which is absurd. But you can also try turning off a few preferences on vectorworks to make it refresh quicker and put less drain on your graphics card. if you go to the vectorworks forum on the nemetshek site you will find explanations of how to improve performance on slow refresh / redraws. a new graphics card will probably fix most of your woes, but if its in a laptop, then its a bit of a job to change, i think.

Yargh.

very stressed, haven't slept, eaten, etc etc. wah wah.

Reply 390

dschna

9

Hispanic-Impressions

very stressed, haven't slept, eaten, etc etc. wah wah.

But now it's all over... for the weekend? Night? ha.

Reply 391

Mmmh nothing like a really **** crit after a a week of no sleep to really make you feel like it's all worth it.

Reply 392

Quiller

10

Hispanic-Impressions

Mmmh nothing like a really **** crit after a a week of no sleep to really make you feel like it's all worth it.

go and get hammered!

Reply 393

its all apart of the fun!!

Reply 394

Quiller

go and get hammered!

That was the plan. Although I will probably just fall asleep.

Stupid architecture. Damnit.

Reply 395

After some alcohol and a lot of sleep I have come to the conclusion that it's best to stick to safe, boring designs but presented with pretty pictures and some nice lines of ******** to get a good grade. Wa-*******-hey.

Reply 396

Im kinda stressed, only because ive got no motivation of late, ive done so little work, ive not fallen out with the course, i still enjoy it and want to do it, just, i dunno, i have a wierd relationship with it atm.

Reply 397

Hispanic-Impressions

After some alcohol and a lot of sleep I have come to the conclusion that it's best to stick to safe, boring designs but presented with pretty pictures and some nice lines of ******** to get a good grade. Wa-*******-hey.

that doesn' work with my university. My tutor is a total bitch to me because my design are too straight forward.

she asked me to do 101 ways of display apples. i designed some shelving units and she said what the hell is this.

at the end of the day, i dont think its about the designs. its about the cad drawings. if you havent got any sections, site plans, axonom drawings that are not photoshops by week three in the project, they will gun you down for it.

Reply 398

Untitled258

Im kinda stressed, only because ive got no motivation of late, ive done so little work, ive not fallen out with the course, i still enjoy it and want to do it, just, i dunno, i have a wierd relationship with it atm.

awww. come on!! chin up.

if it makes you feel any better. i just spent three days cadding a section of kings cross st pancres station and the whole kings cross site with the canal.

what an epic weekend
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2139/2058040632_8b714d200a.jpg

Reply 399