Talk to some architecture students and it becomes apparent that something is wrong with their sense of time – it seems to run backward. It’s just one of the many quirks for a University subculture that flies largely under the radar.
Ask them the time and the response will probably be a countdown, measured in hours left before the next big studio project is due.
“It’s sort of like a time warp,” University sophomore Reid Ekman said. Since he began the architecture program, he said he thinks of everything in two-hour increments.
Ekman isn’t the only one caught in the warp. Virtually all architecture students in studio must grow accustomed to working there all hours of the night on massive projects.
Walking into Ekman’s studio, which is a classroom, is like entering an on-campus apartment. Music is always playing, usually something calming, and a battered, green and purple plaid sofa is often draped with exhausted students. Empty soda and Arizona Iced Tea bottles litter the students’ desks. Finished projects, miniature Japanese gardens with Lilliputian shrubs and stones, collect dust on shelves and desks. The chaotic setting is, for most of the day, a contrast to the calm students faithfully pushing to the next deadline.
On a Wednesday morning in professor James Givens’ first-year architecture studio in Pacific Hall, most students were casually chatting, while some worked quietly at their desks. This term’s major project is a bath house, and as the deadline drew nearer, most were getting down to business.
This is one of the few genuinely relaxing moments in studio – once the students start talking about their daily schedules it is easy to see why they carry the “work-aholic” reputation.
An average architecture student works at least 24 hours a week, students say. Aside from a six-credit studio class that meets three times a week for four hours, students are expected to spend much of their free time completing projects inside the studio.
“Sunday night you come in and people are freaking out,” said sophomore Jennifer Butler. Common symptoms include food fights, blasting music, continuous whining, delusion and “conniption fits in every corner.”
Maybe because of the impending doom of the following morning’s final review, when faculty members will critique the projects, there was a silent tension in the studio the Sunday evening before. Coldplay’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head” played while students calmly rushed to complete their projects by 8 p.m. At that point, they will do “pin-up,” where they post their projects in Lawrence Hall.
“Mainly it’s just ripping us apart,” said Butler.
Living the dream… sort of
Ekman grew up in Seattle with parents who liked to drive around the city observing the residential architecture – “the easiest to understand,” Ekman said. “Most people build skyscrapers and stuff like that – I didn’t really grasp that.”
Although Ekman literally dreamt about being an architect in high school, he didn’t sign on immediately at the University. In his sophomore year he joined the program and he probably won’t finish his degree for five years. The schedule is daunting, he said, but he makes time for the things other people sacrifice – like sit-down meals. Sometimes when Ekman returns home at 1:30 a.m., he sits around doing absolutely nothing, just because he doesn’t have the time to do so otherwise.
Talking to Ekman it becomes clear that he is passionate about countering the architecture student stereotype that he easily defines: the constant worker who squints at the light when he walks outside.
“I don’t go home and research architecture,” he said. “I don’t want it to define me yet. I’m still in college. It can define me when I’m an architect.”
But even Ekman would have a hard time arguing that he doesn’t fit the stereotype to some extent, considering the way the architecture program has affected his lifestyle.
“It is depressing to see so many things you have to do,” he said. “I look forward to chores, you know – a haircut or a trip to the bank. It’s almost like a vacation.”
Ekman’s second passion has had to take somewhat of a back seat to the architecture program. He is a magician on the side, but it’s a hobby that now holds a much less prominent position in his life.
“I don’t feel like I have enough room in my brain to bring in another hobby in depth,” Ekman said.
In order to keep up with the workload, Ekman sets small, but admittedly unrealistic deadlines to meet along the way. The long list of requirements for each project facing an architecture student in studio is intimidating. Ekman said one of the most important lessons in studio is learning to not work at pace with others. A common beginner’s mistake is to fall prey to group procrastination.
“Everyone’s sort of waiting for someone else to make a move. It takes time to learn to work at your own pace,” he said. “With all of the requirements, I like to be a rebel and not do one… that’s sad that I feel like I’m living on the dangerous side by not doing that.”
Forging friendships
Inspired to study architecture by the “little girl on Punky Brewster” who wanted to draw, sophomore Jennifer Butler took some architecture classes her freshman year but held out on studio because she was “too lazy” to apply to the architecture program as a high school senior.
“I hadn’t sold my soul to the devil yet,” she said.
Despite the satanic references, Butler admits that she actually likes being in studio. She half-seriously said she’s shooting for six or seven years of undergraduate study.
“It’s enjoyable, but it’s just a lot of enjoyable work,” she said. “I figure you’re going to have to work hard for every major. You might as well work hard doing a major you love.”
Butler sits next to freshman Heidi Melton, whose interest in architecture was first sparked in high school.
“It’s hard, but overall I really like it,” Melton said. “I wouldn’t put so much time into something I didn’t enjoy.”
Melton said relationships between students in studio are essential.
“We’re all really comfortable with each other, but at the same time we’re freaking out,” Melton said. “I think we kind of keep each other in check.”
Ekman also stressed the value of friendships.
“It’s about learning from others,” he said. “People have become friends. It’s almost like a mini-social life and work put together. It would be difficult without friends.”
Those relationships are evident within studio. Frequent teasing and sarcastic remarks keep the mood light-hearted. The banter between Butler and Melton is common and humorous. Butler’s humor is dry and razor-sharp, and Melton is like a sidekick.
“This sucks,” Melton said.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get done,” Butler responded. “Maybe.”
It’s not exactly surprising. The running joke within the architecture department is that you leave only to bathe; maybe not even then. One student keeps a toothbrush at his desk. Melton has a small coffee pot at hers.
“I might just live here next year,” Butler said. “I haven’t found a house yet, so… “
Melton thinks it’s important to stay grounded.
“There’s other people that are just as stressed and working just as hard as me,” she said. “Since you put so much time into it you get so much back from it.”
Wrapping up
Outside Givens’s studio, a large bulletin board stands behind a wooden table students use to paste projects together. Drawn with a Sharpie in the lower left-hand corner of the otherwise blank bulletin board is an alien-looking figure with a large head, protruding belly and stick arms. The creature says, “I used to do meth, but then I realized: ‘Hey, I could stay up all night without drugs!’ So I became an architecture major.”
Freshman Danielle Campbell was working at the table, putting the finishing touches on her project. She’s in good shape, considering it’s only about 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night – the night of pin-up. Campbell appears calm,
but clearly sleep-deprived. She talks a mile a minute.
As Campbell pasted her bath house sketches onto the table-sized slice of butcher paper (which still isn’t big enough to contain all the sketches without them overlapping), freshman Tyson Staab stepped out of his studio for a quick look.
“Maybe I should get started on my second floor since I don’t have one,” Staab said.
“Well get going, dude, what are you standing here talking to me for?” asked Campbell with a hint of shock in her voice.
Freshman Beth Boehmer and Campbell were standing at the table while minutes to the pin-up deadline ticked away. As they wondered out loud where the pin-up will take place, a professor walked swiftly between them, breaking into their conversation.
“It’s happening now,” the professor said. It’s pin-up time. She clearly takes pin-up incredibly seriously: Her face is like stone.
Just past 8 p.m., dozens of students began wandering into the halls. Some were laughing, some were tense, some ran frantically between studios and pin-up rooms trying to get situated. All of them will be very relieved when the following morning has passed. They’ve been working toward this moment for weeks.
Ten hours later, at the final review Monday morning, the second floor of Lawrence Hall was flooded with students, faculty and even a few parents. The mood was significantly calmer than it was the previous evening, and the hundreds of exhausted, overworked students were provided with coffee and fruit. Everyone was dressed like it was a first date – the men in slacks and the women in skirts. While some students pitched their finished projects to faculty, others crashed on the couch, finally getting some much-needed shut-eye.
After the review, Melton was visibly relieved. Her voice was calmer and she was sighing before practically every sentence.
“I think this review was the most nerve-racking of the year for me,” she said. “I felt like there was so much more that I wanted to do that I didn’t get done.”
But she said the critique went well, and taking studio made her realize architecture is something she really wants to do. Now Melton says she’s going to do something that’s basically unheard of in studio: take some time off to re-gather and regroup.
“More than just learning architecture, I feel like our studio got really close,” Melton said, “and that’s been fun, too.”
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