A flash in the pan.

Suggested listening:
Doing It Right - The Go! Team

I am new to blogging, but I am filled with a slight sense of regret that I didn't categorically record the experiences of Folio Week as it went. I am also kicking myself that I didn't bring my camera each day/night to give a real sense of the experience in the space, because there was no shortage of excitement and intrigue.

Due to my profligacy (not to mention the fact that I've been without sleep for nearly 36 hours), this will not be the post that I envisioned. I am purposefully forcing myself to write what you are reading now so that the feelings that I have may be conveyed in an intimate and accurate manner. Well, as much so as my exhausted brain and body will permit, anyway.

The storm that I predicted never really arrived; we were all a little bit twitchy this morning, and one of my classroom neighbours was extremely stressed and panicked about her work, believing that she was going to fail. She had designed a quite amazing project based on a kite and, as I tried to help her understand how to represent it, I had to appreciate the enormity of what she was trying to accomplish. Her models of the project had been pretty amazing prior to Folio Week, and she seemed a shoe-in to be dominant in the folio itself.

(For the record, I just fell asleep at my keyboard - hereafter: "JFAAMK")

(JFAAMK)

Anyway, nerves were a fraction frayed on Friday morning. There were about 10 of us pulling a straight all-nighter, and the reality of deadline day was starting to nibble at us. Productivity, paradoxically, dropped off the face of the earth and people started to wonder exactly how to make their projects pop given the limited time and motivation remaining. For me, I had been inserting title blocks, north points and scale bars as I went so I had no real trouble (apart from the fact that I didn't complete rendering of surfaces).

(Note: I am simply too tired to continue - I will complete this post tomorrow. Current time: 6:34pm, Friday 3rd June.)

And by "tomorrow", I mean "the day after tomorrow."

It's Sunday morning, and I've had a little bit of respite. Fifteen hours' worth of sleep on Friday night through Saturday morning was the bare minimum required. I only had 8 hours' worth overnight last night, as I was awoken by a text message pertaining to playing soccer for my old club (for whom I have not trained nor even registered this season) in a couple of hours.

Anyway, winding the clocks back to Friday as best I can: I suppose deadline day isn't something you can cram for; Folio Week is so named due to the absolute requirement for consistent work for [just over] a whole week. I did six hours' work on Sunday and that was a really lazy day for which I felt terrible later. Most days were between 12-15 hours and then there was the all-nighter on Thursday.

That said, there were several people who worked considerably harder than I did, and will justifiably reap HDs as a result. I think that a distinction is about what I deserve for my work, but that depends entirely upon how much my models count against me, as I am horrifically bad at model-making. My drawing was certainly much crisper (sharp pencils/working clutch sharpeners are a scarce commodity) than in any of my previous projects and I did actually manage to do some good rendering, despite it not being complete come submission time.

Anyway, in the last few hours of Deadline Day, the work is the least of one's concerns. The big decisions that need to be made are:

Q: What am I doing after I submit?
A: Hanging out with my group in our submission room and then the grass out the front of Architecture.

Q: What am I doing tonight?
A: Grocery shopping so that I have food for dinner, then sleeping for a ridiculously long time.

Q: What am I doing on the holidays?
A: ...

Q: What are we all doing together at some point on the holidays?
A: Something. A semester of studio together forges a tight-knit group; I can't imagine ever being part of such a perfect assembly of individuals again in this course.

Though it's great that the hard slog is over and that holidays are upon us, I am slightly remorseful that I likely won't be in such an excellent group for anything in Architecture again. Walking past some of the other studio rooms makes me wonder how I could conceivably have fared were I placed in those classes. The people just seem inherently irritating, immature and unfocused.

Which, ironically, is exactly what I probably would've said had I walked past our class a few times during the semester. We make a raucous racket (some of us more than others...), but we get the work done and we all have great chemistry; natural equilibrium was not hard to find.

So perhaps I'm worrying over nothing. At any rate, the best semester to be in such an amazing group is certainly the first one. I am motivated for next semester, next year, and the next few years.

The final thing I'd like to discuss in this disjointed discourse is Folio Week itself. If you walked up to someone and said: "We're going to shut you in this room, and you're going to work 15 hours a day for the next 8 days" their response would, 98% of the time, be: "Fair enough, this is a Chinese Nike sweatshop, after all." However, the Architecture Folio Week work load sounds ridiculously heavy (and yes, it is a lot of work) but it isn't actually torture, even when you're low on sleep. Motivation slips right before deadline day if you've been doing your work and you're up to the "tidying up" stage in proceedings.

I imagine it's a lot easier in the studio as well; so many problems that arise are simply solved by asking it aloud. Someone will always have a suggestion. It may not be "right", but then again, we're not expected to be right all the time in first year. As long as it has sound reasoning behind it, it's usually going to be good enough.

A couple of weeks ago, I looked back at my first studio project for the semester. Our brief was to design an addition or subtraction to a courtyard based on a plan and section provided to us for each of the three different houses (we chose one). Mine had been a simple, minimalistic one-storey house. The courtyard was central and was surrounded by glass sliding doors, some of which could see right out of the house. Thus, I made the obvious decision to have a sunken courtyard within the courtyard, such that there would be no obfuscation of the view, in any direction, by individuals/objects in the courtyard. I got a middling Credit for this project, and I'm amazed by how much I've learned since. My drawing was awful, and I had done a few things that aren't done in studio submissions (i.e. showing materiality as per technical drawing classes).

It's been a long and short semester at the same time. It's been more educational than any other experience in my life, and it has changed me. I feel no regrets at all about returning to Uni to study; I have some money to keep me going for these next 4.5 years, and I am legitimately enjoying what I'm doing in a way that I never could in my previous profession.

The calm.

Suggested accompanying listening:

What Would I Want? Sky - Animal Collective
The World Has Turned and Left Me Here - Weezer

Supposedly, it precedes the storm. I believe that our studio is presently embracing it right now; there is some good-natured banter, a lot of kidding around, and surprisingly little panicking. Ideas are being formulated through collaborative input and no one is sick. Yet.

I anticipate that today - Sunday - will be the last day of the calm, with the storm following tomorrow, and hitting full intensity by Wednesday. At present, we still have not really given much thought to our models, for the most part, and are instead focusing on getting bogged down in the mire of our drawings, which aren't all going exactly to plan at present. "It's only Sunday - we've still got five days, dude!" This is all well and good until you spend nearly an entire unproductive day grinding out only one or two - or sometimes not even one - drawings.

So you stay up a little later for a night or two. You return to the studio the next day and you're just not quite feeling it; you're noticeably less productive and all you can think about is the finish line. And still there are five days, models, and final drawings/renderings to go. Suddenly, you're not in great shape and the prospect of the dreaded double all-nighter looms large on the horizon.

Yugoslavian monument to military and civilian casualties of the Second World War.

Skip forward a step or two, and tempers are starting to fray in a space that is becoming increasingly densely packed as the deadline nears - more and more people realise the need for being in the studio to complete their work. Elbow room is suddenly at a premium and unwanted guests/walk-ins only serve to augment stress and focus anger. I am certain that someone will snap. I know it won't be me as I have fairly good coping mechanisms in such situations, but I could cast a guess or two.

Folio week reminds me a lot of the slumber parties that I used to have when I was a kid. Friday night, and you and a few of your school friends have hired out a couple of videos, loaded up on snacks and have spent the evening playing computer games. You're completely abuzz on sugary delights and this is going to be the best weekend ever. It's a fun night and you go to bed considerably later than normal, much to the chagrin of the parents kind enough to host the event.

However, the next morning is always dreary. It's Saturday and you have responsibilities, and, even if they are good ones, they are responsibilities nonetheless. That fleeting moment of absolute freedom has passed, and reality has re-entered the room, shuffled its feet a little and audibly cleared its throat. An intangible, bitter and disdainful feeling circles and you're ready for it when the proceedings come to an end; the adrenaline has worn off, and everyone is in various stages of decline. The Real World is buzzing around you and others are going about their days. You eventually return to the system and all you can think of is how much you can't wait until you leave it again.

And so we return to Sunday of Folio week where the novelty is starting to wear off, three days in. It's no longer just a cool, new experience to be had in the surrounds of friends; it's suddenly your Uni career on the line - if you fail this folio, you fail the studio which means that you have to repeat it. No one wants that, so the stress starts to simmer and froth. The percolations begin and will ascend to a rapturous cacophony of whistles and hormones culminating in the utter chaos of deadline day, whereby every single Architecture student at the University will assemble in the ALVA building to submit their final folio at various points of the day.

In such close collision, it's not a stretch to imagine frayed nerves spilling over into confrontation. Our class gets along well with each other, so I'm not too worried. However, hallways will be filled, people will be panicking, running, stressing and looking to steal any last minute resource that they might need to improve their submission.

I am looking forward to Friday, for I want to see just exactly what happens and how accurate my predictions of the week have been.

I am also looking forward to Friday so I can have a prolonged sleep, safe in the knowledge that, for two months, responsibilities will be far, far away.