Hello, I must be going.

I never really knew what I wanted to do when I was a child. My parents were both physiotherapists (now retired) and for a long time, I thought that that was just what I would naturally fall into eventually. However, I never really thirsted for the profession and wound up studying something that I would have even less passion for - Health Science - instead.

Without wanting to delve particularly deeply into the story of how I wound up to hate UWA's answer to Nigerian email scams so profoundly, it is necessary to touch upon it briefly, as it is integral to why I am sitting at my computer, approximately 10 days out from final folio due date, at 3am in the morning, typing this first of [possibly] many entries on the how and why of The Archaic Architect.

Health Science has always struck me as the ultimate placecard degree: a piece of paper that entitles you to sit in an office until you decide what you actually want to do with the rest of your life. Unfortunately for several of my contemporaries, this has involved rudderless and interminable secondments between branches of the government so draconian that meeting minutes are still recorded via tablet and chisel.

Diller, Scofidio and Renfro - The Museum of Image and Sound (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

This is what I became terrified of - a lifetime of sideways movement; of positions with no authority, latitude or innovation. To distill it further, one cannot work in the Department of Health without feeling the very elements of one's own character being slowly but surely stripped away. You don't have to look far to see the ravages, borne of years in the trenches, etched into the faces of the long-serving NCOs - people so utterly vacant, flat and characterless that they are hardly even alive.

It took me about three years in the clutches of the infernal monster (as well as some fairly significant family events) to decide that pocketing a reasonable salary wasn't enough to keep me interested.

I had known for some time that I'd never be able to make a real go of Health Science, and I had secretly hoped that my band of the time - Faith in Plastics - would just magically do something amazing so I could organically fall into another field of employment/engagement. Well, they did something amazing, but it wasn't quite the positive force that I was hoping for and the band fell to pieces in ignominy several months after I signed on to the Health Department.

Lebbeus Woods: Concept work from the movie Alien 3.

Fast forward a few years.

Glazed, decaying eyes focus on some triviality or another and all of a sudden, it's there; the seed has been sewn and all you can think of is how you have to escape from this void and limbo. You realise that you're in a prison inside your own life; that you have freedoms that are no longer relevant as you have forgotten everything about how to enjoy life. You cannot appreciate the apex until you have reached the nadir, and you cannot reach the apex until you have appreciated the importance and relevance of the nadir.

I channeled despair into hope, vacuuming up every last morsel of information on University courses that I could find. I had completed online aptitude tests in the past, and there had been a strong indication that I would be suited to a creative pursuit (which I already knew). I eventually narrowed my alternatives down to Digital Design and 3D Design before I happened upon the UWA Architecture handbook.

Said mother: "What about Architecture? That's a creative pursuit."
"Hmmm. I'll look into it." [pause] "O.K., I've sent my application."

There is no romance in the story of how I came to choose Architecture, unfortunately; I never even considered being an Architect as a child ("Designing houses? I'd much rather just be a professional footballer if you don't mind.") and my decision to undertake this massively life-changing experience was so whimsical that it appears comical in retrospect. It's the kind of thing that you can look back upon and laugh at with ease, simply due to the juxtaposition between the haste with which the decision to study Architecture is made and the deep contemplation that accompanies every move that an Architect[ure student] makes.

I actually don't mind that I have to pull so many all-nighters in Architecture (having never done a study-related all-nighter in my entire life prior) as I find it to be an extremely challenging, rewarding and interesting field of study (apart from visual arts, which only embodies the latter of those three adjectives).

Toyo Ito - Mikimoto Ginza2 (Tokyo, Japan)

I have already made many solid friendships, even with those about 10 years my junior, as a consequence of sharing such a close and intimate space for so many hours. When you endure an all-nighter with another, it creates a certain intangible bond. When you're doing this on a near-weekly basis, you can live through several months and feel like you've known those individuals all of your life.

The studio is a place where nothing is hidden for long. Stress happens; some people cope, others snap. You will have projects where you simply don't understand something major that you have to do for a deadline the next day. Sometimes, your colleagues will be able to help you, sometimes you will really have to fend for yourself. It can be a real dice roll if you're not doing the necessary preparation prior to submission dates. "Keep calm and carry on" reads an A4 printout on the wall of the fourth-floor computer lab, and it is a timely reminder of what is required of all Architecture students for success to find its way to you.

I am fortunate to be in a studio that has been extremely harmonious, despite 7 of our class dropping out (240 down from 300 for the entire admission for 2011), and that has allowed me to forge some strong friendships that I can certainly imagine being lifelong.

Everyone has their individual roles and strengths: mine are my memory and my writing skills, so I am the go-to guy the (night before/day of) (essay/slide test) due dates. Another classmate of mine and I naturally pair up when we're having design/drawing issues on our studio projects (for the time being, I'm not going to use names of my fellow students) and wind up bouncing ideas off each other fairly frequently.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - Barcelona Pavilion (Barcelona, Spain)

Some of us have roles of being stressballs (but incredibly talented and dedicated stressballs) and some of us have roles of being constantly kicked in the pants for not doing enough work (though sometimes producing really good work). A natural hierarchy emerges and the wheat separates itself from the chaff with great haste. There is nothing wrong with this natural competition, as most of us strive to better ourselves and our understanding of the work that we have committed to undertake for the rest of our lives.

I fall between the two extremes. I have historically always been a "coaster": I am able, capable and reasonably intelligent but too often have become satisfied with doing just enough to get by in order to indulge my vices (soccer/music/computer games). Part of the reason I did Architecture was to address this and become more dedicated. I certainly feel as though I have achieved that so far, but am also aware that I have a way to go before I am at the level that I desire for myself.

When I intimate that I fall between two extremes, these polar opposites are allegories for my parents. My dad, though someone who has worked extremely hard in his life, is occasionally given to being a "coaster" while my mother is the perfectionist who works hard all the time no matter the cost.

Architecture is many things: a joy, a grind, an identity and a lifestyle. It has thrown us all a bunch of challenges, and the manner in which we all address these determines not just what kind of professionals we will become but what kind of people we will be for the rest of our lives.

As trite and terrible as that sounds.