And so ends my undergraduate Architecture life

By Aneesah, 26 May 11

Like I’ve said before… not everything is meant to be a success. Final crit was not too bad, Alhamdulillah, (the events leading to the final crit, however, were the stuff of nightmares  *_* ) but definitely some points to keep in mind. I think the strongest advice was:

Do not be afraid to do what you love.

I think I was never fully engaged in the project because I didn’t love it. Neither did I put something that I love into it. I loved my Interdisciplinary stuff, spending hours diligently sewing the patterns even when the formwork is meant to be discarded after the plaster has been cast. It never occured to me to integrate the two modules together (designing a museum + explorations of the forms produced with fabric casts) — perhaps it is a common view that Architecture is about buildings and only buildings. The truth is, Architecture becomes even stronger, more dynamic and innovative, when you bring something else into it (eg. from another discipline like textile arts). All you need is creativity and courage. And I am so lacking in the latter. 🙁

InshaAllah I will write another entry to describe my experimentations with fabric formwork. The technique is being widely researched at the moment, but not yet thoroughly applied to a real building anywhere. I just find it fascinating because it involves fabric and sewing. 😛

My degree results will be released on June 17th, inshaAllah. Until then, I’ll be hanging around (possibly doing some more sewing/craftythingies 😀 ), packing my stuff to ship back home, etc. etc. Short term goal at the moment involves some room-cleaning, though. -_-;  Seriously, it’s the same routine after every crit:

1. Arrive home in an unstable mental state due to extreme sleep deprivation (in my case, one all-nighter already counts as extreme) and post-crit syndrome.
2. Sleep/nap.
3. Wake up, shower.
4. Catch up on stacks of unread e-mails and Facebook/Tumblr/etc. posts.
5. Marvel at messiness of room and how I managed to occupy it in that state. (Hint: may involve sleeping on the floor.)
6. Gather and throw out rubbish.
7. Placing everything back where they belong.
8. Shuffling all papers and notes related to the module and filing them away despite the fact that I won’t ever, ever look at them again.
9. Vacuum.
10. Feel all pleased and satisfied, the emotion that comes after cleaning anything.
11. Sleep/nap.

On a random note, it rained today (after quite a few lovely sunny days), and somehow many of my Malaysian friends here remarked about it on Facebook. How the rain reminded us of home. 🙂 I did feel as if it wasn’t the usual British rain… it was so calming and welcomed. It smelled like home…