The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss how to prepare for undergraduate architecture school. The two cover learning different skills and tools such as software programs, sculpture, drawing, and painting; learning about construction; common challenges students face; architectural education in general; dealing with negativity in the profession of architecture; and more.
Highlights and Timestamps
Learning computer programs such as CAD, Rhino, SketchUp, or Revit (03:44)
Even if you learn Revit in school, you’re not going to use Revit the same way in an office. Each office has its own workflow and its own way to use them. […] You should be comfortable being uncomfortable with software because that’s what it’s going to be [during school and after]. (08:12)
On one side you have technical skillsets and on the other side, you have design, creativity, artistic expression, etc. That’s a bit of a false dichotomy, but you have those two things. The end result that everyone wants as a designer and as an educator is to have both sides nearly equally developed and when one advances beyond the other, the other has to advance to match. […] Certain times, the skills drive creativity because you have the ability to do new things, and other times the creativity is what drives you to learn new skills. These two things are always wrestling with each other. (18:18)
Learning sculpture, drawing, and painting (27:50)
In school, you will often times start off with modeling making and drawing by hand. You don’t start off with the most complex problems and complex processes because it’s too much… You’d become paralyzed because you don’t know what to do or you’d become a victim of the tools or process. […] You start with small basic design problems and then you move to more complex ones. You start with doing things by hand and then we move onto things like Rhino. (32:04)
The purpose of architecture school (34:01)
Learning about construction (43:22)
The value of the construction experience I had wasn’t about the construction of houses or the other things themselves. It was more about gaining a fundamental and nearly conceptual understanding of how materials work and how things want to fit together… It was an understanding of physics, assemblages, and the poetics of it. [As a student] it informed me, but I didn’t allow it to dictate or limit my thinking. (48:09)
Embracing failure and the process of redesigning (51:09)
Should architecture education evolve? (59:55)
Financial management (01:05:00)
Should architecture students be optimistic about their future careers in architecture? (01:08:10)
