Retrospective

After constant research on architecture in the past 11 weeks, I did learn about the gap between theoretical architecture that they teach you at school and real life architecture that you can’t possibly teach at school. In architecture school, professors teach you all about design theories and ideals. But in real life, people who are not in the profession usually do not understand these theoretical ideals and design strategies; and architects do not get the chance to explain their design intentions to everyone. People then only care about the result: looks and costs. An architect thus have to be a “god” – trying to fulfill usage, looks, costs and practicality, and at the same time knowing that people most likely will not understand his or her work, or even dislike the work.

The research skills I have learnt have been very useful. Being able to take advantage of the multiple databases that the university has to offer is helpful to each assignment (as compared to my only resource before – proquest). The workshops are great because you never know what information your peers have to offer, especially when later in the semester we are grouped according to our topics. Writing blogs is a great way to keep track of research and always serves as a start if I’m stuck with my essay.

I would eventually want to keep up with a blog that summarizes the interesting architectural findings I have. Because the only way of advancing in architecture is to be updated constantly since there are so many new things being designed everyday.
Something like dezeen.com would be nice.