When I met Souto de Moura : 10 Lessons i learned from my architecture studies "EAC"

Dear architecture students,
Back on school, a whole new year full of up & downsides will join you along your journey, i wish going back to this era of my life, after being graduated last year, i tought about sharing my experience, surivival, joy, anxiety, i imagined me asking myself “What would I tell myself when I was a freshman in architecture school?”

Example of Studio ©Bob Robson "Life of an Architect"

10 LESSONS I LEARNED FROM MY ARCHITECTURE STUDIES

There is a lot of things to say about, but i tought about picking the most important 10 things that was important for me and i hope fit will be useful for you.

1- Be Curious

 It’s the pillar of our profession, we are as architect designing project for human kind.., curiousity must be our nature, especially when during design, we tend to be close in all other related fields (History, Sociology, Physics, Mathematics, Art…). Having a strong general knowledge is really important.

2- Hand drawing is not a gift, it is a skill

Sketching & handrawing is an essential and helpful skill to help you materialize your ideas, i was horrible at first, but practicing 2 hours a day, drawing anything that surrounded me (buildings, trees, cars, birds, skies) helps me a lot to understand the space dimension, the proportion and express it on my projects.

3- Have your materials

Architecture require a lot of materials for project design (Ruller, Kutch, Square, Pens…), having on posession can increase effectively your productivity and it is essential also to draw, it’s like a doctor who doesn’t have his equipement to check your health, it’s useless.

4- Always carry a sketchbook consolidated with a calendar

I Learned this from my professor of 2nd year studio, sketching is parts of architects domain, and one of the most important tools an architect can do is get his ideas on paper, a sketchbook comes handy, i used him also during my travel, where i take notes, make some water colors, it makes me sketch the space & understand it quickly. As students, we are also bad at managing our time, having a calendar so we can plan our project tasks & deadlines each day can help us a lot, sincerely we don’t need to pull an all nighter, it’s doing harm more than good to get focus on school & project design.

Sketches in Venice, Italy

5- Idea aren’t gift from heaven, it’s patience & hardwork

An idea or a concept is something abstract, sometimes we don’t progress in our project because we somehow waiting for the great big concept to land on our sheets. An idea is something we work on, it’s documenting through references, trying to understand the site, asking good questions, talking about your projects when you can, all of this is wrapped by a constant patience & hardwork, and believe me, hard work is easy to see when a student develop his project vigorously.

6- A good oral & graphic presentation 

When the jury is arriving, i know from experience that things get rushed up & students get stressed quickly , it’s a normal feeling, but you should know that your professor know your project, it should gives you less stress, external jury can push our boundaries a little bit, but preparing our presentation for any questions related to the project or not is essential (1h), it help us also structure our idea to get the general concept and not focusing on minor details, the key is preparation & confidence.

7- Widen your vision

A problem that i’ve seen,  is the narrow vision that sometimes students can have by just focusing on studio & school tests without widen their vision to explore new things around, with a collaboration with my friend, we co-found the journal of architecture called « NG » stands for New Generation, and we have this vision to create, share between students a very active architecture culture and keep close the students between them, a platform where any motivated student can write an article in a subject that matter to us, it allowed us also to make interviews with a very known architects like the Pritzker Prize winner Souto de Moura & Siza who held a conference in Casablanca before, also Robert Reichen & many others...

"NG" Team

Meeting with the Master "Souto de Moura"

Dream Team picture , right to left (Lahbib Elmoumni - Benhamza Fatimzahra - Imad Dahmani)

Making some student architectural competition was a great moments for me & my partners, it’s an intense moment when we have the chance to test ourselves ta match deadlines & compare our level abroad, it gave us a sense of productivity & helped us a lot to evolve in our design & graphics.

Competition Statistics: 

Not done : 3

Losses : 5

Wins : 3

8- Sell your professor

He is like your mentor, his goal is to help & protect you along your path you choose, your professor isn’t here to do your project, but think as he is your « client », so when talking about your project, it’s crucial to clearly articulate your toughts & design direction so you can convince him that your idea is valid.

9- Read, own an architecture & art culture

I remember i hadn’t any architectural background or culture at first, 1 year later, i never left the library during my off hours, reading architecture or magazine, art, design books or other intellectual or art stuff helped me a lot during my studies to bring the best to my projects design and my vocabulary.

10- Educate your eye

As an architect, we need to get more awareness of the space where we live, so i recommend to visit architectural buildings, travel as much as possible & always sketch or take photographs to understand the quality of the space we use (light, views, form, function, proportion…)

Contemplation of Master's art work "Le Corbusier". Villa Savoye

Stay Bold

Imad Dahmani