Many architecture students have come to know that “all-nighters” may be inevitable and end up disappearing from their circles for days. You usually hear, “Sorry, I’m in the studio.” This phrase is so often tossed around that non-architecture people can glimpse into one of the many facets of schools’ prevalent studio culture.
What exactly is studio culture, though? Unfortunately, there are countless perspectives from schools and firms on this unique topic, so it isn’t easy to define succinctly. However, from a study by the American Institute of Architecture Students in 2016, Michael Kemner from the University of Hartford objectively said, “studio culture is the set of ideas and actions for students, faculty, and staff to go by, in order to work symbiotically towards a common goal and an educational atmosphere,” which is a great way to summarize what studio culture should be.
Sadly, what should be, isn’t always what it appears! We wanted to break down some positives, negatives, and our opinion on key points of studio culture that can exacerbate “all-nighters,” which architecture students are notoriously known for worldwide. Studio culture is among the many facets that play into a bigger conversation about college students’ mental health. For this reason, our team can only speak from personal experiences, which does not reflect everyone’s studio experience, and to provide tips to reduce the number of all-nighters!
Product of Environment
Architecture students aren’t in a traditional classroom setting – the studio is the heart of the curriculum where we eat, sleep, work, and have fun! It’s an amazing and dedicated space for us to explore new concepts, new techniques, and learn from peers and faculty. As a student, this environment is ideal for learning as it sets new goals and offers different solutions to problems.
However, some qualities to this environment may not be conducive to a student’s overall health, whether others view it as a positive or not. When most of your time is spent anywhere, what you perceive as normal can be vastly different from others. Due to that very nature, one reason that can lead a student to partake in an all-nighter is that studio culture can justify and perpetuate this particular action.
This skewed notion of normalcy can increase the peer pressure felt by an individual to repeat this behavior or feel justified for unhealthy actions. However, if any students opposed what should be “normal” in the studio, they can experience guilt. That being said, the studio is our home, which we all love, but it’s important to realize when to take a step back from things we enjoy! Looking back, I did feel guilty at times and didn’t prioritize my physical and mental health, exhausting my interest in architecture. A thought some could relate to, but we wanted to let you know that it’s okay to set boundaries with the studio culture, too, specifically, not feeling guilty focusing on your health.
Environment Productivity
As previously mentioned, studios are beneficial to a student’s curriculum, but they can also influence their productivity. Why does the vast majority decide to go to a gym? It’s a great motivator to see another person being productive, so considering the studio space, it’s no surprise that seeing your peer work motivates you!
Despite being the hub for creativity, knowledge, and exploration, the studio can be an awfully frustrating place to work when trying to focus on a task. There are as many innovations as distractions because of students’ ability to operate their space as they like, which can lead to eating, talking on the phone, or watching a show. Of course, this depends on the nature of the school and professor.
Students can often find themselves in a bind, for this reason, causing them to do an all-nighter. That being said, everyone’s work style, schedule, and priorities are different, emphasizing the individual instead of the studio culture dynamic. It’s vital to come into the studio with a game plan or noise-canceling headphones to stay productive through the distractions! Yes, this means putting down your phone and avoid friends so that you can leave the studio at a healthy time.
Learning When to Stop!
As we all know – design is subjective. This means it can be difficult to know when to stop making design decisions, even for a person with years of experience. Although typically affecting younger students, it’s difficult for many to learn to differentiate when a design is “finished” or not, leading to last-minute changes or working all the way up to the deadline.
The cause can be due to one’s strive for perfection, which naturally creeps into the studio culture. In my opinion, schools innately develop a competitive side to designing, placing a strange relationship between perfection, knowing when a concept reached its full capacity, and design-decision making.
Ultimately, gaining the awareness within your own design and making effective decisions will allocate ample time to produce quality drawings for the presentation instead of last-minute changes or working until the deadline.
Workload or Time-Management?
A prevalent argument that rises through the ranks of studio culture causing unhealthy behavior in students is whether the workload is too much or poor time-management skills. Nonetheless, there are possibles issues in the curriculum that architecture students will have difficulty juggling. Not only do architecture students still have to handle a normal college life, they somehow have to balance hours of work too? This doesn’t even include students who are working, pursuing a minor, or other valid reasons that can add to the gigantic plate!
However, an echoing idea around architecture education is to bridge design class and other major courses so their studio projects can tackle aspects of architecture, like environmental systems. Promising as that may be, it’s difficult to imagine courses coordinating various projects and keeping a fair grading system. Nonetheless, time-management is the ultimate skill necessary to avoid staying late in the studio and hopefully reduce the number of all-nighters needed. In previous articles, we mentioned practicing making a list of tasks you’d like to accomplish before leaving the studio and track how much time is spent per task. How about you give that a try?
Our audience is populated with individuals worldwide with different backgrounds, so we want to recognize those managing all responsibilities and still decide to stay in architecture! Kudos to you!
All-Nighters are Unsustainable
Although several positive things can come out of all-nighters, like developing camaraderie among peers and fun stories, it’s unsustainable. This ineffective work method can leave students on the brink of exhaustion and reduce design quality. In fact, some schools have and/or attempted to mitigate this issue by shutting down the studio overnight, receiving a mix of positive and negative comments. Studio culture, particularly all-nighters, is not entirely any schools’ actions but rather a mixture of students, faculty, school, and professionals repeating such behaviors, which is why trying to describe succinctly is, simply, not possible.
We, at ArchiHacks, hope that our platform demonstrates ways to work less and design more, so you can fully partake in the beauty and nuances of architecture (And enjoy life, too!). Will this perpetual behavior ever stop? Let us know in the comments below.
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