I Want to Face the Challenges of Architecture :: Graduate Admissions Essays

I Want to Face the Challenges of Architecture When you drive home from work, do you ever explore? Sure, it might take longer than usual, and there may be unpleasant stops along the way, but occasionally you will find an unexpected surprise. By casting aside strict conventions and routines and by winning risks, we can achieve things we never considered or thought possible. I find that many people in our religiously capitalist society only explore the fastest, cheapest, and most efficient route. While some industries hire to increase diversity and thereby innovation, many dare not attempt anything new. In particular, many completed architects and developers fear taking chances and fear the risk of failure inherent in untested methods. I, on the other hand, believe that architects must not feel limit by the past but must follow-up on promising possibilities. Exploring undiscovered methods and paths requires self-criticism, self-assurance, and courage. In my junior year in col lege, I doubted the teaching look of my instructor in my first foundation studio class. I felt as if he pushed his own rigid ideas into the students creations and did not allow the students the opportunity to chase after their own original designs. Fearing my intellectual growth might be stunted by his lectures and dissatisfied with his teaching, I basically taught myself design by researching and combing by means of hundreds of architecture books. Through my own studies, I came to realize that architecture should be learned, not preached. That semester, I further challenged myself by working on a design of my own creation, a design not assigned by my instructor. While it would have been easier to accept the instructor s lessons and just follow his ideas, I realized that I could never take the easy way again now that I discovered that the beauty of architecture lies in learning it myself. That semester helped formulate my approach towards architecture and influence my design de cisions to this day. Although self-motivation is extremely important, seeking the guidance and critique of others is essential to good design since others can find what I may have overlooked. i critic who has been particularly crucial to the development of my work is Craig Scott, a Progressive Architecture Awards Winner in 1996,who worked together with Homa Fardjadi and Sima Fardjadi. Craig was my studio critic during the spring terminus of 1997.