The students guide to st.

architecture
By Norman Blogster with cartoons by the_moth Two professions
The first thing to understand is that there are really two professions architecture and st.architecture with a gradual scale between the two poles. In order to call yourself an architect in the UK you need to pass 3 RIBA accredited exams and then register with the ARB: Part I: Undergraduate degree (3 years) ready owe a small mortgage. This, combined with an average salary of only 20,625 for an architectural assistant with up to 2 years post Part II experience, means that you will not be able to afford to live. If you really want to get on, then you wont be earning anything that will qualify you for a mortgage until your peers that chose dentistry are considering retirement. loggs have introduced those A level coupons on the back of cornflakes packets. To get on in st.architecture, there are really only 2 schools to go to and they are in London lets call them the A and the B. In terms of A levels, the B is asking for: ABB and the A simply asks for $ and an exotic surname.

If you dont fancy a school that deYour parents should either be a) exoti- scribes itself with the definite article Part II: Work (1-2 years) + postgraduate cally foreign (and loaded), or b) upper- then you might like to consider Cardiff (asking for AAA), Sheffield (asking for degree (2 years) middle class Caucasian: AAA), or Oxford Brookes (asking for Part III: Work (1+ years) + professional a) Dubai and China are very la mode AAB) practice certificate (1 year) these days, so a Dubaian father and Chinese mother would be ideal so that Or thereabouts. they can give you a great name like Ling Zaqbah. UK immigrants do not Step 3: In order to call yourself a count. Choose your archi-school well st.architect, you just need to follow these 7 simple steps: b) If your parents are clearly not so Archi-schools teach st.architecture exotic, then at least choose them to be rather than architecture because they upper-middle class Caucasian. are validated by the RIBA whose purpose it is to promote st.architecture. Step 1: Like in any walk of life, your parents St.architecture is also sexier than its Choose your parents well contacts will be useful, but unlike most more practical sibling. Architecture is walks of life, they should also have a like playing panto at Melton Mowbray They should have plenty of money and house that needs either extending or opposite Ruth Madoch, while not mind donating it to your pursuit of rebuilding when you graduate. This is a st.architecture is playing 007 with st.architectural glory. Architecture is a major advantage for developing your Angelina Jolie as the Bond girl. long and expensive endurance course oeuvre. If your parents dont require re and contrary to popular belief, not a -housing, then try and find a close Success at A level is no indicator of well-paid profession. On leaving archi- relative that does and doesnt mind success in archi-school because school, the average graduate will alliving in one of your modernist leakyst.architecture entirely based around roofed experiments. the studio and the all-pervasive myth of design. A degree in st.architecture is in fact essentially training (and I use the word train deliberately, in the same way that horticulturalists train Bonsai and horsemen train horses) to do architecThey should include art or design as you usually need to show a portfolio at tural competitions. The training deinterview. Physics is important to dem- vices utilised to achieve this level of submissiveness are the studio and the onstrate a well-rounded personality crit, or jury. and is not necessarily anything to do with being able to work out how buildThe studio teaches you the unquestionings work (thats why engineers are ing pandering of whims. If you have better paid than architects). more than one tutor then you are in trouble, because their whims will all If you are unfortunate enough not to be different. There is no right answer have loaded parents, then you really in architecture - its all a question of need to get 3 As in these A levels for who wins the argument on the day. no other reason than to get into the The studio also cuts you off from norright archi-school. But that shouldnt mality and from having friends outside be a problem nowadays, since Kel-

Step 2: Choose your A levels well

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Working abroad gets you extra points at this stage and could possibly be a suitable alternative if you want to be paid a relatively normal wage while still maintaining a course for stardom. Working for a foreign st.architect is the ultimate theres a good source of them in Holland and New York. You do not have to say what you did during your 6 months, as its only the name on the CV that matters. Fetching cakes and making tea are ok but the work you will do depends on the path you have chosen. If you want to be a zero, you will be a CAD monkey, setting out toilets, ceiling tile layouts, car parking spaces and so on. However, it you are destined to be a hero, youll be making pretty pictures for competition entries using 3D Studio Max (or suitable alternative). Any spare evenings, do the lectures and the scene. Be seen reading Deleuze and not Part L on the tube.

Step 5: Choose your Part II school well

For your Part II postgraduate Diploma in st.architecture, it is most important that you attend the A or the B, where it is beneficial to study under a famous st.architect. People often ask why st.architecture is such a long course. The official answer is that buildings and the process of building are immensely complex subjects, enof architecture. Delete any boyfriend Step 4: or girlfriend - they are a sign of weakChoose your Part I employers tailing study from a wide gamut of areas, meaning that the st.architect ness. St.architecture is your partner has to be master of all trades, and jack now. You will do well to develop an air well of none. The real answer is that it of defiant arrogance and begin to wear Next: go and work for a st.architect in takes this long to be indoctrinated into chunky framed glasses, whether necesLondon. For the complete list, take the the cult of the st.architect. After 3 sary or not. You have to know how to past years worth of any years, youve only been marinated. fit into the system. Throwing in a few st.architecture journal and add up the The real cooking comes at the postwords and phrases like blurring the column inches for each practice. Those boundaries, palimpsest, with the most are the st.architects. Or skiamorph and impromptu performsee who were the jurors at the A the ance space will encourage your judges previous year. Or look for the last few that you are beginning to speak their years Stirling Prize or Pritzker winlanguage. ners. Send your origami portfolio to them in good time. Its a good idea to The objective of the degree is twofold. Firstly, you have to convince the make it automatically inflate upon opening the envelope, as not all establishment that you are willing to st.architects own a bike pump. play by the rules (see above). Secondly, you have to create a stunning Do not expect to be paid this year. If orgasmic, origamic portfolio. This is you cannot afford to work for less than required for the job interviews that minimum wage - or perhaps even pay follow... your masters for the privilege of operating their photocopier - then you are not destined to be among the chosen. Go and design web sites instead. www.partiv.com 2

graduate stage. St.architecture as an undergraduate degree is basically a degree in creative thinking. If you knew anyone outside of st.architecture as an undergraduate, they will all have moved on when you return for the postgraduate diploma, leaving just the doctors and the architects - the two sets of professionals most accused of arrogance. Do not be mistaken, st.architecture at postgraduate level is pure cult indoctrination.

Your romantic partner should either be a) another architect with their own independent financial means and burning ambition, b) someone who can get you work, such as a developer or magazine owner, or c) not care about architecture but be willing to support you financially while you dilly-dally around trying to make the 65 under retirement age poor list. This final option is good because you can use their money to build your own dream pad to advertise your talents.

The other partner you would be advised to make is the one you will set up Step 6: practice with. The individual hero is still the thing to aspire to, so at least Choose your Part III employers get a front-man or woman who prefwell erably has an easy-on-the-eye face and So youve got your shiny diploma in are a variety of different courses, com- will get magazine exposure. Now sexy blobs and shards and obfuscating prising a few hours of management and youre on your own, you will probably need the teaching income and so the archispeak from a top London archioffice administration which is surprisodd crit/jury/review will not be school. The world is your bivalve molingly all the PI insurers ask for. enough. Its time to become studio lusc and you are a genius. But theres meister. still work to do to, labouring for anIts good to be settled until your Part other st.architect in the epicentre. But IIIs out the way, at which point, you because youre a genius now, you may wish to move to another wont be stuck to the photocopier. You st.architect or remain at the same may get to design a door handle, or a place to see your reception desk built. reception desk. After a couple of Or not. Its diminishing returns after a years. And if youre lucky, it may get couple of st.architects though. Theyre built. After a couple more. on your CV and thats what qualifies you to be invited to crits. Use strong hair gel so that it wont fall out of place when chairs are thrown. Even better, if youre a bloke, shave your head. The Bond villain look is very Which is the point you should start teaching. It doesnt seem to matter in. Still. that you dont actually have anything You will want to get your Part III out of worth teaching at this point - its sufficient that you have passed the the way, but theres no real rush and many people take several years. There course that your star-struck pupils are struggling with and you are working for a st.architect (dont tell them about the reception desk - youre working on Its no longer enough to just teach in a megabillion dollar project in Dubai or London, you have to create a frenetic a competition for masterplanning Beijet-setting schedule, like: jing). You just need to bide your time now and network at all the lectures, parties and exhibition openings until you meet the perfect partner. To set up business with, of course - none of that romantic nonsense. Monday: London - the A Tuesday: Cambridge, Mass. - Harvard GSD Wednesday: Rotterdam - Berlage Institute Thursday: New York - Columbia

Step 7: Choose your partners well

After a few years slaving for someone else, you need to think about striking out on your own and your partners. www.partiv.com

Friday: London the B Saturday: Office - competitions Sunday: Home - rewrite lectures/ articles/manifestos 3

Dont worry about your carbon footprint - you are a st.architect and can therefore claim ecological immunity and can offset it by telling others about how to minimise their own. You can always stick a windmill on your tower competition entries to prove how much you care about the environment. The trans-Atlantic flights are time for writing. Very important. Apart from rebuilding your folks house, adding an extension to your partners uncles pile, and building your own underground pad on a 3m wide plot in Hoxton, you wont have any work and so need to write, write, write. Get published. Invent a new movement. Enter lots of competitions. But be careful not to win any too soon! You need to build up a portfolio of failures to refer to you need a body of work to publish in your autobiography. Winning a competition too early will be fatal because a) you will not have time in your schedule to actually build the thing (and anyway, teaching and publishing is more lucrative than building at this stage in your career) and b) as soon as your images move from the printed page to the building site, their magic is immediately lost. So at this stage stick to VERY small projects such as inflatable, collapsible multi-media bus shelters that you can control in minutiae and publish to death and lecture on for the next few years. Its now time to publish your second monofesto/manigraph. After several years of this, you will begin to be invited to enter competitions and sit on review panels and competition juries. This is the indication that youre on the cusp of st.architect-dom, when you begin to influence the world of st.architecture. Its now safe to start winning some competitions and build some things. But make sure they leak the important distinction between building and art that is the mark of a true st.architect. And dont forget masterplanning! No risk (whos going to sue a masterplanner?) and no thought necessary. Theyre called planners because they design in plan with lots of geometric shapes, come up with a daft distracting concept and throw some liquorice allwww.partiv.com

sorts over an OS map. Oh, and one last thing - remember to die old. Architecture is an old mans profession. You wont start making any serious money until youre in your 50s, when your school chums who became dentists have retired. You can design their retirement homes. Dying young is rock and roll, not st.architecture. So dont even think about getting cancer in your 30s or a heart attack in your 40s or taking an overdose any time. Be patient, follow these 7 steps and I guarantee the world of st.architecture is yours. Or your money back.

Text 2008, Norman Blogster (norman@partiv.com) Cartoons 2008, the_moth

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