I guess the way I see it, in architecture school at least, there are 2 kinds of stress. The first is a short term, I have a pinup in 3 days and nothing done kind of thing. The second is a bit longer term and is more of a my project is in bad shape and I don't know how to fix it type deal. I find that in the first situation the stress can motivate you, but I'm currently stuck in the latter where stress is so draining that it prevents me from thinking creatively and moving forward.
So my question to all of you guys is how do you get through these super stressful periods and break out of architect's block?
i agree with the skipping a studio or two. but it doesnt always help the architects block per se. i think it is a good way to get rid of some tension. like tonight. i am actually going home early even though my thesis is due monday and i have a presentation that afternoon. as for archtiects block, i dont really know where to start. it seems as though every project i experience a block about mid way. turning an in depth process into a building. its rough. try to take some time off and then hit it hard. i also like to get crits from friends. i have one friend that is a waste of time, but the other day a random friend gave me some really good advice on the project. shop around a bit.
i dealt with the stress by developing a twitch in my shoulder... and to this day when im sitting, my leg never stops bouncing...
oh, also anxiety pains in my heart and numbness in my arms...
but seriously folks... i didnt deal with it well
i have a feeling one day when im about 67 my leg will stop twitching, and i will have officially drained out all the residual anxiety from the last 6 years.
I enjoy taking long drives out in the country to relieve stress. But then, it's hard to do in Chicago, where "the country" is 40 sprawl-ridden miles away. It will be even harder when I sell my car and move to NYC, so I'll have to find other methods for stress-reduction.
i developed really awful back pain because of stress during my thesis year. it was so bad that i would put gobs of icy hot on my back and sleep on the hard floor because it felt better. towards the end of my thesis i went and got a professional massage and that helped tremendously.
Exercise... Just before i presented my thesis i felt like a bag of shit. Late spring at UBC is pretty nice and having to spend another day in studio was killing me. One morning I went into studio sat down and just coldn't get going, after a half hour of procrastinating I got up went home on my bike and went for a ride, finished at the beach and laid down for what I thought was ten min. power nap but actually slept on the beach ( drooling ) for about 3 hrs. needless to say I had a pretty good sun burn and felt awful when I first woke up but after I got my wits about me I felt totally charged. Went back to studio with a very sun burned face arms and legs but got through the day and the last week.
It important to listen to your body and when you need to shut it down for a bit do it. work hard when you feel like it and when things aren't working do't fight the situation. Alot like design if the design isn't coming together change the direction and abandon a scheme if its not working.
I still do it to this day on large projects when I explain that it took me a little longer to revise a design and cost the client $10k its important to evaluate the changes and value the work. Its pretty easy to explain the extra $10k when you can justify a real construction cost saving of $500k by simply tweaking grades, access, excavation, Paper is cheap, excavators are not.
when i was studying industrial design for my undergrad (which is probably similar in stress level to undergrad arch) my roommate and i would make late night runs to ben & jerry's for chocolate covered cookie dough balls.....mmmm.
I used to self-destruct. I would talk myself into believing that I work so much better under pressure and time constraints. Wrong. Plus the chemicals. Now, I've not had a drink or a drug in a full year. I feel focused, healthy, motivated. In the past year I have learned many methods for coping with designers block and related stress.
try:
punching something > paint some street art > hit drums > write stupid things down > yell at the sky > go see local bands > read classic 'beat stuff > laugh at people you don't know > urban exploration....
Usually a few hours of any combination of above activities and I'm looking around for some scratch paper to sketch on.
Its like buddhism: once you stop thinking about the problem, the solution will present itself.
When I'm sorta-stressed, I read archinect (and yes, I post, not only read).
When I'm REALLY stressed, I work. The only way for me to relieve the stress of what I have to do is to DO IT.
For architect's block, i like to look at images of other projects. Usually I'll see something totally unrelated to the problem I'm working on that will trigger in my brain a way to address my problem.
For general stress, exercise helps as lot, as does sex, as does a major gut-busting laugh. Check out the need a lugh? thread for the latter. Personally I have Patrick Marckesano to thank for always making me laugh out loud at pictures of flying squirrels:
grab ur skateboard, drop urself into a long steep downhill.... no pads, no helmet.... u will see how easy ur mind gets free of worries and focus only in u not falling from the skateboard or get hit by a car...thats what i do, just a taste of good old adrenaline to refresh the mind and have a mental break....
and actually u cannot do it only once, u do it 4 or 5 times, cause then everytime u start thinking u can do it better
in college, i hit the "architecture block" twice...
the first time, the professor gave me a free week from any studio work, and told me to go out and get inspired and produce anything i wanted in relation to the project...(models of abstract shapes were the result of my free week) - 12 years later, i still sketch different solutions for that project...
the second time, I threw my sketchbook across the studio in rage, and went to the library to alt+ctrl+del my eye/mind...it turned out i was looking/thinking at the same thing for far too long...
architects' block is one issue. stress is another. i find architects' block is best solved by going home for a bit and just looking through books and magazines. but never with a mouse or pen in hand.
stress? i go surfing. life's a lot simpler when all you're concerned with is making it out of a 6' spinning, whooshing cylinder of water.
architecture block: look at something besides architecture! Art, industrial design, or even just read something (fiction). For me it helps to step back a bit, that way when I come back to it I approach the problem with a fresh mind and different perspective than the one I've already been running at it from for hours.
As far as block goes, I'll go play golf and guzzle crown and coke. Don't ask me why, but it always gets my mind ticking again.
If I need to de-stress, on the short-term I just pop in a dip. (I'm from TX, so it's pretty damn common out here, and I don't want to hear how nasty you think it is.) For more long term stress a quick trip to the lake house usually takes care of it. We've got a hammock out on the dock where I can just sit and watch the boats cruise by.
If I need to de-stress, on the short-term I just pop in a dip. (I'm from TX, so it's pretty damn common out here, and I don't want to hear how nasty you think it is.)
errrr, what the heck are you talking about? Apparently it's so common there that you've made up your own words for it, or it's so uncommon elsewhere that I have never heard of whatever it is you're discussing.
If you are stuck on a studio project, go to the pottery studio and mess around with clay, or work the graphics department, wood shop, metal shop, whatever your school has to offer to get your head out of your parallel bar and into a material.
I'm not sugguesting you continue to work on your project in a different material, take on something different that you'reinterested in. It will give your brain a break, and you'll get something out of it-
as opposed to a hangover, std, or ice cream ass.
ok i'm having a bit of architects block at the moment
here's the project: single family, single storey (first phase of three). The house is intended to ground up wards, and then the acquistion of the property next door. One bedroom, sunken living, kitchen, bakery (yes) to be located adjacent but away from the road, dining, and verandah.
So many things figured but I don't know where to start.
I've often thought it would be cool to design a generational house, a multifamily house that could house the extended family from grandparents to gandchildren to independent grown up grandchildren, etc... but within a contemporary north american cultural context... courtyard garden and communal kitchen on the ground floor and the grandparents units looking directly out onto it on the ground level so they don't have to climb steps at all... parents living just above, kids from different parent couples living with a communical bunkhouse to hang out and have sleepovers, and then the young adult kids units maybe at the outer edge with a exterior stair like a fire escape, something more independent but still having back access to the garden...
just a thought: you could either look at how the unit grows with the people, or maybe how people grow into different ways of occupying the spaces of the building... think about how it is occupied, spatial configurations of the units and relationships between them?
i think it depends on the context... if you are in a totally unconstrained no rules kind of situation like school, play with it, turn the problem on its head or try looking at it in a totally random, not so rational way... have fun with it...
don't take it too seriously, make a collage, build a conceptual model or relate it to something random... also have a bit of a sense of humour during the design process, i find that having a sense of humour in design also takes away alot of the stress, and can lead to good things...
postal - you're certainly entitled to your opinion. however, you might want to consider what the originator of this thread wrote - "I am not even close to being done with my studio work........" - yet, he's got enough time to post on archinect. what was he doing the rest of the term? why isn't the work "even close" - sounds to me like the guy screwed around all term and now wants to blame the firm for his problems.
get real people - if you take a job, you take more than a paycheck - you also take on responsibility. what's the old saying "your failure to plan doesn't constitute an emergency on my part"
don't accuse me of being an enemy of education. I have a bunch of degrees myself - paid for by me. I routinely have students in my firm and I treat them well. what I don't do is treat them like irresponsible children and the vast majority stay on with me after they earn their degree.
How do you cope with stress?
I guess the way I see it, in architecture school at least, there are 2 kinds of stress. The first is a short term, I have a pinup in 3 days and nothing done kind of thing. The second is a bit longer term and is more of a my project is in bad shape and I don't know how to fix it type deal. I find that in the first situation the stress can motivate you, but I'm currently stuck in the latter where stress is so draining that it prevents me from thinking creatively and moving forward.
So my question to all of you guys is how do you get through these super stressful periods and break out of architect's block?
i get away from my project for as long as i can. I've even been known to skip a studio or to. Refocus, and then come back stronger.
i agree with the skipping a studio or two. but it doesnt always help the architects block per se. i think it is a good way to get rid of some tension. like tonight. i am actually going home early even though my thesis is due monday and i have a presentation that afternoon. as for archtiects block, i dont really know where to start. it seems as though every project i experience a block about mid way. turning an in depth process into a building. its rough. try to take some time off and then hit it hard. i also like to get crits from friends. i have one friend that is a waste of time, but the other day a random friend gave me some really good advice on the project. shop around a bit.
tumbles...
maker's mark on ice
i dealt with the stress by developing a twitch in my shoulder... and to this day when im sitting, my leg never stops bouncing...
oh, also anxiety pains in my heart and numbness in my arms...
but seriously folks... i didnt deal with it well
i have a feeling one day when im about 67 my leg will stop twitching, and i will have officially drained out all the residual anxiety from the last 6 years.
I enjoy taking long drives out in the country to relieve stress. But then, it's hard to do in Chicago, where "the country" is 40 sprawl-ridden miles away. It will be even harder when I sell my car and move to NYC, so I'll have to find other methods for stress-reduction.
i developed really awful back pain because of stress during my thesis year. it was so bad that i would put gobs of icy hot on my back and sleep on the hard floor because it felt better. towards the end of my thesis i went and got a professional massage and that helped tremendously.
sex is also a great way to relieve stress.
Hear hear, sex is the only thing keeping me alive this semester
i ride my bike.
or, i read a book.
or, i get a thai massage.
stress be gone.
1. take a nap
2. draw something
3. go play checkers or word womp
here link
a nice strong punching bag and a pair of boxing gloves
I run,
or I surf,
or I drink...
[img]http://www.foodmall.org/images/greygoose_vodka.jpg[img/]
the only stress reliever i need, babie.
let's try that again shall we...
Exercise... Just before i presented my thesis i felt like a bag of shit. Late spring at UBC is pretty nice and having to spend another day in studio was killing me. One morning I went into studio sat down and just coldn't get going, after a half hour of procrastinating I got up went home on my bike and went for a ride, finished at the beach and laid down for what I thought was ten min. power nap but actually slept on the beach ( drooling ) for about 3 hrs. needless to say I had a pretty good sun burn and felt awful when I first woke up but after I got my wits about me I felt totally charged. Went back to studio with a very sun burned face arms and legs but got through the day and the last week.
It important to listen to your body and when you need to shut it down for a bit do it. work hard when you feel like it and when things aren't working do't fight the situation. Alot like design if the design isn't coming together change the direction and abandon a scheme if its not working.
I still do it to this day on large projects when I explain that it took me a little longer to revise a design and cost the client $10k its important to evaluate the changes and value the work. Its pretty easy to explain the extra $10k when you can justify a real construction cost saving of $500k by simply tweaking grades, access, excavation, Paper is cheap, excavators are not.
when i was studying industrial design for my undergrad (which is probably similar in stress level to undergrad arch) my roommate and i would make late night runs to ben & jerry's for chocolate covered cookie dough balls.....mmmm.
I used to self-destruct. I would talk myself into believing that I work so much better under pressure and time constraints. Wrong. Plus the chemicals. Now, I've not had a drink or a drug in a full year. I feel focused, healthy, motivated. In the past year I have learned many methods for coping with designers block and related stress.
try:
punching something > paint some street art > hit drums > write stupid things down > yell at the sky > go see local bands > read classic 'beat stuff > laugh at people you don't know > urban exploration....
Usually a few hours of any combination of above activities and I'm looking around for some scratch paper to sketch on.
Its like buddhism: once you stop thinking about the problem, the solution will present itself.
i consult my local street pharmicist
When I'm sorta-stressed, I read archinect (and yes, I post, not only read).
When I'm REALLY stressed, I work. The only way for me to relieve the stress of what I have to do is to DO IT.
For architect's block, i like to look at images of other projects. Usually I'll see something totally unrelated to the problem I'm working on that will trigger in my brain a way to address my problem.
For general stress, exercise helps as lot, as does sex, as does a major gut-busting laugh. Check out the need a lugh? thread for the latter. Personally I have Patrick Marckesano to thank for always making me laugh out loud at pictures of flying squirrels:
diet exercise and herbs.
try this
YOGA AND SEX
grab ur skateboard, drop urself into a long steep downhill.... no pads, no helmet.... u will see how easy ur mind gets free of worries and focus only in u not falling from the skateboard or get hit by a car...thats what i do, just a taste of good old adrenaline to refresh the mind and have a mental break....
and actually u cannot do it only once, u do it 4 or 5 times, cause then everytime u start thinking u can do it better
in college, i hit the "architecture block" twice...
the first time, the professor gave me a free week from any studio work, and told me to go out and get inspired and produce anything i wanted in relation to the project...(models of abstract shapes were the result of my free week) - 12 years later, i still sketch different solutions for that project...
the second time, I threw my sketchbook across the studio in rage, and went to the library to alt+ctrl+del my eye/mind...it turned out i was looking/thinking at the same thing for far too long...
I run....
Sometimes I clean.
Macallan's 12 neat if it's really bad.
architects' block is one issue. stress is another. i find architects' block is best solved by going home for a bit and just looking through books and magazines. but never with a mouse or pen in hand.
stress? i go surfing. life's a lot simpler when all you're concerned with is making it out of a 6' spinning, whooshing cylinder of water.
architecture block: look at something besides architecture! Art, industrial design, or even just read something (fiction). For me it helps to step back a bit, that way when I come back to it I approach the problem with a fresh mind and different perspective than the one I've already been running at it from for hours.
stress: exercise.
As far as block goes, I'll go play golf and guzzle crown and coke. Don't ask me why, but it always gets my mind ticking again.
If I need to de-stress, on the short-term I just pop in a dip. (I'm from TX, so it's pretty damn common out here, and I don't want to hear how nasty you think it is.) For more long term stress a quick trip to the lake house usually takes care of it. We've got a hammock out on the dock where I can just sit and watch the boats cruise by.
errrr, what the heck are you talking about? Apparently it's so common there that you've made up your own words for it, or it's so uncommon elsewhere that I have never heard of whatever it is you're discussing.
Switch materials/process.
If you are stuck on a studio project, go to the pottery studio and mess around with clay, or work the graphics department, wood shop, metal shop, whatever your school has to offer to get your head out of your parallel bar and into a material.
I'm not sugguesting you continue to work on your project in a different material, take on something different that you'reinterested in. It will give your brain a break, and you'll get something out of it-
as opposed to a hangover, std, or ice cream ass.
to avoid architect's block avoid sexy architect books.
dip = chewing tobacco I think.
ok i'm having a bit of architects block at the moment
here's the project: single family, single storey (first phase of three). The house is intended to ground up wards, and then the acquistion of the property next door. One bedroom, sunken living, kitchen, bakery (yes) to be located adjacent but away from the road, dining, and verandah.
So many things figured but I don't know where to start.
sorry that should read "grow" instead of ground in the second sentence. And the added land is supposed to be for a playground when they have kids
architechnophilia,
I've often thought it would be cool to design a generational house, a multifamily house that could house the extended family from grandparents to gandchildren to independent grown up grandchildren, etc... but within a contemporary north american cultural context... courtyard garden and communal kitchen on the ground floor and the grandparents units looking directly out onto it on the ground level so they don't have to climb steps at all... parents living just above, kids from different parent couples living with a communical bunkhouse to hang out and have sleepovers, and then the young adult kids units maybe at the outer edge with a exterior stair like a fire escape, something more independent but still having back access to the garden...
just a thought: you could either look at how the unit grows with the people, or maybe how people grow into different ways of occupying the spaces of the building... think about how it is occupied, spatial configurations of the units and relationships between them?
re: designers block
i think it depends on the context... if you are in a totally unconstrained no rules kind of situation like school, play with it, turn the problem on its head or try looking at it in a totally random, not so rational way... have fun with it...
don't take it too seriously, make a collage, build a conceptual model or relate it to something random... also have a bit of a sense of humour during the design process, i find that having a sense of humour in design also takes away alot of the stress, and can lead to good things...
postal - you're certainly entitled to your opinion. however, you might want to consider what the originator of this thread wrote - "I am not even close to being done with my studio work........" - yet, he's got enough time to post on archinect. what was he doing the rest of the term? why isn't the work "even close" - sounds to me like the guy screwed around all term and now wants to blame the firm for his problems.
get real people - if you take a job, you take more than a paycheck - you also take on responsibility. what's the old saying "your failure to plan doesn't constitute an emergency on my part"
don't accuse me of being an enemy of education. I have a bunch of degrees myself - paid for by me. I routinely have students in my firm and I treat them well. what I don't do is treat them like irresponsible children and the vast majority stay on with me after they earn their degree.
wake up and smell the coffee, people!
my apologies for the 4:49 post above ... it was intended for another thready ... sorry for breaking the rhythm of this one.
Just took a stress relief few moments: Went outside and transplanted some day lillies. Nothing like gradening to get rid of tension.
file, sounds like you should hang around in here...
yeah, well !
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