You may find this cynical, but having worked most of my professional life on average of 10 or more hours a day and some time,( quite often), week ends, I am enjoying my lack of work.
I don't have much money to spend and I am counting every penny, in fact I go out shopping late in the evening which is the best time to pick up bargains in the local supermarket.
A part that I am finally reading all the books that I never had time to read while I was busy working. ( all my evening writing reports and minutes I really heated it).Even better I am designing what I want .
They are not real buildings, but I had more that enough of my share of so called "commercial architecture" (Does it exist? I rather call it just design of building, not Architecture which has other values...).
I also have a lot more contacts with collegues in the same situation.
The ten people made redundant by my former company meet regularly, we exchange emails daily, supporting each other and networking for jobs.We socialize, we go to exhibitions and concerts and most of all we don't live to dead lines anymore. So yes , architects are trained to work all hours and this is bad and almost accept as normal , but really it isn't. There are a lot of other thinks to do in life. Lets have more time for our self and cultivate more interests.
That may also make our "Architecture" better

"some of us stay later and do more work than required to push the ideas harder. don't judge me. "

Well for every one of you brilliant and rogue geniuses gracing this profane world with your sacred brilliance, there are far less irascible children who can afford to participate in my livelihood who do not approach the levels of supermensch you have long since transcended - and I do not want to be held liable (like a parent) for their naive, ignorant and neurotic decisions.

You want to work late and over extend yourself to the point where you put yourself and others at risk - you do it at your house and on your own time.

And for the record - all undergraduates have short-sighted and NAIVE ideas that contribute nothing to Architecture. That. Is. The. Point. You will have no brilliant ideas as an undergrad - you know nothing of the whole game of architecture. Is developing focus and discipline worthy? Absolutely. Is learning to be organized and technically knowledgeable worthy? Absolutely?

Can any one student justify a curricular format for all others? No. Again - we do not know how to teach people to work smarter, so we blast full throttle with harder (brute force vs learned gracefulness). It just takes to much time. No idea what the absolute solution is.

while i understand trace's point of view i think peridot has it right. staying up late is a brute force solution.

As i get older i do a lot fewer all-nighters and am finished well before deadline as often as i can be. i know when my work is good enough and don't need to take every second afforded me any more. somehow that is a mark of professionalism in my mind.

all nighters are not unheard of in my office sadly but we try not to have them at all if ia all possible. since i am the boss i blame myself when it happens. i am certainly not proud of it.

this attitude btw has not stopped us from being recognised as architects to watch out for by the press and cetera.

hey period - you are extremely rude and uninformed. i never once made any of these claims you have. and if you want to belittle a person for trying hard or wanting to gain as much knowledge as he/ she can, than you must have some issues that are unrelated to this discussion.

assuming there is some sort of risk involved with my particular situation, i believe it is you who is naive in your poor assessment, being that i have never pushed myself into a situation which would endanger the life of anyone in this world, with anything.

on the mater of undergraduates bringing nothing to the profession, i do study outside the disciplines of the university schedule of Architecture. to say i bring nothing towards something, when i am working hard to eventually bring "something" to this field, really makes me feel like the lot of you are sick individuals.

it is quite unpleasing to hear that you have already passed judgment and critique on certain aspects of my character, of which, you will never truly know and is impossible for you to see over the internet. you are extremely cynical, and i hope the best of luck for you to resolve your issues outside of my life.

i happen to be a person who can handle himself, so please, go mother some other person.

i'm done with this stupid shit

"hey period - you are extremely rude and uninformed"

I think the same about you - and my only real assumption is that you have not worked in the field yet, being part of an office as it sinks or swims.

dustin, i am sorry for the comments on your northern games.

and period, since i am a "Student", i am rude and uninformed? i am these things ONLY because i lack the "office" work? give me a break. that is much more a naive statement than anything i said, disregarding the poor grammar because of the speed in which i had to get these things out.

how long have you worked in an "office"? is it because you are a recent grad and feel like someone with more "cred" than someone in an undergrad study (who may potentially have more passion than your realization of how this profession really is)? or, is it because you are very much unlike me, meaning i don't give a FUCK if i am working someplace and it sinks or swims. i give a FUCK about what I am doing and what I am creating for ARCHITECTURE? wow. sinks or swims. take your cliches to the construction posts if you're worried about job security. do you really think i, being 24, have not experienced some sort of job insecurity, or for that matter, not worked at a shitty firm?!? naive. haa. go design a bathroom for me to shit in.

sorry, guys. i guess i'm not quite done with this

blackharp - you are as naive as I was, and I said all the very same things you did. Then I was hired and learned I didn't know shit about the shit I thought I was totes the master of.

You are as naive as you think I am.

the onus should be on the professors and administrators to create an environment that encourages healthy study/work habits. You can't really force students to do something and not change the habits of professors. it's the profs who set the tone of the studio/class, not so much the students.

When I was in school over a decade ago, the dean had a similar announcement when a student almost died in a car accident after an all-nighter. Their solution was to have us turn in materials for reviews at 10pm the night before. This was great for having us awake for the reviews, but we still pulled all-nighters the days before.

some professors took this seriously and helped us work on better time-management so that we didn't have to spend all night at studio. however, several profs seemed not to care, held back on their workload for a year, and then continued their practice of showing up at 1am to check to see if we were at our desks doing work.

really - if a student wants to stay awake for 48 hours pushing something, that's fine... but the profs are the ones who have to be proactive in encouraging the students that they'd be better off with a full-night's sleep. If they don't care, then there's not much the administration can do.

Certainly some is on the professors, particularly the young ones that have to prove something. I recall first semester of undergrad the class was split in two, one half with the seasoned prof, the other was the grad studetn. Prof gave something like 3 sketch models over the weekend, so our guy, being the chump he was, decided we needed to do 9. That was stupid.

I look back and the profs that were the most instrumental and they were, by far, the hardest on us.

I agree with toast that it is up to the profs to help implement a better work schedule. That's the only solution. Mostly there needs to be good coordination between classes.

But design is not finite, I've never done a project that I didn't think I could make better with more time, ever, with anything from webdesign to architecture. Design could have been better, diagrams prettier, craft cleaner, etc., etc. I am 90% of the time extremely happy with what I do, but that's because I never give up.

Maybe that will change, someday, if I have kids, etc., and something 'real' to focus on ;-)

trace - good points -

it's not just about a better work schedule- it's also about teaching good time management. Profs may think that students should have figured this out by the time they reach college, but most haven't.

This is fantastic.

work smart not hard.

Too put in extra effort (hours), for the sake of reaching farther in your process as an artist can be rewarding if they are spent on stimulating and training the muscles of a craftsman.

However, pulling all-nighters to please the norms of a culture only for the sake of showing one's dedicationas an arch student, just seems to be a coquettish and counterproductive approach to an artist's/architect's ultimate goal: To develope one's own creativity and create the inner visions that first inspired you to be working with architecture.

The more time one spends on working up their skills and inspiration, the stronger the structure of their inner process will become. All Masters of any craft, have a kind of maturity and use their intuition to continually arrive at points in their work that encourages and enhances their creative process.

Art is about taking risks and being sincere, boastful art is a gathering of tricks that are empty vessels, but true art that will be remembered for it's honesty.

For me it's all about building up one's own momentum. EFFORT is only needed to reach one's goals, or the goals of a group.

The philosophy of Taoism explains the logic of necessary effort to a task, the math and engineering that allows architecture to exist follow these principles; exxcesive force is not always the answer. Balance is the key to success in architecture. Use as much effort as is neccesary to manifest your creativity, but for god's sake don't do anything to please your friends or professors.

Depending on who you are, nobody can tell you how to reach the requirements of your curriculum. You need the limits of a schedule to create anything at all. The only reward in this profession is what you find in it.


Dead fish follow the stream!!


Manage your time and be happy!!!

People pull all-nighters in every discipline, for a multitude of reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, someone had to redo a bunch of name tags for a conference, which meant that someone would have to work straight through Sunday night and Monday. I volunteered because doing that sort of thing makes me happy.

I am proud of the fact that I can work through the night and the next day without coffee and still be perfectly functional with above average results. It seems more useful to me than developing "healthy time management skills" in a world that functions independently of my work habits.

More importantly, sleep deprivation makes me happy. Life is short enough as it is. I hate that I have to sleep at all. I love having excuses to stay up all night. It's one of the reasons I will probably die single, and young. Sleep deprivation addiction should probably be in the DSM, but I don't care.

And I have never been to art school or worked as an architect. You would be surprised at the number of opportunities there are to stay awake all night... holding the hand of a dying family member, for example...

n400, let's start a revolution

here's a little gift, free of charge, for all you haters and sad old men:

don't criticize
what you can't understand
your sons and your daughters
are beyond your command
your old road is
rapidly agin'
please get out of the new one
if you can't lend your hand

you know the rest

less work the way of the future....

reduce, preserve, conserve

the future is reducing preservation for conservatives of the work less way

fire the admin assistant .. he/she has no clue of the demands and lifestyle of arch students

These are students. They are in a time of exploration no matter how there life styles are. If you prevent them from staying 24/7 to improve there health and lifestyles, you will not succeed. You might see a few more productive students throughout the day, but when it comes down to it you will end up stressing them out. Trying to complete a project by a deadline is one thing but trying to complete it 8-12 hrs before the deadline is beyond stressful. Students will do what they want. If that means they can not spend all night at school, because you want to cover your ass, then so be it, but that will not keep them from staying up all night to meet a deadline. One thing I have learned throughout my career is that architecture is never complete. There will always be things to change and things to add. A deadline is almost a way of telling us architects to STOP. There is so much going through our minds, theories and design ideas, that we as architects sometimes dont know when to stop. If that happens in the real world with practical issues, imagine a school where students have not refined there minds. Where imagination runs wild. How do they just STOP? The most creative will not, till the deadline or some personal reason (ie family), because they understand that they can do better. The point is, keeping them out of the school will not create a healthy lifestyle for the students. It will just create an illusion of one, one that will help this administration create healthier lifestyles for themselves.

blackharp, somehow i don't think he was talking about petty issues like staying up late to get in more practice at design at some university or other.

you know on second thought, i think he was actually talking to the folks who were studying architecture at school. damn elitist scum that we are.

Hours of all departments everywhere will be cut as the budget deficits that these schools are all dealing with will mean a reduction of staffing, university police, janitors, hall monitors. etc...

air matresses? HAHAHAHA

last year we had a legitamate squatter living in the landscape studio. you can't beat free.

I don't think we should have to legislate rules to prevent people from making mistakes. People need to be responsible for their actions and the subsequent consequences. If you think you are going to stay late in studio, bring a change of clothes and find a couch to nap on for a while. Even better, try and live within walking distance of the studio, its really hard to fall asleep at the wheel of a car when you are walking home.

We shouldn't baby students, or they will continue to act like babies. Also most of the best art happens in the off hours.

They didn't give us any "hall monitors, cops, etc.". We just were lucky to have the lights on. Which was perfect.

i can honestly say that as a student, i work better doing all nighters when just a few people are in there and also being completely out of it. Basically my strategy is to model digitally and do conceptual stuff while I'm alert and play around with physical models when I'm completely out of it so any new ideas cued by the physical model will be things I would probably never even consider if I was just alert and in the zone. I think the sleep dep brings on crazy ideas that bring on serious designer inquisition and I always swear by you're doing something right if you keep asking yourself "WTF AM I DOING" and "OMG WTF HAVE I DONE"

actually a coworker of mine who went to roger williams school of architecture recounted to me the story of his classmate who died in a car crash due to fatigue after pulling two all nighters for a class deadline. as a result the faculty made sure people weren't up all night for the following few weeks and told the students to make sure they got plenty of rest but eventually things went back to biz. as usual.

I found this discussion after feeling a combination of momentary "hell week" final project production depression, and curiosity, by googling "architecture schools limiting studio hours" after seeing it mentioned in this article (which I found after googling "architecture student suffering"):

http://oudaily.com/news/2009/apr/28/architecture-students-lose-sleep-success/

Reading this discussion has scared the holy living crap out of me. From other "superstar" students raging on about how much they love the "game" of "Architecture" with a capital "A," to the real-world accounts of horrible practices within firms regarding sleep and the health of the employees, to the flow of useless advice on work-ethics and academia BS-ing about one end or another of the "all-nighter debate" in their own language...

This discussion has left me more unsure of my own future than I was when I found it.

Let me tell you all a story...

I came into architecture school with a profound advantage over my peers in artistic talent, and was the favorite of my first-year professors.

I also came in with rather severe anxiety problems that I thought I had control of.

As the years have dragged on and long hours have become the norm, I have seen myself fall to wallflower status as others with no prior skills have risen to star status, simply because late nights and sleep deprivation cause me to lose control and need medication. Eventually I have no choice but to push myself beyond the tipping point in order to complete a project to what I know is a mediocre level for my skills, vomiting into a toilet off and on all morning before walking into the crit room with a smile on my face.

There are no parties in studio, little camaraderie, very little cross pollination going on during late nights in this fourth year studio. I only see zombies staring into computer screens, feverishly working to complete construction documents, doing what we will all most certainly end up doing as soon as we become interns.

I have never been more disappointed in my life as I have been in architecture school. I have never before in my life been a more unbalanced, anti-holistic person. Last year was the last time I did a painting. Second year, the last time I wrote a poem. Senior year in high school was the last time I wrote a play that received a standing ovation. And I can hardly play "Rhapsody in Blue" on the piano anymore, the song that made me want to start taking lessons in the first place, so long ago.

Late nights and living in studio have both thoroughly broken my creative processes that I had fully developed on my own time during high school, and left me struggling to prove myself to professors who can't figure out why I'm not doing better because if I admit the real problem to them or my advisor I'll be told to drop out and do something else better suited to my mental constitution, after wasting four years of my life in hell.

I'm sorry architrains. That sucks. I hope you feel better. I don't think the sleep deprivation is a necessity. It's becoming quite the opposite for me.

I am a sick person who has this type of lifestyle anyway, so it probably isn't saying much when I say that architecture school is teaching me to get more sleep, not less.

I don't exactly why, but this type of work requires that I get more sleep than other subjects I have studied. It allows more creativity and freedom than science; I have to make more of my own decisions. When I don't get enough sleep, I tend to get stuck doing something COMPLETELY RETARDED for 10+ hours and have to start all over again anyway. At the same time, it isn't like creative writing where it only gets better as it gets sicker.

I've been trying to develop a more regular sleep cycle to maximize the amount of time that I'm actually productive. Just now, I was trying to force myself to go back to sleep after a 3 hour nap after not sleeping at all the night before. But it didn't work, so I'm going to return to the studio, probably to do something ridiculously stupid that I will have to trash anyway.

So architrains let's be brutally pragmatic about this: are you close to graduating? Leaving college with a degree, any degree, is probably better than just leaving. But you sound like you're seriously at the end of your rope: can you see yourself surviving for one more semester/year and getting the hell out of there?

I fear from your post that you're overly disappointed in yourself and afraid that your professors/others are too. Don't let your perceptions of their opinions affect you. Architecture school is ridiculously demanding and the profession is not so hot for many people either. But with a degree in hand you'll have a sense of completion and can go back, hopefully, to the more creative pursuits that you miss now.

If you don't think you can - or want - to struggle through to graduation, what are your options if you quit? Not as other people see them, but as YOU do - what options will you have for finding more meaningful pursuits and a way to make a living? Your health, mental and physical, is more important than anything else.

I hope you respond and can find some advice here that doesn't scare the crap out of you!

Architrains, I can understand where you're coming from, I have 10 days of our Solar Decathlon studio left before I can (hopefully) graduate. I did really well in my early studios, I had a good eye for modern design which the professors seemed to appreciate, but our projects were short and were more about overall concepts and making an interesting design. Now I'm in my 5th studio and you're expected to work out more and more details in the same amount of time, so its become more and more of a struggle to get through it. I also have had anxiety issues, and stomach problems (chronic nausea, which thankfully I have meds that help me not barf all the time).

I get very stressed in comparing myself to what I know the professor wants to see, and the work that other students are doing (I'm an undergrad in a studio with mostly graduate students), and comparing my work with the level I know I could accomplish if I had more time and more energy and my emotional state wasn't such a mess.

I used to be able to stay in the studio all the time when I was younger, two days with only 3 hrs sleep, all that nonsense, but frankly the amount of time needed goes up every semester, and I wonder if I can handle being even more exhausted in grad school...and being even more exhausted in a firm.

I find myself getting excited about a project for only a few weeks...and then even though I know its a decent design I just start to hate staring at it. For the project I'm working on now I just want to print the damn thing out a couple days early and be done with it.

"I just want to print the damn thing out a couple days early and be done with it."

this was my strategy all through grad school. Works like a charm. Better to be well rested and have a day or two to organize your presentation notes than to waste time on details no one will notice.

be sure to send your classmates text messages from the bar, i found they really appreciate that ;).

Never did figure out why people kill themselves over architecture projects. this isn't brain surgery.

so you're THAT guy, Evan? -.-

Mil - you'll learn how to manage your time better with experience. I worked much more efficiently in grad school, compared to undergrad (personally, I found getting into the studio at 5-6am and leaving at about 7-8pm was ideal, not as many people around, etc.).

Architrains - I'd try the above schedule. Forget what other's are doing, get in there early and leave fairly early. Don't take off for long dinners (so many show up at the studio at 7pm, go get dinner, and don't settle in to working until 9 or so, which makes for a late night, then a stressful morning if you have a class or crit early).
Also, this preps you for the real world. At all of my full time gigs, prior to starting my company, I would get in between 5-6, leave by 3-4 in the afternoon and have half a day to work on my biz and learning.


BUT, you have to seriously evaluate what you want. Architecture is not all art, there is tons and tons and tons of boring (to me) stuff you'll be doing 90% of the time.

I'd look around for other professions that would #1 pay more to allow for #2 a pure creative outlet. You sound like you need that and have the skills/desires to do personal things.

Also professions that have a better balance of time/pay/creativity. I'd look at graphic design, web, motion, advertising, etc. All pay better, expect significantly less hours and have much greater potential for true creative outlets.


Evan - that's certainly the attitude that propels you to excel!! Brilliant! You are sure to succeed. No wonder mediocrity is the norm.

liberty bell - I still have 5th year yet to go, but I'll have a spring semester this year in Italy to hopefully recharge my batteries (and paint A LOT). I fully intend on getting my degree, whatever it takes. I've invested too much at this point to throw it away in disgust.

Milwaukee - glad to know I'm not the only one.

trace - I'd love to implement that kind of schedule, but our school fights for lecture space with the rest of the university, which means the lecture courses get thrown anywhere they fit, and each year our lectures have landed during a different part of the day. That makes it hard to stick with a consistent studio schedule, after you develop one. The only really useful uninterrupted time ends up being between dinner and breakfast. I'll have to wait until 5th year for that kind of scheduling, when it appears I'll have nothing but studio and generally evening seminars to deal with.

I have to admit, this semester has felt almost laid-back compared to the last three years, but I'm not sure if that's due to the nature of a semester-long comprehensive project or simply the effect of a university-wide effort to prevent an H1N1 outbreak.

I think the real source of most of the stressful late nights the past few years was directly due to the fact that our program is one of the ones that has decided to do a little "credentials inflation" by hopping from a five-year bachelor's to a five-year masters. Last year was the most stressful of all, because our GPA through the first semester of that year was accounted for in admission to the graduate school. If you don't make it in, you can't go on, because there's no bachelor's option anymore in the program. It sounds like a lot of schools are considering this switch to be more competitive because it makes it a better deal, at least until your kid makes it through on C's to the end of third year and gets kicked out. When you're doing work that is subjectively graded, that's a pretty big monster to stay up late running from.

I think just closing the studio or suggesting to students that they get more sleep isn't enough. In my girlfriend's studio in Interior Design, their professors said they preferred they all get sleep and have crappy projects than end up with a studio full of swine flu. They pointed out to their professors that it only takes one person to ignore the advice, stay up all night, and set the bar of expectations higher.

Yeah, you can't stifle the competitive spirit and the desire to create something better.


Dunno about your seminar classes, that's your call, but I just got into studio, worked until I had a class, went to class and came back to the studio. Most people broke up there day by showing up late, having to go home and get their cars to stay late or whatever - all wastes of time if you want to sleep.
No reason you can't do it too and it really did make things so much easier (and dare i say consistent and predictable).

Good luck. Alcohol and caffeine help quite a lot too ;-)

completely agree, the day time is absolutely the best time to get studio done. the wankers are gone (crashing from last nights rlly xtreme work night no doubt) and there is daylight! to guide your thoughts and illuminate your work! do it up!

Anyone else get insomnia from studio stress? Usually by the end of the semester I'm on a really weird sleep schedule. 8 days til the final crit, prof just gave us an InDesign template to use for our final boards so everyone is consistent. Now I just have to hope I can bs 6 20x30 boards worth of drawings.

E X C E L S I O R!


Don't trip on the bar running to the plotter.

The individual that came up with the best consistent designs when I was in school was someone who showed up at studio around 7am and worked until around 8 or 9 six days a week, attending all classes and lectures. An "all nighter" qualified leaving at 1am only once or twice a semester. This person still had time to recreate as necessary. That's discipline.

The week projects were due (all studios), all presentation materials were required to be displayed from pin up and/or wall space, or turned into the main gallery before 8pm Sunday (when the big mall style protective gate would be closed). At least that way you could get a night's rest before presenting on Monday. Most everyone went out to drink, pulling a different type of all nighter.

architrain -
Im wondering if your italy program is to Castiglion Fiorentino. I studied there back in 2007. If that is the place then you will be good. Just remember that while your still in school one of the perks of architecture is that traveling is a must in order to comprehend and understand the changing world.

Every profession has stressful times, but its how you react to that stress that make you excel in what you do. Architecture school is rough but once you get out its not like that (well for the most part). Stick through it. Architecture is probably one of the only professions that involves a general knowledge in every other profession. Once you get out you do not have to be a architect. I know graduates who went on to do things like graphic design and 3d movie making along with other various jobs. It helps to have general knowledge of how all things in the world work, so while your still in architecture no matter how stressful, just absorb the knowledge because no other degree will give you a little bit of everything.

Wow, everything you guys are saying hits so close to home...

Design isn't finite, as someone said, you can keep pushing and pushing yourself.... and the boundary between YOU being proud of your work vs. OTHERS being impressed gets more and more blurred.

Sometimes I wonder if I should even go to grad school (if I get in), since I have a combination of competitive spirit AND need for approval/people pleasing... sounds like it will be an unhealthy combination for me during school.

During my summer program, there were a few kids who would always leave at 8 PM (I would stay until 1 or 3 AM). I never could figure them out... I guess my OCD would kick in and I just HAD to tinker and make the project better, just HAD to achieve its highest potential. But you know what? At the end of the day their crit went pretty similarly to mine! They just didn't CARE as much. I get so emotionally invested in this, way more than when I was pre-med... It's pretty dangerous.