Nurturing Adolescence: Architecture and the Practice
Sahil Tanveer
Principal Architect at RBDS | AI & GenDesign Expert at RBDSai Lab | Author of "Delirious Architecture" | Public Speaker, Trainer, & Educator | Mentor for Aspiring Architects
The profession of Architecture in India is weird. After completing a gruesome 5-year degree in a technological university, usually where you find schools of architecture, we start a journey as an apprentice to a like-minded architect in a hope to learn the wisdom that architect has accumulated over his journey. Even though there is an enormous industry to which architects can serve, here we shall only consider an architect who has a practice in mind, as is the general culmination of an architectural education.
The smallest drawings of a design in an extensive project is the usual starting scenario facing nascent architecture graduates in an apprenticeship. Some get to learn the nuances of drafting toilet details, some curating paraphernalia in existing drawings, a few luckier ones might get involved in the initial drawings of a building. I believe that architecture is a very personal experience and a student must choose his mentor carefully as he will invariably develop his style in close relation to that of his mentor. That said, few ever pay attention to this aspect as we all seem to be in some kind of race reminiscent of a culture picked up in the ambience of an engineering college.