Part 1 Year Out: Diary Entry 3

ALTERNATIVES:

Finding a year out placement is proving to be more difficult that first envisaged. Practices seek to interview potential employees, but then wait until the work is in, providing them with a wide variety of choice, but leaving prospective students waiting indefinitely. I have attended countless interviews, only to return home having no idea when a decision might be made. This problem isn’t that of the companies, more just the bad luck current architectural student’s have in graduating into a difficult period. The practices themselves cannot afford to risk the employment of people without security of work and pay. So we simply have to persevere and wait until the time is right.

What is one to do? Knowing that work is not readily available we have to adapt to the current environment. If nothing is happening, make it. Look to competitions online for student entries, use your knowledge of the architectural field and branch out. Employer’s look for people who have expanded out of their original limits, and ventured further a field to different areas of work that still relate to the profession. Design is a humungous area, with architecture just a small percentage. Graphic design is heavily apparent in Architecture, working with that will only benefit you.

RIBA have adjusted their guidelines to allow for the disposition we find ourselves in. Although an architectural placement is preferred, you can branch out while staying under the bracket of year out experience. Work on a construction site is allowed, as is work in a planning office. If you are thinking of working in these areas double check with whomever you are doing your PEDR with, as they have the final say.

Through the contact of a friend and a boredom of no success, I managed to get work as an intern at an international architectural magazine down in London. Unpaid, and only a sofa promised for a short period, I decided to move down simply to escape the trap of finding work in an environment of little work. 3 days a week, 10 – 6, the job was different to say the least. Although an architect’s magazine, the work was far from it.

Publishing is an interesting profession. The experience I gained while there was more than useful. It wasn’t architectural, rather administrative work. Except architect’s work in that environment, to be able to fit right in at a company is tremendously beneficial. I also learnt that just asking can get you along way. So much is available to those who ask. What I received always varied, but it still was something. It showed me that you can achieve anything at any scale; you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

I have now got a job, at a new practice in Manchester. I start soon, and although I am glad to be out of the internship and London, it was still a critical tipping point to my architectural career. The people I met, and the contacts made will always be available to me. I also would never have got this job if I hadn’t been down there. Finding work is difficult, and the unknowing prospects of it are a pain to deal with it, but learn to turn it on its head and use that spare time to accomplish other things.

by Jack Penford Baker

Outstanding Research at MARC

Dr Albena Yaneva of the Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC) and the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) has been awarded the RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-located Research for her work An Ethnography of Architecture.

The judges said: "This type of sociological and anthropological research into design practice is significant for architecture, adding a new perspective to the way we understand architectural processes. The two books are enjoyable to read, linking through hypertextual narratives an impressive quantity of historical information and technical data, stories and anecdotes, theoretical research and empirical observations."

Dr Yaneva describes her work as being “intrinsically transdisciplinary” crossing “the boundaries of science studies, cognitive anthropology, architectural theory and political philosophy.” Her current research projects are Moving Networks: Architectural Tools for Tracing the Social and The Architectural Presentation: Techniques and Politics. Her work also includes the Mapping Architectural Controversies project. The two books that formed part of the research output by Dr Yaneva, “Made by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture” and “The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to Architecture” were both published in 2009 and are available for purchase.

Dr Ralf Brand, also of MARC and MSA, was also short listed for the same award for the project “The Urban Environment – Mirror and mediator of Radicalisation?”

For full details of the RIBA awards read the full press release here.

Award

Look Up Manchester has been nominated. The kind folks over at Manchester Blog Awards have released the short list to this year’s awards, and we have been put up in the “Best City and Neighborhood Blog” category.

We are up against 4 other brilliant blogs; Manchester Daily Photo, Love Levenshulme, In a Town So Small and Parklover. All are fantastic blogs that post mesmerising articles to do with the great city of Manchester.

You can vote for your favorite, and all other categories, at http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/ . Winners will be announced on the 20^th of October at Manchester’s Deaf Institute. So please vote for us.

Manchester This Week

Week commencing the 27^th of September.

Look Up Manchester seeks to relay architectural news to the masses, but things are to change. We will set ourselves free from the containment of architecture and look to bring you the news of design and architecture in and around architecture. As with the likes of Zaha Hadid and her fashion orientated designs, or even Mies Van Der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, architects have always sat themselves right in the middle of the world of design, it only felt natural for us to do the same.

This week see’s 2 events in Manchester capitalising on the ever growing art and design culture scene. First is the opening of a new exhibition in the EASA HQ named 36 EXP. The second is a retrospective look at Puma’s design history, cleverly housed in a single van that transformers into an outdoor showroom.

36 EXP describes itself as a photographic exhibition involving 36 artists and 36 contact sheets. Taking the original properties of an original film that takes 36 exposures, artists were invited to submit their personal response to an entire film of photographs. The step back to older techniques offered the entrants to mix an amalgamation of modern ideas with old process.

The work on show expresses a missed art, the softness of old film is heavily underestimated in todays digitally centered world. Film’s use is decaying more as each day passes, cinemas are beginning to retract 35mm projectors in favour of modern digital projectors, and the art of the projectionist is almost extinct. 36 EXP will hopefully show the contrast of film to the sharp unnatural digital alternative through the artists’s carefully created exhibits.

The exhibition opens on the 30^th of September at 6:30pm till 9:00pm and looks to be an interesting display of photographs. Find out more at http://36exp.visualsociety.com/.

PUMA are currently in Manchester with their REWIND FORWARD van. The scheme looks to showcase an archive of designs in a contemporary way. Once in location the van disassembles then reassembles as a multifunctional “Pop-Out” shop. Included within the space once erected are seating, storage and TV screens. Music is to be played to passers by and there will also be a chance to win archive products of Puma.

The van will be present at the NCP on Bloom Street between the 28^th and 29^th of September. Find out more at facebook.com/puma.

Sheppard Robson's Design For Manchester Eye Hospital

Image courtesy of Sheppard Robson

Images have just emerged for the design of an extension and refurbishment to Manchester's Eye Hospital, situated on Oxford Road. The design looks to link the current grade 2 listed building with a new contemporary structure directly behind, the two will then be joined by a large glass atrium.

The £21million project generates are beautifully crafted facade which takes elements of the old victorian hospital brickwork, and works it in to a matching stencil detailing. The new build looks to revolve around a centre for bio-medical research, which includes laboratory space, offices, cliniacal testing wards, teaching facilities and other specialist space. 100,00 sq ft in total will be added to eye hospital.

Image Courtesy of Sheppard Robson

The design follows a recent flurry of new builds within the oxford road health campus. Recently St Mary's hospital was demolished to reveal the recently built children's hospital, and current ground works are taking place.

Overall Sheppard Robson's design works well as a modern approach to a traditional style, helping to keep to the Mancunian masonry style, but with a modernist twist.

The Next Step

Only a crisis can bring change, and we are not in a crisis, yet.

The green way of life has been present for decades. An imminent and possibly devastating problem sits on our horizon. We are all aware of it, we discuss it daily, money is poured into it, and endless hypothetical solutions are devised, except we are still the same. We have become comfortable and carefree. Of course our society is changing, and companies worldwide are parading their green credentials, and a fight against carbon emissions. We all recycle, some of us grow our own food, and the odd house is decorated in solar panels, a step in the direction, yes, but still no overall change. 40 years ago recycling wasn’t popular, and companies hadn’t heard of climate change, but 40 years ago not everyone regularly flew abroad, or owned electronics made 1,000s of miles away, nor did they buy fruit from the other side of the world. We have a problem in ourselves that needs to be addressed before we can progress, a problem of sustainability.

Our definition of the word has become tainted, we see it as a direct approach to climate change not as a way of life. At the root of being sustainable is following the rule that one must meet it’s needs without effecting the needs and resources of future generations. Climate change is one element in a much larger equation of being sustainable. A relationship needs to be generated that enforces the present with a respect for the future, only then can we achieve targets, and successfully stop climate change.

Carbon neutrality is the final goal, but not a means to achieve it, that is done by carbon negative. To only achieve neutrality is to only care about the present, disregarding the past and what effects we did create. Take for example government targets for all new houses to be carbon neutral from 2016, then overlay the fact that at current rates 0.8% of homes are new builds a year, thus equating to 125 years to replace just the homes we currently have with carbon neutral ones. How is it that carbon neutrality can be sold as a positive change? The change needs to happen to those new builds and existing ones. The adaptation of the old and the negative carbon of the new will help us achieve neutrality more efficiently, benefitting the present whilst repairing the past’s damage for a sustainable future.

We face a drastic change, but that change needs to occur in order for us to become sustainable, but how can we change a society comfortable with the way they are. Ideas and schemes need to accommodate for the majority’s reservation against change and help to develop achievable and practical solutions to our non-sustainable way of life.

Below is a scheme I generated with the help of Manchester City Council’s data on their green spaces spread across the city. It looks at taking the next step towards sustainable life, focusing on food production. In no way is it groundbreaking or revolutionary, rather a little more of something that has been around for over a thousand years. Food production in the UK only meets 2/3s of our demand. We therefore import from other countries at an economic and carbon cost. Why don’t we become a sustainable food producing country? If we were to generate all the food we needed, in a sustainable manner, the current costs would be eradicated and food would become cheaper.

Allotments: the next step. We have them already, they are in demand, they cost little to both maintain and use, and they generate ample food. My scheme simply expands the amount of allotments present in Manchester. By occupying 2/3s of the Green space in Manchester an annual saving of £1,809,392 is made, plus the rental cost of provides the council with a substantial financial reason to do so. As for the residents of Manchester they receive the benefit of cheap food for themselves, and an opportunity to trade with others to generate extra income. All round the scheme works, makes sense economically, and is an achievable next step towards a sustainable country.

If you have nay further questions about my work or this scheme in particular feel free to contact me at lookupmanchester@gmail.com.

Part 1 Year Out: Diary Entry 2

WAITING.

Occasional articles refer to a practice I am yet to contact, I immediately write an email, attach my CV, send, and then wait. The quick rush and thought of an opportunity is almost simultaneously diminished as I return to waiting for any reply that may come my way.

Degree is finished, amazingly gained a first, something yet to reveal it’s true benefit, still to graduate, and undoubtedly waiting. I have countless lists of architects, ones for Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Scotland, London, and all others. The lists contain contact details for each one, and the current status. The lists probably amount to around 250 practices, each one has a flurried “sent” written next to their name, reminding me that I have contacted them. The lists fill my desktop and as I sit waiting emails begin to come through. Although the majority of them are straightforward “ Thank you for sending your CV, unfortunately…” they are still replies none the less, and may qualms about the existence of architects are resolved.

Something that people keep asking me is whether the perpetual rejection is demoralising, the answer; no. I’ve always known that finding a job would be hard and all I can do is carry on searching. So as replies trickle in to my email box I simply acknowledge them, happy for the polite reply, briefly seeing a secretary’s name, or sometimes a directors and updating their status on one of my many lists. All you can do is try,

The most frustrating part of job searching process isn’t the waiting, or in fact the rejection, it’s the not knowing. I resorted to moving back in with my parents, as it seemed the most financially sensible option, and pursued my life in Leeds. I do not mind the return to my old pre-university life, rather if someone could just tell me what my future beholds. It could be that in a weeks time I get offered an interview, then a job and suddenly find myself living in London. Where I live, or the practice, I don’t mind just someone please tell me.

Out of nowhere I received a phone call from a firm, inviting me down for an interview. At last an opportunity. However the date they wished to see me I couldn’t make and the lady on the phone politely said she would call me the next day with a new date. Looking back I should have taken the original set day then and there, but I asked to change it, and again I started to wait. She didn’t call back the next day, or in fact the day after that, nor the next. I tried calling her but she wasn’t in. I began to give up, but thankfully at 5:30pm on a Friday she rang. She apologised and set about arranging a new date.

The date set was my graduation, and the day before I went on a 2 week holiday. But I couldn’t say no again. I attended my graduation ceremony, threw my mortarboard and then jumped on a train to Birmingham. Arrived in a city I had only ever driven past, and entered the Bullring immediately outside the station. Thankfully the practice was situated near by and their rather prominent logo helped me to discover their office.

The interview went well, I think. They spoke, I spoke. We casually discussed each other’s approaches to architecture, what we were interested in, and was finally given a tour of their practice. They said they would let me know once I returned from my holiday. When asked how it went, as I returned back home, I replied; “Really well”. The truth is I don’t know, it was my first, I have no precedent to go against, and I received no feedback. I guess all I can do is, well wait.

Part 1 year Out Diary: Entry 1

The exact date of when i finished my first degree has already escaped my head, or perhaps it wasn't there in the first place, the countless deadlined accumilating in a final exhibition has managed to remove my sense of time, and the unknown factor of each submission confuses me as to when my degree actually did terminate, all I know is that it now has.

The degree show 2 weeks away is something of a full stop to my 3 years at manchester School of Architecture, climaxing in what I hope to be employment. 2 weeks of no deadlines, 2 weeks of freedom, possibly. Or 2 weeks to make a head start on my future career. Although is it a head start? I endlessly asked myself and those around me when to start applying for Part 1 jobs. Christmas, Easter, just before portfolio submission, or once deadlines are finished. The answer I still don't know. In hindsight maybe at Easter, or just after, but then you don't have al your finished, and probably best, work, an essential section of one's CV. In reality there is no correct time to begin the search, just be aware of when it's best for you, as the added pressure of employment amidst final year deadlines can be a lot to handle.

I decided after the Synoptic. All work was finished and I could spend my time solely on my future. The CV was the first on the list. I already had one of sorts, although it included my year 6 SAT's results, and my previous employment looked to promote my 3 year stint as a paperboy, something practices aren't particularly looking for. A new CV was needed. The design was first. Architecture is design, if you can design a building to the most precise detail, but your CV was done on Microsoft Word and uses Comic Sans as a font, the bin will be where it will reside. M

y design is coherent with with my portfolio work and follows a simple hierarchy layout designed on InDesign. As for the content this is where you have to strict, concise and ruthless. My cousin, who is coincidentally an architect, has seen countless CVs come through her office. She quickly scans the pages before making a decision in a matter of seconds. The document is a foot in the door, keep it simple and to the point, don't be afraid to not include previous jobs if they bare no relation to architecture, but remember you can always bring it up in an interview, where they make a decision about you.

The CV was finished, and now the task of applying. Unsurprisingly there aren't many jobs at the moment. About 7 appear on both the RIBA Appointments site and BD Online Jobs section. In my searches I have come across several other advertised positions, but they appeared directly on their own site. So the next thing to do is send your CV with a covering letter to whoever you can find, and now is not the time to be picky. A job is better than no job and the type and location of firm should be irrelevant. As for how to contact the practices I used various ways.

Firstly firms that I knew of, and of whom I particularly liked their work, I sent hardcopies with individual covering letters. This is expensive however. Roughly costing £2 per copy (including postage). The rest I sent by email. Something I don't particularly like to have done but time and money is of the essence. As for who to contact you have to utilise the available information from journals/ articles/ magazines. Always use RIBA's "find an architect" here you can search all cities for chartered architects. Contact information is provided and is probably the best source. However when you begin to search London the list explodes and another source has to be found. Here I turned to the AJ. It's newstream gives a vast source of architects that have recently won competitions or schemes, meaning they have work and now maybe the time to send a CV. The site also has the AJ100, a list of 100 architects with the greatest turnover last year Back. Other sources are those featured in awards and nominations, and by all means ask people you know, a personal attachment is unbelievably useful.

To the End of Year Show. In previous years it is where local architects would come and traditionally leave their business card on the work of which they liked most, with the opportunity of a job at the end. Times however have changed and very few are present at my year's show. BDP being the exception, they lay a few cards out on people's work and are planning on hiring 6 people this year. The night ends and although a great send off, and joyful night, a job is no closer than before. Proving that the CV and personal correspondence is the most beneficial. All I can do now is wait.

The Future

LOOKUP Manchester has just entered it's second year of existence, miraculously the blog has excelled beyond what I ever thought it could. With a little help from fellow students and a city full of architecture it has managed to position itself in the blogging culture, both nationally and internationally.

Most readers of the blog are occasional internet trawlers looking for specifics on architectural news. However there are a few loyal followers out there, and this year I hope for that group to expand. Our team looks to grow, already new members are appearing and anymore who wish to get involved need but contact me.

I have just finished my 3rd year, and successfully graduated with a BA Arch degree. Resulting in my future being uncertain. Currently on the prowl for any available architecture work, I have come to realise a missing tangent of an architecture degree. What is a Year Out? As much as the 7 year course is profoundly unified and the initial transition between architectural university life and architectural practicing life seems rather abrupt and significantly different, especially the initial months. Therefore I plan to document my 1st year out as a RIBA Part 1 Student right here on this blog. Hopefully it will be a useful tool for those in my position and for the future students whom find themselves initially unsure by their future.

As it currently stands I am yet to find work, something I never hoped for but an inevitability I was expecting. However all is not lost and I still believe employment is achievable. I plan to write an entry every 2 weeks portraying my experiences in the real world.

by Jack Penford Baker

3rd Year MSA Student's Exhibition

Opening this friday, the 18th of June 2010, is Manchester School of Architecture's 3rd Year Degree Show. The work on show summarises a year long project that each student has completed. The exhibition opens at 6:00pm in the Chatham building on the MMU All Saints Campus.

Jack Stewart's Work

The Exhibition is spread over 2 floors and contains student work from each of the 5 units currently taught in third year. Each unit is devised by groups of tutors, and then picked by the students at the start of the year. SYNC offers a look to the future of sustainability, structures evolve from nature, resulting in new and innovative forms. Continuity in Architecture, run by Sally Stone, is the child of the BA Unit by the same name. Here history and context stand as the biggest influence in the student's designs. U + L expands the student's approach to possibility, realising schemes that look to drastically change the built environment with influences from today's society.

Jack Penford Baker's Work

Other units in the show include Emerging Topographies and Making Public Space, help to cement the MSA's position at the forefront of future architecture. The exhibition itself is a great opportunity for younger years to get a feel for the units taught, and a chance for the BA students to see what their future competition are producing.

Last Years Exhibition

Although a public exhibition, the main purpose is for architect firms to see the work on show and hopefully decide to employ the majority. Times are difficult at the moment thus making this exhibition a crucial event for prospectus employees and employers.

Ben Hale's Work

The show opens at 6:00pm this friday, and will be open till the following wednesday. I urge people to take a look at whats on show and spread the word about the future of architecture.