Architecture Design Crit - What to do and How will I achieve?

"The straight line belongs to man, the curved line belongs to God." – Antonio Gaudi

Doing an Architecture design crit among students is just a basic “show-and-tell” of your building design. Imagine if you’re doing your Architectural building design, you need to understand your knowledge and understanding of the basic features of your design. However, it’s simple: follow brief and investigate what you need to design. Never be afraid of restrictions, unless a lecturer and a tutor inform everyone of it. Drawing and visual skills are what you need. If you’re doing an Architectural Design Studio module, it’s all based on sketching and used to scale. Let yourself have the enthusiasm and capability in working on your drawing designs.

Whatever you need to present, all you need is to reveal what your design shows. You can have whatever design skills you have, either drawings, Photoshop, photography, handcraft models and other materials you used.

So… the question is…

How do I stand up and reveal my design crit to everyone?

What am I going to say?

Will I make the presentation longer or shorter?

Is it ok to feel nervous?

Well, the answer to all the questions is straightforward with initiative and knowledge based on your design.

When you’re facing a crowd of people, remember: relax and stay calm. There’s no reason that a student was shy or a bit of a “stage-fright.” When I did my first crit, I was nervous. It’s not wrong to feel a little bit nervous, but sometimes I don’t have the enjoyment to present my designs. However, I decided to move along and give out my presentation. Also, be presentable and show humbleness to yourself. Do not feel firm. Feel that your confidence is within you. It’s like your stepping out of the door from your house and walking outside saying “I’m not afraid anymore” or “See me for who I am!” Any person like you and I have that confidence. Which of course is a good reason why I always brought my bottled water before the start of my presentation.

You don’t need to give out much information about your design crit. If I were you, the best thing is to spit out the relevance of your design. I always thought out that bringing too much information can make people sleepy, or wasting time. Yes, of course, it’s very distasteful and ridiculous. Step by step, give out a little info, design procedure, interior/exterior design, structure and material and your plans.

For the best of it, it’s unnecessary to have your presentation longer. Again, it wastes peoples time, including yourself. The way how I did is to write down what I might say, memorise my presentation off by heart, then start timing myself. My crit experience can only take about 3 to 4 minutes long. So I think writing useful information for your presentation is the only solution for a time-saving crit. Also, you don’t need to hold your notes. If you cannot memorise what you’ve written, then make something up.

Yes, it’s ok to feel nervous, but for first timers I suppose. To bear that in mind, let yourself have the enthusiasm to share your process, knowledge and skill of your building design.

In your design, there’s no such thing as what is right or wrong. Anyone can have the freedom of working and designing, but the vital rule is to follow and understand the brief. Perhaps, the best way to have more knowledge and capability to work on the design process is by research any building from any famous architect. Using my method of researching, I searched for what kind of structure, façade, materials and background details specifically relevant to my design plan.

If your teachers, tutors or staff have spoken after your design crit, the best thing is to listen to their points or objectives. If they asked about your design out of curiosity, in a way, using your knowledge that can help their understanding. I enjoy most of their questions after my crit. Sometimes, I make specific points, theory or opinions to conclude my answer to their problem. An Architect’s plan of presenting his or her project shows the clarity of justifying and supporting knowledge and design.

That’s how I want my crit to have in the future…