The Foun10head

I graduated from the MArch course at the University of Ulster in June 2011. The course was a long, difficult, often thankless and occasionally fruitless task – and I loved it. I loved what Rem Koolhaas referred to as ‘the freefall of pure speculation.’* The creativity, much like the theoretical possibilities, were endless. Architectural education is a chance to act like the ‘StArchitects’ or the early modernists. A chance to conceive and (somewhat) realise an idea of purity, selfishly uncompromised by the ideas or interference of others. A chance to live that Roarkian** fantasy.

And then I graduated.

I stepped out into a professional wasteland, at first dazzled by the light beyond the confines of academia. As the reality of the situation gradually slid into view I realised I had little or no possibility of actually building within the confines of a professional office. The practices I called requesting employment sounded as desperate and as scared as I did. The one interview I was lucky enough to get was in a gray, ramshackle civil service office conducted by an eccentric, ramshackle civil servant who filled me with excitement regarding the design of gray functional boxes for gray functional activities.

The e-mail of rejection was waiting in my inbox when I arrived home. Oversubscribed, the position given to a past employee. Understandable, infuriating, demoralising.

I joined a host of job agencies in the vain hope of landing something related to my chosen path, no matter how vague the connection may be. One place painstakingly took details of my qualifications, experience, proficiencies and interests. They got me a job in a bowling alley.

It is from these ashes that Architek10 was reborn as a design practice. Originally started as a student organisation, apathy amongst everyone but it’s two founders put a halt to it almost immediately. Perhaps now it will allow us to return in some way to that Roarkian fantasy. This would never have happened had we been warmly ensconced in some office given a different economic climate. I could easily cite romantic notions about scorched earth being more fertile, about the fresh green shoots of creativity, but the fact remains that it all still remains a struggle. I still need to work in order to live, which architecture simply cannot support at the minute. The difference seems to be that this new rash of architectural activity means that it doesn’t feel like I’m just living for the future anymore.

* 'Imagining the Nothingness,' Rem Koolhaas (1985) - Found in 'Content' (2003)
**A reference to the main character Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's The Fountiainhead (1943)