What We Learnt During our Work Placement
Starting a work placement at an architecture office will always be an exciting but challenging experience for most of us. It can be a fantastic opportunity to explore what projects, team hierarchies and office structures you enjoy, whilst also figuring out what part of the project you would like to be most involved in future circumstances. Due to the typical short nature of placement opportunities, it can be quite intense with a lot to take from the experience, both positive and negative.
In this post, we discuss what we learnt from our one-week work placement which took place during the final year of our undergraduate studies as part of a compulsory module. You can view the detailed breakdown here. As we condense what we took from this placement, we hope that you can relate with a sense of familiarity and know what to expect if you find yourself in a similar position.
Sude
Prior to our mandatory PS3 module placement in our final year, I had dedicated time in the past to two different architecture practices both of which were small-sized firms. This differs from the placement week role that I was assigned to for our modules in which I spent time with a medium-sized firm in Central London.
Working in different-sized firms allows for a good comparison.
What I had gathered in my previous experiences was that in an office with a smaller team, its architectural assistants tend to witness a greater extent of projects with more responsibility. Knowing that the size of the firm usually correlated with the types of projects taken upon from the practice, I knew either/or the project size and the number of projects was going to be more and as a result, it would be more stressful. The good thing was, by the end of the placement week I knew that I would now be able to compare the work ethic in a medium-sized firm to a small one.
During my time at Glenn Howells Architects (GHA), the main office structure stood out to me a lot. More specifically, the hierarchy between different roles. My previous experience was at a practice with around 5 people where regardless of their job role, the interactions between individuals didn't allow for much distinction between each employee. At GHA there was a set reporting pyramid structure that everyone fell into and the work expectations from each individual were quite clearly laid out. As a Part 1 placement student, my week was spent helping a Part 2 architectural assistant within the 2 design groups at the London office on a residential project that was in RIBA Stage 2-3 pre-planning stage.
Work experience and internships are quite different.
What I realised during my placement week was that someone doing work experience, in comparison to someone on a longer duration internship would have very different experiences. The type of placement has a major effect on the realistic workload you would be given had you worked at the practice full-time. It gives a tiny taste but in all honesty, it won’t ever reflect what it would be like if you were there for the next 12 months. So, my advice would be to take it with a pinch of salt. I could see that my deliverables requested from my design lead during my placement week would really be something that I would need to complete within 2 days at max. Instead, due to my temporary role, there was an absence of pressure and stress considering how big the projects were and the strict deadlines that everyone else around me in the office was working towards whilst I took my time. In a 3-6 month internship, however, you will inevitably delve deeper into projects and hold more responsibility due to your longer stay. Something to consider is that a work experience week will give you an idea of what to expect as deliverables and a taste of working in that specific office whereas a significantly longer internship will give a better understanding of the potential lifestyle change that would occur if you were to take upon a similar job role in the future.
As a Part 1 architectural assistant placement student, I gained clarity on what type of designer I was.
Work experience will give you clarity on what type of designer you want to become. I found it similar to an elimination process of discovering new things and distinguishing whether or not I could see myself working on it for a long period of time without getting bored. This applies to project scale, work environment, colleague personalities and more. Essentially, as time goes on you’ll figure out more about the type of designer you are. These types of work opportunities whether or not they last 6 months or 5 working days, will help you along the way in defining your style. As expected, this is something else that came out of my placement week at GHA. I realised with the future career intentions I have of opening up my own office, it would be smarter for me to investigate and surround myself in a work environment where my directors or the office founders are easier to reach to ask questions, it’s better for me to work on projects that I know a start-up practice would tend to opt for and I’ll get a better taste of the beginning of growing your own firm rather than what it could or could not be like 10 years down the line.
Elif
Despite having previous experience at an architecture office, once pre-university at a micro firm and the other time as an intern in the summer between my first and second year, this one-week placement introduced me to a new side of the architecture industry. The placement week was super short and took place in the second semester of our third and final year, where we were assigned to an architecture office to gain experience in the working world and an understanding of how projects progress through the RIBA stages whilst having first-hand accounts of client-architect relationships. At the end of the placement I didn’t necessarily see myself going back to the office for a full-time job, there were a lot of lessons which I can confidently say I learnt from this experience, beyond the scope of what it’s like to work at an architecture office, but also what work environment I would like to be in the future.
Not every architecture firm will be suitable for you.
Whilst it may seem as though having a job anywhere is better than being unemployed and it’s something you should be grateful for regardless of the office, the projects they take on and your compatibility with the team, it’s super important to have a genuine interest in their client audience and design process.
Going into this placement, I thought most small practices in London would be somewhat similar to each other and even though that can be the case sometimes, I couldn't be more wrong about that statement for this office. Each firm has its own agenda and interest in topics from the industry. The way they go about approaching the project brief and design process can be completely different and whilst I could see the logic to their design process from their point of view, it wasn’t necessarily how I would go about the project brief, quickly making me realise we design very different and as a designer, their process doesn't suit my strengths.
Having said this, it wasn't a negative experience, I just recognised that as a designer we had a lot of differences and dissimilar priorities in design considerations. Also, what felt misaligned with my priorities as a designer could suit someone else better. On the other hand, as I came to this realisation, I was lucky enough to be working with professionals who could have a conversation on these design aspects, listening to my thoughts and ideas, even if we didn’t always see eye-to-eye creating room for reasoned discussion.
You won’t agree with all the decisions being made.
Leading on from the first point, when it comes to making decisions, in most cases final design decisions fall onto the project managers or the head of the design team. This can sometimes be when you feel most like the bottom of the food chain, especially if your workplace doesn't take the time to ask you about your outlook and ideas in response to the brief. During my experience, I was asked to comment on my thoughts and suggestions for approaching specific design challenges, and they expected me to take initiative and explain the process behind my thought process. Sometimes you just don’t agree and your explanation is not enough to be convincing. Having said this, being a very subjective industry, there were definitely times when their design decisions didn’t fully make sense to me.
The way you get treated on placement will say a lot about how you will get treated as an employee.
During my placement week, even though the university had specified a certain number of working hours for the week, I was in the office until 7pm almost everyday. Mainly because they didn’t tell me what time I should finish and if I had left before anyone else I was worried about setting a bad impression and seeming like I lack dedication. At the time, I felt as though if I had left earlier it would be unprofessional especially given the reputation that the architecture industry has with normalising working overtime. Looking back, I should have set boundaries from the first day so they can know what to expect from you. Doing this doesn’t take away from my dedication or work ethic , it just shows the respect I have for my work and myself, and being able to set that boundary.
I also think, depending on the size of the firm, a week can be a sufficient period of time to tell if the place you are working at has a nurturing environment with students or if they will just teach you what needs to be done with little regard to your progress as an individual who is new to the profession. Being in practice now, I understand the value of this much more than I would’ve thought at the time of this placement. A nurturing environment where you feel comfortable enough to ask questions and get advice will only propel you in your work ethic and help you progress in your skillset and continuing education to MArch and finally part 3.
Seeing universities starting to integrate real office experience as a part of preparing their students for the world of work is definitely the correct direction to head in. Especially, when the life of an architecture student is always full of other academic commitments. These were our personal experiences and gatherings from our ‘Preparing for Practise’ module at Westminster which shaped our thoughts on working in Architecture. We think it would be beneficial to keep some of the things mentioned in mind when going into a placement week but still, keep an open mind as experiences will differ person-to-person as well as from office to office.
Let us know of your work experience thoughts over on our Instagram and see what we all learnt from our times at different practices.
