It's 1 a.m. on a Friday morning, and a few students are busy working on their models or sketches as random bursts of laughter can be heard on the quiet floor. Despite the late night, these students sit at their desks striving to meet their afternoon deadline for their project. They may not get to sleep, but it's all worth it in the end to have something tangible to show for their all-nighter.
These students are part of the College of Architecture and Planning, and their lives differ from other majors on campus.
"Life does not exist to an architecture student. The only possible synonym for life would be studio," Junior architecture major Caleb Wild said. "But to be more specific, it would consist of drinking caffeine, working in studio and participating in ridiculous extracurricular-studio activities."
Workload
The College of Architecture and Planning is home to not only architecture majors, but landscape architecture and urban planning majors as well. At the beginning of the school year, each student is assigned a large desk area in a certain studio room to work at throughout the year.
"They have their own spot in the building dedicated for them every year in the program," Joshua Coggeshall, assistant professor of architecture, said. "It's a really great learning environment. If no one has ever seen it, they should come over and look at how students are taught in architecture."
The majority of a student's time is spent in CAP classes. If they have a class outside of the architecture building, it's usually only one or two.
"You come to class in the architecture building and then you go to your next class in the architecture building and then your next class in the architecture building, which is four hours long," Heidi Stewart, sophomore architecture major, said. "Then it ends, and then you stay in this building for a few more hours and maybe go get dinner. And then you come back to the architecture building and work a little more."
For some students, balancing work, extracurricular activities and time with friends can be challenging.
"You kind of figure out how to say no and it's tough a lot of the time, because you don't really want to be in here late at night when you can be out with friends," Zach Braddock, junior architecture major, said. "It's kind of trying to find the best of both worlds and be efficient when you are in here and get things done that need to be done so you can do the things you want to do."
Lack of sleep
Due to the course load, many students often pull all-nighters and go days without sleep. Wild said that in one week during his sophomore year, he spent only about 10 hours outside of studio sleeping.
"We slept in a make-shift bed underneath the stairwell next to the dean's office," he said. "And in the mornings we'd wake up to the faculty laughing at us and going about their work. For our ‘hell week,' two weeks before Finals Week, it's pretty normal to find people sleeping in the building. And any time of the year it's pretty normal to see it."
Coggeshall said he sees a student sleeping every time he walks into the Architecture Building.
"I think ‘It must have been a late night,'" he said. "It gets worse toward the end of the semester, because it's not something that one night of sleep fixes."
For junior architecture major Colin Marshall, going a week with nine hours of sleep was difficult, but caffeine kept him awake.
"It's not enough. You start seeing things and your body feels weird," he said.
Some students, a small percentage, never have had to pull an all-nighter.
"I don't actually spend as much time in studio. I've actually never had to pull an all-nighter. I was just here consistently till late," Heidi Stewart said.
Stewart's classmates gasped at her answer.
Coggeshall said sometimes he feels bad when the students have to stay up late.
"Most of the time I think that they could learn better time management," he said. "There's kind of a myth that architecture students should stay up all night and work on their projects. I don't agree with that. I think they should get their work done during the day."
The lecture classes can range in subject, depending on the student's year in school, but one consistency is studio. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1 to 5 p.m., studio is held. During studio, students are introduced to a project, lectured to on the project or watch a movie about the subject of the project. Once this is done, students have time to begin the brainstorming process. From there, they have time to create.
"At first it's really nice to have the time to get critiques from the professors," Cassie Rice, a senior landscape architecture, said. "The fact that we have four hours to work on things and have them critique and then work on it some more. You make a lot of progress in the four hours. The professors are there to help you and it's not like you're getting lectured to."
On Friday morning, sophomore architecture major Michael Gastineau was working on a model for a group project. He was building an open-air beach house on the Atlantic coast of Florida that had to be designed for certain specifications using Balsa wood. Projects like these require many sketches and trial and error attempts.
Coggeshall said that of all the students' projects and workload is meant to prepare them for the architecture business.
"It's preparing them for deadlines in an office or if they are going to work for themselves," he said. "The amount of work it takes to get a building done, especially in school, it's not just something that can happen the night before classes. It's a constant working and reworking. Redoing models and drawings and trying to figure out how to present it and talk about it."
Coggeshall said that he does not believe architecture students work harder than other students in other majors.
"It's just the nature of the game. In order to be successful in any discipline it takes a lot of work," he said. "They aren't just learning the theory of architecture but the skills that go with it."
Fun and games
After spending so much time in studio, students often find ways to entertain themselves when they need a break from their projects. Popular games that they play include "Quidditch," jousting, darts with Exacto knifes and rip-stick racing.
"While you were waiting for your project to render, you would go on a rip-stick course and we had a big chalk board with all the top times on it," Caleb Wild said. "Every time you would go on a race, someone would time you and after you're done they'd put your time up on the board."
The rip-stick course would go through the studio, where students would weave in and out of desks, then it would go to the hallway and end back in studio.
Another popular game, which may have caused two concussions, was jousting.
"It usually involved two people trying to settle a feud or win over a prize. In one case, it was a date for the Botswin honors college's ‘Holiday Hootenanny' dance," Wild said. "The competitors are armed with cardboard Vyco boxes and sit on rolling chairs and are pushed down the hall at speeds upwards of ‘20 mph' and collide into each other and see who can stay on their chair."
The payoff
With the games, no sleep and many projects, students said that being a member of the College of Architecture and Planning is ultimately worth it.
"You look at what you're trying to accomplish long term," Kevin Galbeath, sophomore architecture major, said. "We are in here because we want to be good architects. Because, we went through a selection process, we owe it to those who didn't get in. We owe it to the fact that we are here at a nationally ranked college to do the best we can."
The end result of a project is what drives some students to work hard.
"It all pays off in the end because you have a real, tangible product and you get to see the end result," Kevin Tempelman, senior architecture major, said. "And lots of times the project, it could be something relating to the community, so you actually get to see how it's playing a role in the community."
For many students, the lasting friendships they make with their peers are the ultimate payoff.
"There's a lot of camaraderie and community in the CAP building," Wild said. "Because we are all stuck in the same room all the time, we make really strong friendships with the people we're with. And because of that we create our own studio-subculture at Ball State with our own fun unique activities, and our own games. We pretty much do everything together."
Common terms heard around CAP
• Studio: The class that meets from 1 to 5 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, where students usually get to work on their projects. The term also refers to the room in which they work.
• Krits: A shortened form of the word "critique," meaning when a professor comes to your desk and gives you feedback about your work.
• Dfab: Digital fabrication, which is the process of designing something through digital software. CAP is No. 1 in the nation for its digital fabrication program.
• Noyer run: A late night trip to Noyer to get caffeinated beverages or food.
• Fab lab: A place where architecture students can rent tools, work in woodshop or use a laser cutter.
• CRC: Stands for Communications Resource Center, a supply store that also has plotter printers.
• Atriums: Seating areas found on the first through fourth floors of the CAP building, where meetings and critiques are held.
• Jury: A group of people from various college departments, alumni and architects in the field who come to review a student's project and give them critiques.
Breakdown of CAP undergraduate students
133 CAP majors (first-year students)
216 Architecture majors (second- to fourth-year students)
145 Landscape architecture majors (second- to fifth-year students)
68 Urban planning majors (second- to fourth-year students)
* numbers received from the College of Architecture and Planning offices
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