Things to do Over the Christmas Break
Hey guys!
We’re back with the final post of the year. I'm sure we can all agree 2020 has been a tough year, but here's nine things that you can get up to over the Christmas break.
1. Improve old work
As much as the Christmas break is a holiday where we should relax and take a break, it’s also an opportunity to catch up on work we missed or to improve old pieces of work. Working an hour a day or a few hours a week can be really beneficial, without taking away from the idea and feeling of a break. This means that when you start the second semester you don’t have to worry about first semester work, leaving more time to work on your current portfolio.
2. Investing time in other Hobbies & Interests
Now is the perfect opportunity to get started on those hobbies that you have been putting off during the semester. Whether it be architecture related or not, you have the time to get started and think about ways on how you might sustain it throughout 2021, alongside your other responsibilities like work and university. If it’s something you really enjoy once you make it a habit during this holiday break it’ll be much easier to incorporate it into your schedule once university starts again.
3. Take care of yourself
Probably one of the most important things to do during this Christmas holiday is to take care of yourself, especially if you aren't very good at this during term time, when you are stressed and working hard. Make the most of this Christmas period by spending time with those you love (bearing in mind the Covid-19 restrictions), catching up on sleep and by doing the things you love the most! Selfcare is something that is practised and continued over a period of time and what better time to start than now :)
4. Develop a Precedent Library
This is a great time to put together a collection of projects and case studies you may have found interesting over your studies, but haven’t had a chance to implement in your design. Storing these projects in a library on your computer or bookmarking them on your browser to refer back to can be really helpful in your next projects. You can catalogue your projects in multiple ways, from materiality to the structural composition of certain buildings. Organising projects by location can be useful to create site-specific or climate-specific architecture.
5. Delve into the World of Architecture
Catch up on all those podcasts, unread articles (or blog posts) and piles of books you’ve been meaning to read but never got round to during the working semester. Don’t forget that you should enjoy the subject you’re studying outside of uni too. This will also help contribute to your precedent library. Look into the work of architects and explore different firms to see who inspires you and to broaden your architectural horizon. Study architectural drawings at different scales too, to get a sense of representational styles as well as picking up drawing conventions.
6. Practice sketching and drawing
This is an obvious one. Get used to capturing elements of architecture from observation with different mediums and under time constraints. Hone in on your perspective drawing and visualisation skills, so that you become good at communicating through sketching. A great starting point is to improve any sketches or drawings you did for your semester projects.
7. Post New-Year Deadlines
It is very likely that you’ll have deadlines/submissions in the first couple months of the new year. The christmas break is a perfect time to get started on these deadlines with all the time given. Organise your time in advance so the new year doesn’t start with stress!
8. Learning New Software
There are loads of online platforms with resources to teach you guys how to use software. Youtube includes many videos free of charge made by creators that can teach you guys at least the basics of all softwares used in architecture school and in firms and if your university works with linkedin learning, that’s also a great platform to get you started. During christmas break you have the time to mess around with software without any intention of creating something but rather understand how the program works.
10. Improve Skills
Other than your architectural skills, you can take advantage of the couple weeks to improve other skills like photography which may come in handy in architecture but aren't necessarily linked to the subject. Graphic design is also another field of work that you may like to delve into. There is no harm in investing time into non-architectural activities. Extracurricular interests are always things that’ll set you apart from others.
That’s it for today’s post guys! We hope you’ve enjoyed our posts so far this year. We’ve got more posts planned for 2021, so keep an eye out for our return
For the last time this year, feel free to contact us through dabbleenquiries@gmail.com, and follow our Instagram @archidabble to stay up to date with our content.
