5 Steps To Improve Architectural Design Skills.

Do you want to improve your architectural design skills?

And would you like to know how to quickly get conceptual ideas that work and feel legitimate?

Because, you know what, at times when we represent our conceptual ideas in front of jurors or clients or anyone, they are not convinced and satisfied on to why this idea is actually given and why should they go with this idea.

So if you want to know what are the things you can work on to improve your architectural design skills? How You can develop your design concepts and be able to represent them well, then this blog is for You.

These are the Five things that you need to work on to be able to grow your architecture design skills.

The first thing is ideation. Now, before designing anything the ideation process or the design thinking process is very important.

To figure out how you arrived at that idea and how did you decided to go with it. So the first thing you need to know is to know your topic well to improve your Architectural design skills.

For instance, if your topic is a school, Who are the users of the school? and what are the activities that are happening in the school carried by these users?

Secondly, to know the problems faced by these users. Every topic has a specific set of users. If it is a hospital the specific users are doctors, the staff that would be working in the hospital, and the patients.

There are specific users for every Architectural design topic.

If you look into maybe an IT office, in an IT office, the users would be the employees working there. You won’t find college students in an IT office.

You need to find out what are the problems faced by these users. 

The third thing is to solve those problems architecturally. Because when you're able to solve these specific problems of users giving Architectural elements, you're definitely going to improve your Architectural Design skills. 

A project needs to evolve architecturally.

After this, the next step is the creation process.

Now in the creation process, what you got to do is you need to convert the ideas into drawings because the ideas that we have in the initial stage are abstract and they need to be created into scaled forms.

Because just having ideas is not going to work. We need to have the proper plans, sections, elevations, and scaled drawings.

Now for going ahead with this process of creation, there are some skillsets that need to be developed within you and these skill sets would make it easier for the creative process to go ahead and in the process develop your Architectural design skills.

For example skills like sketching. So the ideas that you get, are you able to sketch them with respect to how you want the form to develop?

If you’re not good at sketching you can practice it but it’s not necessary, that you become Pablo Picasso or some really good artist to sketch. You can sketch quick freehand drawings to initially explore new ideas for your design. (even if it's not a masterpiece)

This is just for your visualization to stay intact.

It’s just the basics you need to know to see if the ideas that you’re getting, are you able to put them down on paper and that can be done by basic practice.

Even if you’re not good at sketching it is possible that you might develop a skill of digital drafting and modeling. The purpose of drafting sheets is to give precise dimensions, accurate sizes to ensure quality planning of a design.

While practicing architecture, these drawings determine the actual dimensions that will be constructed in real-time on your site.

So being good with software is one of the qualities which can actually speed up your creation process. But, sketching is always a faster route for getting out your ideas on paper.

Using software for the initial representation of ideas might get difficult if you’re not unconsciously competent with them because your thoughts are bound by software functions and how to use them.

If you have sketching as your skill, it's really going to add up to the creation process and even if you don't have it, just keep on practicing it.

By making this model you can actually witness the ideas being created digitally in front of you. It gives a very flexible element to your design. It enables you to play around with different shapes and ideas.

You can find out if there are any flaws or if you want to add anything to the design.

So these are the three skills that you need to master to develop your Architectural design skills for creation. These are sketching, drafting, and modeling.

After creation, the next thing is to focus on your presentation. Presentation is that step where you are communicating your Architectural Design ideas.

So during the ideation step you first got the idea, knew why you selected that idea, and then in the creation, we created those ideas into forms and drawings, and finally in the presentation step we got to communicate those ideas to maybe our jurors or even the clients.

Because in architectural design, you know if you have only the idea but you're not able to communicate them, then there's no use of those ideas right? 

And there is a step-wise communication method that can create an impact. Which I call is Ideas to graphics, to words.

You need to be able to align all of these things properly. The ideas you get, the graphics you create, and the words you say in your presentation need to be in sync. That is when your Architectural design presentations are going to be really amazing.

It will align with the people you are presenting your ideas to and that could be done really very well by forming stories. Because people are hardwired to listen to stories.

No matter who they are, everyone loves listening to stories from a child to an elderly person.

So you can represent your presentations in the form of stories by creating graphical stories through graphical presentations.

For this, you definitely need to learn some Graphical and Verbal presentation skills. 

The presentation might be done through sketching,  showing your plans, sections, elevations or it might be through the views which you have created from Your Architectural design model.

You need to develop your presentation skills and finally, you need to be able to execute your design well to ultimately improve Your Architectural design skills.

The fourth step is execution and there are two things to it.

Once the communication is done the final thing to do is getting those ideas into reality. And to achieve the same, what you need to do is to know the practical implementation of your knowledge.

On how it is going to be implemented practically and this can be developed through visiting actual sites, through practice or watching construction videos, or reading blogs on construction.

The best way is to actually be on the site and to actually check the process of how it is happening.

Because when you see and when you observe it, the information goes really down into your mind.

Also, there are a lot of issues that take place on-site and you need to know how to tackle and overcome these practical issues to improve your Architectural design skills.

Now, First, let us review all of the four steps for improving Architectural design skills.

First is Ideation, how to know your topic well, and to get the ideas properly to solve problems of your user’s activities.

The second step is Creation; how do you convert those ideas into drawings.

Getting those ideas and cultivating them into proper forms and representing them and being in a state of constant trial and error.

Because when you create a form, you might see that there are multiple issues or problems that might happen leading you to rethink those ideas.

Thirdly, Presentation of your ideas. When you present it properly with the form of stories and graphics for your clients or jurors. Ideas to graphics, to words.

Finally, it is Execution. Executing your drawings with the help of working drawings and proper knowledge with the help of different professionals like structural engineers, material vendors, and all of the various professionals who are experts in that particular field.

Now, to go ahead with all of these processes you need to know what is your Deep Core Intention.

This is very important because all of these four steps are not so simple. It takes a long time and a lot of dedication to develop these skills and to even go through this entire process.

So the main thing you want to know is your deep core intention.

That is, why are you doing this?

Why are you becoming an architect?

Is it for fame or is it for making money? Or is it for helping people? Or Are You really passionate about Architectural design?

You need to be really clear on what your deep core intention is.

Because if You’re really passionate about Architectural design, all these steps are going to be really fun for you. But if you’re not, then All the best my friend, it’s going to be really stressed out.

Because when you approach from this passionate intention that is what will keep you motivated to go ahead.

Realizing this deeper intention could help drive you ahead to your goal.

Read blogs or books on architecture, follow people posting Architectural content on Instagram, boards on Pinterest, watch Architectural Design movies, shows, and videos online, and spend time with industry experts.

You never know where you might get your next inspiration from.

Your deep intention and goal combined with this environment can make a big difference in your Architectural Career Growth and Improving Your Architectural Design Skills as a whole.

By The Way, 

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