Becoming an Architect

Lego, the beach and Iron Maiden

A few weeks ago a friend asked me what you needed to do to become an Architect, which got me thinking, not so much about how, but why did I become an Architect?

As long as I can remember I was always going to be an Architect, from growing up in Paignton on the English Riviera, the place that visitors pass through to get from Torquay to Brixham. Much of the summer of 1976 was spent on the beach, playing in the sea, building not sand castles, but entire cities in the sand. Looking across the bay to the white blocks, Imperial Hotel, Coral Island, Kilmorie and other modern apartment blocks nestled amongst the trees in the limestone spit that accommodates the more affluent areas of Torquay, then trying to replicate them in Lego, never enough white bricks though. At the time that view represented a complete contradiction to the experience of actually going to Torquay, which mainly involved walking around the shopping streets in the rain, being frogmarched into Marks and Spencer for school uniforms with all the signs saying ‘Back to School’ and the inevitability of the end of the summer holidays. Put me off Marks and Spencer for life.

Back on the Beach, Paignton Pier majestically marches out into the sea on steel legs for no other reason than to give visitors the experience of being out over the water. Except to play on the amusements on the way through to the end of the pier, slot machines, bingo and boat trips around the bay. There are in fact two towns named Paignton, one in the summer, and another in the winter. The promenade is a prime example with wooden cabins selling fish and chips, candy floss and toffee apples in the summer; and the bare steel support frames in winter, and trying to walk along the whole length of the beam without falling off in the winter, I seem to remember doing more of the falling off. Surrey cycles thread their way through the sea of people walking along the promenade in summer, with people sitting on deck chairs watching the youngsters playing on the beach; old people sitting in their cars along the promenade eating sandwiches and drinking tea from Thermos flasks in winter watching the seagulls flying over the waves. The highlight of the year is Regatta week where the Anderton and Rowlands fairground would materialise on the ‘Green’, the Red Arrows would appear from over the horizon to give their amazing aerobatic display, and then there is the fireworks where the whole town would converge for one night.

1980, my father began a project to build a boat, a yacht in the back garden, I helped him lay down the keel beam and cross members on the lawn and watched in keen fascination as the frame began to take shape with me helping to carry members from the workshop to the construction site, holding members in place whilst glue was applied, then clamps and finally brass screws driven in with a pump action screwdriver. Come 1984 when the finished yacht made its way out of the garden and to the harbour, the expectation was that I would be excited about finally getting out on the boat, for me it was something of an anticlimax, and sadly for him I was not a natural seaman. I had what Architects sometimes refer to as 'coming down' after completing a project. The excitement was in the making, not the using, I had lost interest.

1982 I had not achieved the academic results to get into the grammar school and with it the expectation of going to university. In careers lessons career my focus always seemed to return to drawing or constructing things, I wanted to be the next Isambard Kingdom Brunel, him of Great Western Railway fame, a vision of an integrated transport system linking London to New York, yes New York, train to Bristol to link up with the first steamship line across the Atlantic, and the great station roofs, bridges, tunnels the construction feats that enabled it to happen.

1986. Still at school I contacted an Architect in Brixham for work experience, two weeks in the office of Malcolm Chapman RIBA, and there was never a chance of me doing anything else. 1987 on leaving school I had been accepted at South Devon College of Arts and Technology on the BTEC Building Studies course, and joined a small firm of Architects in Paignton as a trainee. Over the next five years I qualified as an Architectural Technician and felt like I had made it. In the office the IT department was an Amstrad PCW8256 word processor linked to a dot matrix printer, there were also two instantaneous word processor/printers called typewriters, the office comms was a single grey Bakelite telephone with a dial and a very loud bell ringer, the fax machine was at Prontaprint, reprographics was a dye line printer which you fed ‘negatives’, ink line drawings on tracing paper, to make copies for submissions...and of course  ‘production’ was drawing board and ‘T’ square. The practice did everything...Urban design, masterplanning, construction detailing, site supervision, project management, even cost control.

However in the back of my mind was the beginnings of a notion that has constantly been growing, ‘There has to be more to it than this!’ We were working on house extensions, conversions of hotels into residential homes for the elderly, and the occasional one off houses or apartment block. I was more interested in the heyday of W.G. Couldrey, Son and Partners, these were the town’s architects, from 1890 they had built the Victorian town centre, Palace Avenue, Torbay Road, Queen’s Park Mansions, Dellers Cafe, Hyde Dendy’s Picture house where I watched Star Wars the first time round. Later planning the housing estates as the town expanded in the 1950’s. Iron Maiden? in 1987 I got hold of the Somewhere in Time album. The combination of Maiden's lyrics and Derek Rigg’s artwork for the album cover, opened up a whole new world of science fiction, history and stories of ancient civilizations, and is probably the single greatest influence in my making the transition from Architectural Technician to Architect.

Events started to conspire to make it happen in 1991. I joined Paignton Amateur Rowing Club to find a way to get fit and channel my energy, which quickly became a desire to compete, absolutely loving the buzz of being in a race; becoming Captain in 1992 and discovering that I had fanatical devotion the cause that inspired and motivated others resulting in a hugely successful season. Work started to dry up and I started looking at other opportunities, even leaving architecture to get into coaching, then came the inevitable day where I was handed my notice and my boss reminded me that I had been talking about going to University. The rest as they say is history, well almost. I immediately phoned Plymouth School of Architecture, my nearest Architecture school, thinking I could just go and attend the course to qualify as an Architect, I am already qualified as an Architectural Technician, that’s five years, so I have to do another two to top it up to being an Architect right? Err...No it takes three years to get a degree, another two to get a Post Graduate Diploma and then another two in practice, and your qualifications might exempt you from the A level entry requirements to get into University...oh bugger!

Throughout my life I have regularly been criticised for doing everything the hard way, so why should this be any different? I had to go through clearing and quickly learned the difference between having A Levels and not, the top schools at the established universities were not interested, it was only the Polytechnics that were inviting me to open days and interviews but not for 1992 term start but 1993. So 1993 I joined what was Birmingham Poly the year previously, rebranded as University of Central England in Birmingham.

So boys and girls, if you are thinking of becoming an Architect, you really have to want to do it, and if you are still fixed on the idea don't let anything stop you.