The Portfolio：An Architecture Students Handbook-Getting started.pdf

Getting started involves understanding the most basic aspects of a port- folio and its preparation. Getting started also involves understanding why you need a portfolio and what it is for. This chapter will help you get started, outlining some of the issues to help tailor your portfolio to various destinations in academia and practice. What is a Portfolio? A portfolio of work is defined in different ways depending on the situa- tion. There are different portfolios for different occasions. Obviously you will have one kind of portfolio at the end of your second year as an undergraduate student and another kind when you have finished post-professional studies. More importantly, when you come to make your portfolio at the moments in your life when you want your aca- demic or professional career to develop or change, you will most probably make a different portfolio to suit where you would like to be heading. However, all these different kinds of portfolios will have one thing in common. They will contain your work in a format that will make it easy for the portfolio to be transported physically and digitally to many different situations. The most normal format for a portfolio most closely resembles a book. It can be a small book (A4 or 81Ú2“ × 11“ (210 × 279 mm) which is easy to mail, or it can be a large book, almost like a collection of paintings (A1 or 24“ × 36“ (594 × 841 mm) which you take with you to interviews. Increasingly, portfolios are digital and can be sent in CD format or exist as a website. With a digital portfolio you 2Getting Started will have more freedom to play with the format but will also be relying on someone else to understand how to access it. Remember, it is still easier for most people to turn pages than to navigate links and understand graphic and animation software. All these formats will have one thing in common. The fact that the portfolio is a travelling document, that its function and meaning may change depending on the context, and that your career may hang on it, means that it has to be tough, beautiful, clearly organized, very easy to understand and even easier to use. Whatever the context for which you need the portfolio, or the phase of your career, there are basic rules about the portfolio that you should remember. They are: DOCUMENTATION EDITING MESSAGE AUDIENCE Documentation The first rule for making a portfolio is to keep every piece of work you produce in the studio, in the office and in related visual, technical, or practical areas. Taking care of your work is the most important profes- sional activity you will ever do. Although you may not see the connec- tion now, later on you may need to show some of your exploratory sketches for a design project because a particular Diploma Course or graduate programme may want to see how you think through drawing. Or you may need construction photographs because a particular office may want to see that you already have some site experience, and that you know how to recognize good from bad construction. So, get into the habit of scanning or photographing hand-drawn work or models at regular points during the project. A good time to do this is immediately after a review or jury Ð it gives you time to reflect on the totality of the work, and if you do it well, it will make you proud of what you have done. Make sure you date the work Ð memory alone can play tricks later on. Buy a plan chest (UK) or a flat file (USA) for your flat work. Take photos when you go on site and date them. Keep an album or digital record of photos. Get extra copies of construction drawings that you produced or co-produced. Save all your digital files and make sure you get CD copies of digital work so that your work 6The Portfolio is always backed up outside as well as inside your computer. Dating, scanning and filing work is good to do when you need a break from creative work. This will create a large volume of work, so think about its ease of storage and transportation. As you are designing, whether you are making sketches, drawings or models, use consistent sizes or plan to assemble work into consistent formats at regular intervals Ð it will be much easier to transport and store. Having a thousand pieces of work of different sizes will make your life really difficult in the long run. However you choose to do it, remember: when in doubt, be consistent and DOCUMENT! Editing The second rule for making a portfolio, however, is knowing what it is not. The portfolio is definitely not an archive of every piece of work that you have ever done. At a basic practical level you will not have the time and money to reproduce all that work, you will not want to pay vast amounts of money to mail it, and certainly the people who will be looking at your portfolio will not have time to look at everything you have done. In a professional situation, especially if there is an economic recession and greater competition for work, very often if you do not capture in the first few pages of your portfolio the imaginations of the people who are looking at it, they may not even get all the way through your portfolio. That means you will need to edit the portfolio itself to include only the best, the most engaging and sometimes the most provocative, work. In addition, you will need to remember that there are also differences between portfolio expectations in different countries. In the USA the portfolio you will most likely use to apply for entry into graduate school will probably be mailed in and be smaller in size and volume whereas in the UK, where you often take original work or large print-outs to a personal interview, the portfolio can be larger in size and contain more work. In the UK you may be able to explain work in person whereas in the USA you will need to make sure your portfolio will say everything you want your audience to know. Finally, you will need to edit your work because your portfolio will have to be as clear as possible about your ideas and experience, and should only contain work that shows your strengths. The second rule for making a portfolio is therefore EDIT, EDIT, EDIT! Getting Started7 Message The third rule for making a portfolio is to know exactly what you want to show and why. As an architectural student you will need a portfo- lio for different occasions. What you decide to edit out and what you decide to keep in the portfolio will depend on how you want to be seen and what the portfolio is for. What kind of a message are you trying to get across? By this we do not mean a verbal message, although you will almost certainly want to use words to emphasize your focus in your work. A portfolio message should clearly com- municate what kind of architectural interests and skills you have. For example, the portfolio you will use to apply to graduate school may emphasize your creativity and ability to work through challenging ideas and unusual forms, whereas a portfolio you use to apply for a professional job in an office may need to include construction drawings, site photographs and schedules to emphasize your tech- nical competence. Even more specifically, if you are applying to a graduate school because you want to join that schoolÕs specialization in community architecture or activist practice, you will need to select documents from your vast archive or work which show both a breadth of creativity and your special interest in community architecture. You might include photos of work you have done in community gardens, essays you have written on collaborative practices or public art, and highlight those projects you did as an undergraduate which show that you have an ability to respond to the needs of others. If you are apply- ing to a school where you wish to pursue design and robotics, say, make sure that you include in your portfolio any moving objects you have made, or research essays and reports on the subject. Occasionally this may mean that you might have to make a new project just for the portfolio. If your education to date has not provided you with the kind of work you think you will need to go to the next phase of your career, you may need to take extra evening classes or make additional drawings to show just how committed you are to the direction you want to pursue. For example, if you have a very tech- nical undergraduate portfolio and you want to get into a diploma or graduate school that is very artistic, you may need to take an evening class in sculpture or drawing. Making a portfolio means you are making an identity for yourself, through the work that you select to show. The third rule for making a portfolio therefore is to be very clear about THE MESSAGE. 8The Portfolio Audience As you can see, the message of your portfolio will change depending on the next intended phase of your career. The most important thing to remember is that although you, the author of the work, and your message, may remain the same during a particular phase of your career, the audience for your work may change dramatically. In many cases you yourself may want to use the portfolio to change your environment Ð sometimes dramatically if you are thinking of changing countries or continents to get into graduate school, a postgraduate programme or an architectural office. Your portfolio will need to show not only the message Ð what you already do well Ð but how what you do well might fit into the world of the people who will be looking at your work. You need to understand your audience and its conventions before you prepare the portfolio. If you do that you will have the best chance possible to communicate appropriately. This chapter, as well as Chapters 3 and 4 focus on this in more detail, as the audiences for your portfolio will definitely have a significant impact on the format and content of the portfolio. The fourth and most important rule for making the portfolio is therefore to understand THE AUDIENCE. To help you understand this a little better, here are some of the most common types of occasions for which you will need to prepare a portfolio. Entering and Passing the Academic Year/Portfolio Review Although some schools of architecture require portfolios for admission into a degree course in the UK, or the undergraduate programme in the USA, it is more likely that preparing for a portfolio review will probably be the first time you will need to make a portfolio. Nevertheless, if you are applying to an undergraduate programme or degree course that requires a portfolio, most of the advice in this book will apply to you as well. The main difference will be that your portfo- lio will most likely have work from your art or drafting class, or visual and constructed work you have made in your free time. Schools that ask for a portfolio for admission to the first or freshman year are usually pretty clear about the format, so make sure you ask exactly what they are looking for. The rules for passing the academic year Getting Started9 vary from school to school and can appear more, or less, mysterious depending on the school. In most UK schools of architecture, passing the academic year is based on some form of portfolio review, but the format is not always specified, and you may or may not be present at the review. In USA schools you may pass your individual courses, including the design studio, based on grades given by each of your professors, but may also need to go through a portfolio review to get feedback on your overall progress or even to be admitted to higher level classes. In the USA this kind of review is usually based on a selection of your work that has been reduced and formatted into a booklet, most often 81Ú2“ × 11“ (210 × 297 mm) and it is unusual for you to be present at the review. In the UK you will be more likely to submit your actual work, in a large A1 or A2 portfolio case, or even present it as a degree or diploma exhibition, to your professors and external examiners. Again, check with your school, and ask other students for advice. Whichever format you may need, in both cases you should edit out material that does not show your strengths. Focus on communicating your successes, but also make sure that you have a breadth of work, as most architecture schools are looking for signs of continuing improvement in integrating different information within design projects. Choose work that shows your ideas and skills, and your ability to combine complex issues into a coherent whole, thus making your design as easy to understand as possible. Use text clearly and minimally for maximum impact. The most important thing to remem- ber about the portfolio review process is that the focus is on showing your design skills and the development of your work over the relevant period of time. The people who will be looking at your portfolio will be professors or design tutors, who are interested in your development as a student. If you can, make friends with students in senior years, and look at their portfolios. If your school keeps work for validation or accreditation, or has a Year-End-Show, or keeps portfolio examples, make sure you see this and understand why the good work is good. Do not be afraid to ask your professors and older students for advice. You will find a lot more information about this in Chapter 4 Academic Portfolio. Getting/Changing a Job in an Architects Office If you are an undergraduate student, the next kind of portfolio you will need to prepare will be the one that presents your work to potential 10The Portfolio employers. Here, your audience will be looking for your capacity to be useful in their architectural office so your message needs to emphasize your competence and compatibility with their work. If you have any kind of construction experience, such as helping your family build a house extension, or have worked for architects or contractors while at school, it is essential that you include copies of drawings or models or building elements that you made. For example, once you have had some office experience, you may wish to include a selec- tion, or even a full set, of construction drawings. Offices are also inter- ested in your design work at school, particularly if you have done design or other work in areas which the office has as a specializa- tion. For example, if you have done housing design at school, and the office to which you are applying has a strong record in housing, make sure you highlight housing work in your folio. If you have done projects on mass-customization and are applying to offices that specialize in this, show it. Whereas in academia you might just capture someoneÕs attention if you come across as a bit of an eccentric, offices will be very interested in your capacity to communicate clearly and succinctly. That means making your portfolio very simple to understand. Chapter 5 Professional Portfolio is devoted to the professional market and has more information about this. Getting into a Diploma Course (Graduate Scho