My Brief Architectural Auto-biography

Why I chose to study architecture?

My propellers?

My fears?

Architecture has always been obscure to me from my childhood. Well, I grew up in a family of 5, My Dad, Mum and 3 children. Childhood was always a creative experience and very competitive. My Dad was a Serial Mathematician and my Mum was a Micro-biologist. We were always knowingly or unknowingly inclined to the books.

One of my big introduction into architecture was watching my Dad design and build our first house. He engaged me and my siblings in mixing concrete cement and I watched him lay blocks by himself, eventually I saw the building gradually manifest into a given space, though not beautiful but that introduced me to the creation of space and how it meets user needs for better or worse. I remember we building each space over time. Initially we built the uncompleted living room with no roof and windows, no toilets, no kitchen, no bedrooms. This basically was one of the main reason I chose to study architecture. I wanted to build my Dad his very own dream house.

My Dad which I will always reference in my career journey saw my passion for the arts, drawings and creativity pushed a Technical drawing textbook he used back in high school my way. I gradually noticed my natural love for reading and reproducing drawings I found in this textbook even at my free time. I remember we did Technical drawing for just a semester in my high school back then and I had 97%. That was my best result that semester in school outside Mathematics, Geography and Physics which I also love naturally. With that result in technical drawing I became so confident in my drawing abilities. I personally started browsing about buildings and harder technical drawing problems.

While graduating High school. I chose to re-draw and re-design the schools layout from my self taught conception of basic building plans.

I also remember my dad was a big time traveler, basically traveled to Singapore over 5 times in the early 2000's and when he got back always told me about buildings and showed pictures of designs he saw. I became fascinated.

It was time to go to College. I remember asking my dad what he felt I could study in University and he said why not check about architecture. You are good in drawings and have a creative mind. He always told me this when I didn't believe in myself. So, I decided to capitalize on that saying.

Getting to college, it was a fun ride. I noticed how much I enjoyed solving and drawing challenging design problems. If everyone in my class was designing in a given approach. I always wanted to be different and take a different more creative approach. I also had great friends that always supported me specially, we always believed in one another.

Some of the fears I faced included my first every design studio. I remember pushing the limits of the design and getting to the jury confident but my confidence was cut into pieces. I also remember I never got an A in any design studio except my 3rd year design. That almost questioned my design ability.

The ultimate fear I faced was when a professor in my final year of college told me straight to my face " you cant be anything in architecture, you don't know what you are doing. you wont get to where I have gotten to, compared me to other students, basically wrecking me and calling me unfit for the profession, (smiles) even refused to sign and acknowledged my final thesis ".

After this I was even more propelled to succeed as a designer and creative in the Design and Tech industry.

My biggest fear right now at my graduate level architectural education is - PROGRESS ( moving back into the architectural field after leaving for 2 years).

“Architecture should be a functional unfolding of space that adapts to time & place - Timothy S. Uzoigwe.”

I will conclude by saying no one should create your reality, you are your own motivation so look into the mirror, inspire yourself and design your own reality.