Internship Week 3 Wrap-Up

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The third week of my stay as an intern at gsn+p architecture studio has been the best I’ve had yet. It was quite like an amusement park ride as it brought about emotions of thrills and excitement on the ups and downs of the days throughout the week. So maybe we started off slow with the usual random musings at books, reorganization of the storage room and other small tasks but my week finished off unexpectedly as it turned out to be great after all.

Aside from the two new interns – a lovely surprise with which we will share the rest of the internship program and the two product presentations from suppliers of uPVC windows and LED lights which I found very informative, a side project was given to us to work on the whole week. It was the redesigning and reconstruction of the existing gsn+p website that initially gave me an adrenaline rush (because it was new to me to engage on something other than architectural design). I thought it was going to be a piece of cake (something as simple as a blog, perhaps) until all the technical terms came up that wore all my enthusiasm down. It was like having to communicate to an alien language you’ve no idea of even a bit. We are still working on that research about the skeletal framework of a website. What I realize now which I should have know earlier was the parallel approach we could’ve treaded on just as how we solve a given design problem.

Anyway, the cherry on top of the ice cream slash the surprise inside the cereal box of my week had been the three days I spent outside the four walls of the studio to gather data for the as-built plan of a given renovation project. It was such a great experience because it was also the first time I was able to bridge the concept on a piece of paper and the tangible in the physical world. I was even joking to one of my fellow intern how I acquired an obsessive-compulsive urge to measure almost anything as I got used to the measuring tape on my hands holding it as if it were a delicate piece of weaponry.

The final day of the week proved to be the best yet, as I was able to pretend architect (well, at least only in my mind) while I assist Architect Jen throughout her busy day going all over places to meet clients and gather data. It was like a dream come true being able to witness the world from a professional’s point of view. I looked at her as she browses for fixtures/materials in the home depot and as she talks to a client (the owner of a known trendy restaurant) and realized this is how a professional architect should be.

It was all very refreshing to see.