A zine for the students by the students! For those that remember the founding members of SSG, you will remember where it started, on Teams trying to keep the studio spirit alive. Now that we have handed over, we have branched out SSG into a Zine which started at the end of year summer 2021 exhibition. Bringing useful tips, places to visit and an archive of what’s happening in the architecture department to your fingertips.
T H E B R A I N P R I N T
Christel Pretorius Marius Dino Victoria Cebulak de Matos Juno Baumgarten
E
R T
A
E M
LE ON ISSUU
& Support Group
Architecture Society Meet
the
new
Architecture Team!
SSG
Hi! My name is Amina. I’m of Algerian descendance born and raised in a small town in Valencia, Spain. I moved to the UK five years ago; I can speak six languages and understand another two. I have a great passion for drawing and painting, as well as reading. I’m a person who likes to learn about people’s cultures and languages, so I look forward to meeting and knowing you all in our society! Hi, I’m Iasmin. I come from an Italian-Brazilian family and can speak three languages fluently. I was born in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. When the opportunity to be part of the Architecture SSG came I immediately took it because I am an extrovert and I love being around new people. Hi there, I’m Gus and I’m from Cambridge. I love music, practice karate and enjoy watching F1. I really want to find some time to travel in the next few years and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in the society! My name is Mille, I come from Norway. I have a strong interest in dancing, snowboarding and socialising. I find myself to be very social and I enjoy spending time with friends and getting to know people.
We’re a student lead architecture society, created out of the pandemic, aiming to provide a platform to motivate and inspire you! Now in our second year, we’re excited to expand and prepare bigger events in 2022 and beyond, but the most important thing is the students. We always want to be a place where students can go to support and help each other and to enjoy architecture.
Past Poster
What is the SSG?
We’re working hard to bring you a series of talks from people in both practice and academic architecture, and social events for all. We’ll be releasing our calender throughout the year, and any suggestions you have or things you want to do please contact us, we always appreciate the ideas!
How to get in contact with us Follow us on Instagram for updates on our talks and events and make suggestions through our polls. You’re always welcome to message us on Instagram too if you have any questions or feedback. Sign up to our email list by emailing SSGGreenwich@gmail.com Find us through the student union’s website.
Past Poster
Our plan for 2022
If you would like to have your work featured in the next issue, make sure to send it through to our Instagram page @brainprinter_zine
It was great t o see studen enj o ying the c r oss c r it after suc h a distant prev i ous year, it’ s always interesting t o see wha others are up t o with their wor H e re is a lo ok at what we c aptu red fro m the 2 n d and 3 r d year winter term c r oss c r it, e nj oy!
Ana Year 2, Unit 6
Ana Year 2, Unit 6
Ana Year 2, Unit 6
Christel Year 3, Unit 8
Nazar Year 2, Unit 2
Christel Year 3, Unit 8
Stephanie Year 3, Unit 1
Magda Year 3, Unit 7
Marius Year 3, Unit 5
Claudia Year 3, Unit 6
Claudia Year 3, Unit 6
Juno Year 3, Unit 1
Juno Year 3, Unit 1
Malisa Year 2, Unit 6
Victoria Anastasia Year 3, 2, Unit 1
Valeria Year 3, Unit 3
Valeria Year 3, Unit 3
Anastasia Year 2, Unit 1
Kayhan Year 3, Unit ?
Mille Year 2, Unit 8
Gus Year 2, Unit 8
Employability Interview with Rahesh Ram
Tips for getting ready for employability... Interview with Rahesh Ram A masters tutor and the employabilities co-ordinator What would be the one most important thing to get the job? I would definitely say the most important thing is likeability. They know they can teach you software. You still need to have skills, but they know you can learn. But you will not change as a person, so really, in the interview, I’m looking at: “Will we have fun having a conversation? Can I work with this person? Do they fit into our existing team and what can they contribute to it?”
How long should the CV be? You said it could be like a mini-o P rtfolio, is there like a max-imum amount of pages? Yes. I would make a maximum four or five pages. Just don’t make it crammed. Make sure it’s elegant and designed because you’re designers. The CV is like the taster of the portfolio, so keep it short. Then you can tell narratives in the portfolio, which can be up to 30 pages or whatever.
Employability Interview with BPTW director Katie Parsons
What next?
Tips for getting ready for employability... Interview with BPTW director Katie Parsons
About Katie Parsons
I N T E R V I E W
CV What advice would you give to us for our CV’s?
The key things are your cover email or letter is so important, don’t send the same one round to 100 practices, personalise it, you immediately become interesting and stand out. Make sure your CV is clear and concise, make sure the overall graphic is consistent with your style and runs into your portfolio. Make sure the overall document is less than 10MB for an email submission, struggling to opening it, makes the whole process frustrating.
What would you say is the general page limit for a CV? The text only part of the CV should be no longer than 2 A4 sides with readable text no smaller than 10MB. The image part, between 4 and 6 A4 pages, I would prefer to have 6 big key images on each page, then 10 different images crammed onto a page.
How important is work experience?
Experience shows that you have involved yourself in something other than architectural education, in undergrad it shows your commitment and flexibility around university work. I would say architectural practice experience isn’t better than say a job at Pizza Hut, each practice has a different way of working so your practice experience may be irrelevant to the one you're applying for. I would also say make sure you are valued during your work experience through money, training or any agreed value.
What
skills
are
you
looking for in applications?
Time management and honesty is underrated. We do not expect you to know everything; there will be a form of training involved with the job. Although most practice’s use Revit if your able to use a 3D and 2D program as well as adobe sweets that is fine, we can work with that. Physical skills depend on the practice; we love hand drawing, photography and model making. Hiring a photographer is expensive, so we look internally for smaller photography projects, and we use models for showing clients and public consolations, as well as when we help with charity events.
Portfolios Do you prefer physical or digital portfolios for interviews?
With a digital portfolio you can zoom into details, I would say on the day if you could just have something physical because it is so good to be able to see or feel a piece of work, it creates more tangible conversations, I would urge you to have both if you can.
What is the best size for a portfolio?
I would say I avoid going bigger than A2 for the interview because it just seems like such a hassle, and this is where a hybrid portfolio comes in handy as you can have bigger pieces on screen to zoom into and have a smaller portfolio A3 or A2 are usually good sizes.
What should we have in our portfolios?
It depends on the role that we are looking for. Overall, I am looking for that understanding of what you have done. People often forget to include a simple opportunities diagram or basic site plan. We want to see your process whether it is sketches, a photo that explains a million things, whatever is the inspiration. I see how you made that decision and then the outcome.
APLICATIONS When do is best time to start applying for jobs? Usually there is a turnover of students that works around academic year. We start looking at CVS from as early as April, with a starting date for work from Jully/August. Some students do a year and a half so they might be positions around Christmas time.
How do I find the practices that fit me?
You should think about something you are interested in; architecture is broad, and your exposure might be through education at the moments so look around and do some research so that you can try different things out. It would be unfair to assume that the job that you take now is your dream job or what you will be doing for the rest of your career. Architecture is a lifetime not just the qualification.
What is the red flag to look out for when choosing a practice?
Your student pears are your best friends in this situation, people returning from placement or still in placement, they will tell you honestly about the practice and their experience. The other place to look is on the advert if they are looking for specific skills, they will highlight it in the advert and your interview can also tell you a lot about what the practice wants.
How can we find job offers?
Most practices use social media now to put out job offers, we found it the best way as we got good feedback from applications coming to us. You could use an agency, but we only go to them if we are looking for someone with a specific experience. I would recommend that you follow the practices on their social media accounts that way you can keep track of what they are doing and when they have vacancies. Of course, you can look at architectural magazines like Dezeen they usually have some job posts. This doesn’t stop you from reaching out to a practice you like to ask for a job.
INTERVIEWS What are the most common questions asked in an interview?
We try to make people comfortable so we can start to see you and find out who you are. What we tend to do is to ask you to talk through your work and tell us what you did and how? We are really trying to find out how you work, and where your passion lies. I like to question certain elements and details, so you need to know your project. Sometimes we will also ask who or what inspired the project or you.
Do people still get o j bs / interviews from the end of year shows?
We still go, it feels more so than ever probably a point of contact I think we appreciate that we can be amongst you the up-and-coming future architects. There have been number times I placed my business card across peoples work and we have only received a CV from ten of them, so it works both ways as well. The end of year show is more for you guys as it marks a milestone in your work, so just make the most of it.
Does it matter if I am nervous in an interview?
We try not to let an interview be affected by nerves, if we see someone nervous, we often ask if they want a tea or 5 mins because we really do not want this to be the make or break. There have been some instances where we just start looking through their portfolio and that then helped to open-up the conversation. I would say that most of the time you super nervous coming in I do not think you would be by the end of an interview, and I think most practises now are quite understanding about it.
What could we be doing now to make ourselves more employable?
For third year make sure that the basics are there like how you make something work even if it is not in-depth knowledge. Make sure your though process comes across. Start getting your CV ready, I think if there is a programme that you have been dabbling with go that next step and push your skillset. The key right now is the environment, become up to speed with sustainability and requirements, you do not need to know it inside out but think about the implications they have like Part L.
If you could give us one piece of advice, what would it be?
Be yourself & go with what
you believe in!
P L A C E S
E X H I B A I N T D I O N TO S EE
T A L K S |
- The Recess 1 by Anton Markus Pasing
-----------------------------PLACES > Garden Museum <
(5 Lambeth Palace Rd, London SE1 7LB)
------------------------------TALKS > NLA - Coal Drops Yard < -New London Model Talk-
(Unit 5 Coal Drops Yard, N1C 4DQ )
-------------------------EXHIBITIONS > Royal Academy of Arts < -Light Lines: The Architectural Photographs of Hélène Binet(Burlington House, W1J 0BD) Start: 23 October 2021 End: 23 January 2022
> Sir John Soane’s Museum < -The Architecture Drawing Prize 2021(13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP) Start: 20 January 2022 End: 19 February 2022
-Hidden Masterpieces-
(13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP) Start: 09 March 2022 End: 05 June 2022
-Becontree centenary-
(66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD)
> New London Architecture < -The New London Model-
(80 Basinghall Street, EC2V 5AG) Start: Thursday, 01 July 2021 - 08:00 End: Saturday, 31 Decembre 2022 - 18:00
-Comfortable cities-
(80 Basinghall Street, EC2V 5AG) Start: 08 December 2021 - 10:00 End: 31 March 2022 - 18:00
> RIBA < -Becontree centenary-
(66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD)
> New London Architecture < -The New London Model-
(80 Basinghall Street, EC2V 5AG) Start: Thursday, 01 July 2021 - 08:00 End: Saturday, 31 Decembre 2022 - 18:00
-Comfortable cities-
(80 Basinghall Street, EC2V 5AG) Start: 08 December 2021 - 10:00 End: 31 March 2022 - 18:00
Thank you from the architecture society team!
By
the
students for the students.