- Nikita, your team works with students of architecture universities. Why would they and you?
- The opportunity for practical work is a format that today's graduates lack. It is especially interesting for those architects who are taking their first steps in the profession or are still studying. Therefore, over the past couple of years, we have introduced an extended internship format in our bureau, which includes both practice and training. We had a year-round internship program before, but recently we have turned it into a separate area, within which we are developing initiative projects, including in the field of urban planning and the arrangement of public spaces, and research activities.
Moreover, this direction has grown in our format into the format of a full-fledged summer school "POINT OF GROWTH architectural practices". More than a hundred people have passed through it this year. These are students not so much from Moscow as from the regions. In total, trainees from about 12 cities came to us this summer. Moreover, we tried not to announce this School in any way. It took place due to the coincidence of several factors. Among them is an excellent site in the House of Architects - Pavel Sonin's Architectural Coworking, and, of course, the co-authors of the course - practical architects who launched their educational programs with us in the format of design workshops.
What projects are you working on with the guys?
- In just a summer school, we make about 15-20 projects per year: from small design elements to large urban planning concepts. As part of working with trainees, it is important for us to release some real things, while the projects are very motley: from a draft design for the children's branch of the library. F. M. Dostoevsky to a large urban development project in Izhevsk. If the first example is the initiative of the directorate of the library, then the second is the initiative of the city itself, organized through the “Living Cities” community and then supported at the governor's level. There is a hope that the project will go into further implementation, possibly already in 2018–2019.
What is more for you in working with students now: some kind of missionary work or the opportunity to use free labor?
- It looks more like a series of workshops, the cost of organizing which often exceeds the result. Now we are trying to find the optimal balance between the effort invested and the effort received. If the educational component outweighs, it is very difficult to deal with the current projects of the bureau, since every time you have to explain simple things - for many children this is the first experience of working on real tasks in a tight schedule and with high requirements for the result.
It's no secret that large bureaus are usually reluctant to hire students without work experience, even for internships. On the other hand, with students there is an opportunity to engage either in non-commercial projects among those that are interesting, or in those tasks that can give results in the future - in the form of work experience in new areas. Thanks to this approach, we, for example, are now immersed in a topic related not so much to architecture as to urbanism and the spatial development of cities. About five years ago, we approached the leadership of the city of Zaraysk with our proposal for the development of the historical center, and in just a few months it grew into a project (it so happened that a competition for the improvement of the central part began in the city). This example taught us that sometimes it is important not to wait for an order, but to formulate an idea and come up with a proposal. Then you can find a counter interest.
You went to the project on the development of urban space with students as an experiment?
- Partly so. There is a good reason to give the trainees an interesting large-scale task, solving which, it will be possible to bring their own ideas. And this is just another important thing that today, as it seems to me, is sorely lacking - to provide a young architect with the opportunity to declare their idea and give them a certain toolkit of how to implement it. At the same time, the development of the final presentation materials was done by the bureau staff.
How are students selected for internship or project work?
- Now we are trying to accept everyone who sends an application to us, owns the necessary computer programs and meets the mandatory minimum for the portfolio. We deliberately position our internships as an educational format. When a student graduates from college, he is usually disoriented and does not understand what to do next. What we offer is a smooth transition from education to practice.
As for the level of training of students, we have something to compare with. In the work of trainees, the specificity is noticeable, the handwriting of different schools is felt. At the same time, a lot depends on the specific person who comes to us - how motivated he is, how clearly he understands what projects he would like to take part in and what skills to acquire during the internship. Now one of the tasks that we set ourselves is to start motivation for independent work and self-education in a short time - to look for the necessary information, get the skills necessary for work, find interest in project tasks, regardless of scale and complexity.
Someone is interested in working with visualization, others are interested in blueprints and general plans, others are interested in furniture, and still others want to do urban research. Recently, we immediately ask those who come to us for an internship what they themselves are interested in, and choose suitable tasks - to some extent, draw up an individual training course so that the maximum result from practice is obtained.
– Are your internships paid?
- No, and this is a fundamental point. At some point, we tried to pay students for work, but in the process we came to understand that the costs of organizing a high-quality educational format require serious resources and thought to make participation in the summer school paid for students. As a result, we decided to keep a zero monetary balance - students gain knowledge and practical work experience, we get the opportunity to do initiative projects and research, while no one pays anyone.
How do current graduates differ from you at their age?
- Perhaps, over the past 10-15 years, the average level of students has grown in terms of presentation of ideas, mastery of specialized programs, understanding of current trends in architecture. This is a rather subjective opinion, but, to be honest, I would be surprised if on my stream, when I graduated from the university, the average level of the guys would be the same as now. At the same time, it cannot be said that, for example, young strong teachers have appeared at the Moscow Architectural Institute who could extend this new level. That is, it is more likely that the guys themselves walk, look around, receive information from additional sources. Or maybe it's just that we are so lucky and well-prepared students who know what they want to get an internship at the bureau.
Motivation in education means a lot. However, this factor is unpredictable and depends little on the institution. In the same Moscow Architectural Institute, basic professional skills are at a high level, in contrast to the desire and motivation of the children to move somewhere else immediately after graduation. This desire comes a little later, if, of course, it comes at all. Often, motivated students can be found in less "status" universities - sometimes they do things head and shoulders above the rest.
What universities provide a stable supply of class trainees?
- Probably, in this case, we are not talking about a specific university, but about teachers, teachers who, perhaps, are better at motivating or forcing the children to reach out. We have established strong ties with some universities, for example, with the GUZ or Surikovka. But it just happened historically.
Let's talk about the profession of an architect? How has your personal attitude towards her changed?
- What I am doing now, I cannot even call in the literal sense architecture. If I used to draw layouts and facades of buildings and felt like an architect, now I spend most of my time on things that seem to be not directly related to the profession. Partly it is about management, partly about working in areas that I didn’t understand before. For example, in urban planning, urban projects or organizing events such as the Zodchestvo festival. Therefore, now it is a great pleasure for me, when closer to the night I can do something “usual” for a couple of hours - make some kind of picture and, thus, understand that I am still a bit of an architect.
At some point, I just started to make all projects in any area as a kind of architectural product, which can be designed in the same way in accordance with some algorithms that you own, as an architect - to build a "structure" from very simple and tough ideas that are difficult ruin. And then everything is strung on it. Sometimes even texts are easier for me to “design”, as an architect …
Are you talking about some kind of architectural type of thinking?
- I think, yes. Architecture gives you a good command of the methodology - when you understand what and in what sequence you need to do in order to get a good result.
Does architectural thinking help to win negotiations with a client?
- Communication can also be viewed from the standpoint of the architectural process and stand up as a stable system. Earlier it seemed to me that an architect must convince. Now I do not have such an attitude that I must certainly prove something to the customer. Today the person who comes to me with his task is a kind of context, the same as the environment in which the building exists. Negotiations are an integral part of the project. And in the same way as you work with a place, you work with a person, trying not so much to convince him as to jointly solve problems. In this approach, you see more solutions, alternatives.
It seems to me that the opposition "Client - Architect" is in many ways a relic of the nineties, when for some architects the client was a cunning person with money, but without taste, which needs to be brought up, and for others - a kind of absolute, any desires of which should be indulged. Now you are just working on a problem together. And within the framework of this task, an architect is needed not as an artist who realizes his ambitions at someone else's expense, but rather as a technologist who knows how to find a beautiful and optimal solution. In the areas in which I work now, there is no customer at all in the traditional sense of the word. Often this can be some kind of initiative, a public request to change the situation in the city, when it is necessary not only to develop a project, but also to bring together people who will be able to implement and finance all this.
How important is the first experience of project implementation? What happens to the architect at this moment?
- The most serious test for an architect is when the first project, on which he works in drawings, models, pictures, suddenly becomes a reality, an integral part of this world. Then a certain internal break occurs, and you already begin to feel a different level of responsibility for what you are doing. With the first project, another important understanding occurs, which is that sometimes 2-3 productive meetings with the foreman are much more important than a year of work on the drawings. This knowledge significantly changes the view of the entire process of work. I don't know if this is good or bad, but after the first construction, you become a different person.
A few words about the Zodchestvo festival. Is he a resource of ideas and people for you?
- Every year we try to answer this question for ourselves. And not to say that it worked. "Architecture" is just one of those areas in which you do not know exactly "why", but you know that you "should". At some point, we realized that Zodchestvo, with or without us, would still exist as a kind of product. But as long as there is strength and a desire to give it a new quality, they still need to be engaged. If we look for practical meanings in Zodchestvo for the main business of our bureau, then the festival is just a project about collective interaction and impact.
Impact on whom? To the outside world or to ourselves?
- Both. Because now we are trying, through Zodchestvo, to understand, among other things, how the profession should look, in what context it exists, what capabilities the architect has now and what competencies he will need in the near future.
What advice could you give to today's budding architects?
- It seems to me that it does not really matter what to do at first. You can, oddly enough, get a great experience working in a mediocre bureau. You can go abroad and get a wonderful experience there, which will not be possible to apply in Russia. You can go to a very cool office and do rough work there and pretty strange things - that's okay too. Rather, the question is to what extent can you take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. First, you can extract from your experience, conditionally, speaking, 30% of the benefit, then it comes to 70-80%. Therefore, the first advice is this: you need to learn to draw experience from any, even negative stories - all this will help in the future.
The second tip is related to one thing that I just recently realized for myself. This is when you do not know what and how it works, and you are very afraid. And you need to learn to abstract and not be afraid. It took me quite a long time myself. While studying at the institute, I reached a certain level of understanding of things that are needed in the profession. Then it took me a while to realize that I could handle the project. First on the scale of an apartment, then at home. Now it is relatively easy for me to work on a city scale. You need to go through all the stages, work on all scales, so that you understand how to do any project, solve any problem. And this is very important.
Finally, the third advice to a novice architect may look like this: you need to formulate what is interesting and useful for you, and try to do just that by any means and strength. If there is such motivation and it is strong enough, everything else will start connecting by itself. ***
The Open City conference, an event in the field of architectural education, will take place in Moscow on September 28-29. Her program includes: workshops from leading architectural firms, sessions on topical issues of Russian architectural education, presentation of the study "Professional Development in Russia and Abroad: Traditional Models and Alternative Practices", a fair of additional educational programs, Portfolio Review - presentation of student portfolios to leading architects and developers of Moscow and much more.
