© Sharon Lam

Tutors. Everyone has horror stories about their tutors, just as everyone has stories about a tutor they truly adored. Ultimately, your tutors are likely to be the single most important element of your architectural education; no matter how much effort you put into learning through other means, these people will probably become formative figures in not only your education, but your life in general.

It’s easy to forget, though, that they are just that: people, with all the flaws and foibles that being a person entails. Some you will love to learn from, while others may be a little more difficult—but like Dickens’ Christmas Carol ghosts, each type of tutor has their own lesson to impart. Here are the five different types of tutor you’ll deal with in your architectural education, and what you should learn from each of them.

1. The Very Scary One

© Sharon Lam

Scary from first impression to final critique, there are some tutors who are just a bit too intimidating. Although fear might prevent a late hand-in, discussion is impossible when your knees are shaking. If there’s a tutor that’s made someone cry, it’s probably this one.

Why they’re important: Believe it or not, you will meet people scarier than your scariest tutor. Being around someone who strikes fear deep into your heart is invaluable preparation for the even more terrifying bosses and clients you’ll come across outside of architecture school.

2. The Role Model

© Sharon Lam

This is the tutor that you want to be in every way. The way they dress, the way they effortlessly sketch masterpieces, the way they listen to your ideas and make them ten times better—all while being someone you’d love to be best friends with.

Why they’re important: It’s always reassuring to have “good guys” in not just architecture but in life. The chance to learn from someone you also look up to can go miles in shaping what you want in your own future.

3. The Tough Love One

© Sharon Lam

They seem nice at first, until they suggest you start over completely with just a week left before the deadline, or make a million more iterations even though you’re happy with what you’ve already produced. No matter what you do, or how hard you try, you just can’t seem to please them.

Why they’re important: This is the tutor you’ll probably hate at the time, but in retrospect will be thankful for how hard they pushed you. A tutor who can see your potential and is committed to pushing you to your fullest will get you much further than one who is nice but apathetic.

4. The Boring One

© Sharon Lam

You can’t always win, and not every tutor will be a bubbly fountain of stimulation. Each conversation with this tutor seems to go nowhere, you can’t connect with them, and they talk without really saying anything. Studios become sleep-inducing.

Why they’re important: The silver lining is that you get an opportunity to work without guidance. You might work through problems on your own, or you might find value consulting other students. Either way, it’s a vital lesson in learning how to complete a task even when something (or someone) falls through.

5. The Hot One

© Sharon Lam

You’re smirking already—at one point or another there’s been that one tutor who was a cut above the rest for no other reason than being really hot. While very distracting, they’re also a very good incentive to show up to studio. Even though you’re too busy trying to work out if they are single instead of listening to what they’re saying about concrete beams, each studio feels like time truly well spent.

Why they’re important: In a visually-focused field such as architecture, the appreciation of aesthetics is very important…

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Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

The team of architects Maryan Fazel and Belinda Ercan, from Iran and Germany, respectively, have won first prize in the competition for the design of the Moscow Circus School launched by the Architectural Competition Concours d’Architecture (AC-CA). 

The winning proposal, entitled Elytra, is an “eye-catching, cutting-edge, [and] unconventional” design that will tower over Moscow’s Tverskoy District, an area which features a burgeoning artistic scene.

Inspired by the forewings of insects—called elytra—the project opens upwards as a protective shell, and will feature both public and private space.

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

Roof access will be available to the public, therefore allowing transparency of the activities inside, and facilitating the creation of a cultural hub. The public roof will additionally function as the “circulation zone, providing waiting and exhibition areas, as well as the chance for the public eyes to gain a glimpse of the liveliness inside.”

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

An open-air amphitheater will comprise the heart of the building in a fusion of public and private space, where a variety of programs, such as events, exhibitions, theater performances, and dining, can be held.

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

The elytra of the building tower above, and will provide space for training and academic zones, as well as administration and service areas.

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

Courtesy of Maryam Fazel and Belinda Ercan

News via Maryan Fazel and Belinda Ercan.

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© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

• Architects: RVdM Arquitecto
• Location: Av. Espanha, 3080 Figueira da Foz, Portugal
• Client: Município da Figueira da Foz
• Author: Ricardo Vieira de Melo
• Team: Ânia Abrantes, Daniela Melo, Rafaela Naia, Nuno Marques
• Area: 621.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

• Engeneering: Osvaldo Coutinho; David Leite; Alexandre Machado
• Archeology: Pedro Roquinho
• Restauration: Fatima Llera

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

It is believed that the construction of the Santa Catarina Fortress, at the Mondego’s river mouth, is from the XVI century, but there is information to have been there a small chapell before, as illustrated in a nautical chart from 1634 by Pedro Teixeira Albernaz. The spatial and formal relationship between the fort and the chapel is remarkable, revealing different building techniques. Both set up like a triangular “vault” keeping a relic.

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Plan

The intervention intended to qualify the entire interior of the fort, including the courtyard (ground parade), the chapel and the rooms of the bastions. The intervention restores the exterior while requalifies the interior spaces.

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

There are two programs:
– To the courtyard and the chapel the spaces were cleaned and restored to receive an exhibition alluding to the history of the fort, including its role in the “Peninsular Wars”;
– For the rooms of the bastions, the spaces were arranged for a bar and restaurant. In southern one, for the dining room, it was build a laminated wooden domed structure that reorganizes the geometry of space, controls the artificial light, hides infrastructure and protects the original walls. In northern bastion there are toilets divided in separate cabins.

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Section

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

The intervention sought to be the least intrusive as possible so that the formal, constructive and spatial characteristics may prevail and, if necessary, allows total recovery of its original expression. The most significant intervention was the introduction of hidden infrastructure enabling its adaptation to the new program without losing its original spatial relationship, internally and externally – with the natural surrounding and its urban landscape – as a place of seclusion, lookout and observation.

© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

The goal was to provide public enjoyment of the Fort, offering its spaces – courtyard, rooms and terrace, counting and continuing its history. 

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