Why technical understanding can make the difference between an impressive student portfolio and a convincing professional one. Imagine you're an architect reviewing two candidates for a junior position. The first portfolio contains spectacular renderings, atmospheric perspectives, and ambitious conceptual projects. The second contains fewer images, but includes carefully developed plans, sections, and a construction detail demonstrating how materials and building components c

Your professional architecture portfolio must be specific to each job description. Sometimes you will need to change the cover for every application, depending on the position or the character of the office. However, there are several important things that you should always have prepared in your portfolio if you want to secure a strong position in almost any architecture firm. Show that you can solve and execute a complex floor plan. A firm needs to see that you can organize

Applying to a world-leading architecture firm is not the same as sending your portfolio to an ordinary office. These are large international organizations with their own culture, visual language, working methods and philosophy. Your portfolio therefore needs to communicate much more than: “I am a talented architect.” 1. Understand the Office as a Micro-Culture Every major architecture firm develops its own internal culture. There is a certain way people communicate, present i

Your portfolio has about 20 seconds to make someone want to know more. When you apply for a job in an architecture office, your portfolio is not simply a collection of university projects. It is often the first real test of how professionally you think, communicate and present yourself as a future architect. Architecture studios receive large numbers of applications. Before anyone reads every paragraph or carefully studies every drawing, they usually scan. Very quickly they a

If you are a high school student preparing to study architecture, one of the most important questions you can ask is, What do architecture schools look for in a portfolio? Many students assume the answer is simple. They think architecture schools want perfect building drawings, advanced computer renderings, professional floor plans and projects that already look like they were produced by an architecture student. In reality, a strong architecture portfolio for university admi

If you are a high school student thinking about studying architecture, one of the questions you may eventually ask is, When should I start my architecture portfolio? Many students imagine that portfolio preparation begins a few months before university applications, when they suddenly gather school drawings, photographs and anything creative they have made and try to turn it into a professional looking document. That approach can produce a portfolio, but it often misses the m

If you are a high school student interested in architecture, learning to sketch can feel like one of the first real steps toward becoming an architect. You may look at expressive architectural drawings online and think that you need exceptional artistic talent before you can even begin. You may worry that your lines are too uncertain, your perspective is inaccurate or your people look strange. None of that should stop you. Architectural sketching is not about becoming a perfe

If you are a high school student thinking about studying architecture, your portfolio may feel like the most mysterious part of the application. You may wonder whether you need architectural drawings, whether you should already know how to design buildings, whether universities expect perfect perspective sketches, or whether your portfolio should look like the work of an architecture student. The answer is much more exciting than that. A strong architecture portfolio for high

If you are in high school and find yourself constantly looking at buildings, sketching strange spaces, noticing how light enters a room, wondering why cities feel the way they do or imagining how places could be different, you may already be standing at the beginning of architecture. Becoming an architect does not start on the first day of university. It begins much earlier, when you start developing a certain way of seeing the world. Architecture is a profession, but before