"These seem to reflect well to me. Much of the day to day work of an Architect is co-ordinating. Whether that’s with other Consultants, Councils, Contractors, Tradespersons, Craftspeople and the public, or whether its coordinating clients wishes and the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the building such as structure and services. It’s a real team sport so it also helps to be good at managing, both people and your own time, as well as expectations! It helps to be a good campaigner too. For your own ideas and your client’s and for the best result for each project. You need to feel confident campaigning for your project due to the requirement to often present to people in a myriad of settings (public consultation, council meetings and many more), where you may need to persuade people of the benefits of what you’re proposing. Though equally, it’s important to know when to step back and reflect / re-design! "

"What I really enjoy about being an Architect is the variety of projects we, hopefully, get to experience over our professional lifetimes. These can be very short, a few months for an internal fit out say, to in some cases decades long but each one is different. There’s a real sense of achievement when a building you’ve been working on on paper for months (or years!) completes and is there as a physical thing for people to enjoy and experience. Although there is a ‘project lead’ on the majority of projects, another positive to Architecture for me is that it’s a team sport. Architect’s offices (or studios as we tend to call them) tend to be quite informal compared to traditional office environments and I’ve made long term friends in pretty much every office I’ve worked in."

"Following, and prior to, my BA I worked in a bar whilst I tried to find a ‘Part 1 Architectural Assistant’ (the first career step to being an Architect) role. This was quite the task during a recession, & I think out of 100+ applications I managed to gather about 4/5 interviews and 1 job offer. It’s hard for everyone to get on this first rung though & things seem to have improved so please don’t be put off! I then worked for 9 months in my first Part 1 role, disappeared to work in Venice, Italy for 2 months as a British Pavilion Steward for the 2012 Architecture Biennale (which was amazing!) & then came back to London to do a second year of Part I experience with a different practice whilst I applied to universities for my postgraduate study (postgraduate qualification is obligatory if you wish to fully qualify as an architect though there are apprenticeship routes as well as traditional university study).I worked again in a bar part-time during the first year of my postgraduate study before becoming a part-time ‘draftsperson’ for the final year for an Mechanical & Electrical Engineering firm in central London - very helpful experience to me nowadays!Once I qualified from postgraduate I went on to a London practice for a year to work as a Part 2 Architectural Assistant (the level below Architect, pre professional qualification), initially as a temp for a fortnight & then in a permanent role, which gave me some fantastic on-site experience and allowed me to work with, within a great wider office, a small team with of two other people, one qualified Architect & an experienced Interior Designer, who really championed me and transferred to me such a fantastic knowledge base. I couldn’t have asked for better. I then joined my current practice in Leeds where I completed my professional studies whilst working an became a qualified Architect in 2017 and where my brilliant directors and colleagues have continued to help me develop my professional skills as an Archite"

"Perhaps, rather geekily, like most other Architects my hobbies tend to revolve around visiting exhibitions, buildings and cities I’m interested in Architecturally and photographing architectural details (such as brick coursing) which is maybe not your standard interest and which I shamelessly subject my (non-architect) partner to also! I’m also involved with Leeds Modernist Society and the Leeds Civic Trust so tend to be found at various meetings and lectures there too. That said, I’m from a big family, so quite a sociable creature, so I do enjoy a walk in the dales and running with my family too as well as socialising with friends (although the majority of them are Architects so there does tend to be a lot of shop talk!)."

"I spend a lot of my day at my computer responding to emails and queries and distributing or reviewing information going to or coming from the wider project teams. This can be anything from reviewing and commenting on structural drawings to looking for tiling styles and pricing (for example) or anything in between. The rest of my day is usually spent computer drawing or modelling, perhaps with some hand sketching depending on the stage of the project, and compiling documents to help clients and other parties understand our designs. Currently, I am working on a very large, Listed (protected due to its age and Architectural quality), residential house in London which is “live” on site, so once a week/fortnight I will typically be on site meeting with the Contractor Team and other consultants and, at intervals, the Client reviewing progress and working together on the ‘next steps’ to ensure the projects completion, hopefully next year!"

"4 A-Levels in Art, French, English Literature & History BA(hons) Architecture (staring out at UCL and transferring to University of Liverpool)Pg Dip, Postgraduate Diploma in Architecture (London Metropolitan University) ADPPA, Advance Diploma in Professional Practice of Architecture (RIBA North West)"