Architecture Personal Statement Example 23

When visiting Sao Paulo I saw many spectacular buildings but the MASP building left me breathless! Having learned about designs, buildings and structures on the technical course I was amazed to see only four pillars and two beams supporting such an imposing building; the sensation of walking under the building with no columns was indescribable, interested me in my future architectural work making people feel what I felt. Some twentieth century architects like Oscar Niemeyer inspired me with their astonishing ability to think outside the box and make buildings no one had ever seen before.

At an early age I had the choice of going to ordinary secondary school like everyone else or an integral college combining secondary and technical material. As I see challenges as opportunities for self-improvement I chose the harder way, took the admission exam, and joined that year's most competitive course, the building technician course, obtaining the city's third highest grade. As a young teenager at the beginning of the course, I did not know how much I was going to grow as a student, person and professional. The experience of studying within one of the country's most reputable federal institutes convinced me of my potential and sharpened my curiosity. What more was there to learn and do in higher education? Throughout the course I saw the environmental consequences of construction and started worrying about what we would leave future generations. How could we combine creativity, technology, and science so that buildings performed better and polluted less?

I started my professional life at the same institute as a volunteer in researches alongside practising architects, engineers, and teachers involved with extension projects such as low-cost houses, accessibility in public institutes, and efficiency and quality in buildings; with the development of bibliographical research on strategies for climate adequacy to meet the national plan of energy efficiency, the main goal of which is to reduce the country's total energy consumption by 10% by 2030, this research leading to the following point: there are so many sustainable practices for construction but they are mainly for new buildings so what can we find for buildings already built and in use? Such a quest resulted in my final work at the end of the course, aiming to study the procedures for applying a living roof to an existing building. Afterwards my good performance got me invited to work temporarily on building projects with some of the teachers supporting and making the technical part of the work outside the institute, such as buildings measurers, floor plans and elevations. Eventually I started getting paid by the institute for the researches and by the teachers for the projects.

I completed the building technician course with high grades in the design and architectural subjects and was taught during the course to take the lead in any situation by communicating and organising myself and others. Knowledge gained on this course led to a few months' apprenticeship at a respectable international construction company with the chance to practise what I learnt in theory and develop multitasking and quick problem-solving. Since the apprenticeship, every company I have been working with has trusted me with responsibilities and promotions.

My goal is to be an architect, not an ordinary one (could have stayed in Brazil for that) but a great one after studying in a reputable university, RIBA-accredited, which makes your course my next step. Thank you.