Wow! already halfway done with the IIP? Time flies! This week I had a bit of a crazy adventure-I hiked the Wicklow Way! The Wicklow Way is an 81 mile hiking trail in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland. It is considered one of the most beautiful long distance hikes in Ireland and sits just southwest of Dublin city. A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to do more hiking in Ireland and started researching nearby hikes. When I discovered the Wicklow Way, I was surprised by how beautiful and accessible it was from Dublin. I got up early Saturday morning and took a 20-minute bus to stock up at Aldi and another 10 minutes to Marley Park, where the trail starts. The park was preparing a huge stage for Noah Kahan and 50 Cent’s upcoming concerts so after maneuvering through the construction and walking for about 1.5 hours through neighborhoods up the mountain, I reached the real woods. From there I encountered some of the most beautiful Irish landscapes and views I have ever seen. Besides the beauty of the landscape, I got to know several hikers and Irish folk on the trails and in my hostels. I even finished off my Irish hike with a trad sesh in a little town near Glendalough! I hiked over 40,000 mostly vertical steps a day, so it wasn’t easy… but boy was it worth it!
Here are a few pictures from my hike:
My camera died after day 1……
There’s a good re-cap for ya! On to the work stuff…
One transferable soft skill I have learned while being here is being more open both socially and personally. While I’ve always been pretty in tune with my people skills, I’ve always done this through my life perspectives and personal limits. This has meant that through my fears or biases I’ve limited my views and experiences. My hiking trip this weekend was my first solo hike of any great distance, and it made me try and feel many new types of uncomfortableness. I think that as humans we can get too comfortable in the lenses we see the world through, so even when you think you are opening yourself up culturally or otherwise, you really aren’t 100%. By stepping into this discomfort and trying new things, I think this lens gets kicked off, and this is how we become more culturally fluent and worldly when traveling. So, by pushing myself out of my comfort zone, I got to meet and know many international people in a new context. There was certainly a deeper interpersonal understanding of them and their cultures through this.
I have gained and improved many hard skills at my internship so far this summer. I have spent a lot of time in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign editing renderings to send to clients. Not only have I learned more about the tools in the program, but I have also started to understand scale and perspective. When I add people or boats to a rendering, it’s important that they match the perspective the view is from. For example, if you edit a person in from a bird’s-eye view, you would really only see their head and possibly a bit of their body. Additionally, the object has to be the correct size based on where they sit in an image and the building’s scale within the image.
I’ve gained modeling skills in Revit, Enscape, and SketchUp. These skills will transfer well to my next studio and eventually internship, as these softwares are widely used in the industry. I have gained a better understanding of client and construction relationships and documents. In Ireland, architecture firms work more closely with construction firms throughout the building process. Architecture firms help mediate construction companies’s dealings with clients as well as ensure that the building is built correctly through site visits and documentation. My understanding of Ireland’s architecture industry is a global competency that has helped me better navigate the workplace. I now understand and engage in conversations about a project from the business, construction, and client relation standpoints. I hope to use this new depth of understanding to add realism to my studio projects and when networking with architects in the States.