SUBJECT

This is the essential guide for the students

of interior design

Rajesh Prabtani
Interior Design

BrainZ Institute of Design

Design juries can be terrifying. It doesn’t really matter if you are an architect or a student
the experience can be soul destroying. Get it wrong and you can lose the job or fail. Get
it right and you live in order to fight another day. Standing in front of a group of critics
can determine if you get the job; or the prize; or if you are at architecture school, a pass
in design studio. It’s much harder to present if you haven’t done enough work or you
don’t really believe in the project. But speaking well in public and knowing the essential
lessons of presenting a design can be the difference between passing or failing.

I have sat in on numerous design and award juries. The awards or the commissions
don’t normally go to the architects who talk too long, speak in jargon, or bore the jury
with an explanation of the stair and or toilet details. So here are a few essentials that
will help calm the nerves and get you through if you are not used to public s peaking or
always find presenting to a jury harrowing.

Timing

When you are presenting to a jury. Get the timing right. Don’t run over time or drone on.
Architects are notoriously bad at timing there talks. As a student I went to the old AIA
International Lecture series. All I remember is Hans Hollein talking for around 3 hours
straight. Aldo Van Eyck was the same. Will Alsop did it to us as well. Each time it happens
to me it is excruciating. It doesn’t really matter how good the work was an overly long
talk will kill any audience interest or curiosity. But, at least Will Alsop was kinda
interesting because he was long winded as well as being drunk. But I still would have
given him an E for going over time.

A picture says a thousand words

If you are smart, or English is your second language you don’t have to say a lot. The more
diagrams, images or other representations you have to present the less you have to
say. The less visual material you have on the wall the more you have to explain what is
not there. There is nothing worse for a jury than seeing an under designed scheme that
is then talked up, explained and elaborated in words.

In presenting to a jury architects need to remember to right balance between about

talking and what is on the wall or on the digital files. Architects are visual and jury
members like to look at images. I tend to think it is better to have more visual material
than text on your drawings or images. There is nothing worse than having a few
thousand words of detailed and so called explanatory text on architectural
presentation pdfs. A short summary of the concect is good. Like an abstarct it should be
no more than 300 words or so. The rest should be diagrams including, charts, graphs,
flow charts and conceptual diagrams explaining the concept. Minimal text is good. As
well as two and three dimensional views that explain the design.

In short there should be enough visual material on the wall to make your life easy
explaining it. You wont always be there to explain you work. This is particularly the case
for competitions and when a jury member or critic reviews the project later. So the

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layout and the visual argument of the design with any supporting diagrams is very
important. This is why clear and communicative graphic skills are important.

Just cutting and pasting the renders out of the virtual world into photoshop and then
sending them straight to the printer doesn’t really work. Slapping together a layout
doesn’t really work. Keeping it in the computer up until the last minute doesn’t really
work. Over-talking or over-texting the project doesn’t work.Filling your drawings with
slabs of text doesn’t really work.

As a presenter of a design the aim is to lead the juror’s and critic’s eyes to the drawings.
The aim of what you say is to get them to understand the visual argument and, in the
minds, to inhabit the space. What you say to a jury in words must be linked to the images.

Don’t avoid talking about the concept

Some architects find it difficult to talk in conceptual or theoretical terms. This may be in
apart training and it is usually because for some architects it is easier not to talk about
history, aesthetics, compositional processes, form, critical theory or the politics of
urbanism. But this is exactly the sort of thing a jury wants to hear.

Bad presenters or architects, or students, who have not got a great content on the wall
talk a lot about the other stuff. Like, what they had for breakfast. How their semester
shaped up in terms of blow by blow and sequential description of how the design
happened. Usually the easiest way to do this is to talk about everything that doesn’t
matter. There is nothing worse than hearing a long winded talk about the pragmatics of
project. Siting, briefing, sustainable technologies, construction and materiality, client
and user preferences can all too easily dominate any presentation. A great design is not
simply a response to these factors; nor should it sound like it.

Most jury members and critics are architects who know a lot about that kind of stuff.
Good architects have mostly spent their life trying to escape from the contingencies of
pragmatic design. Mostly they are there because they have an interest in the strategic
issues, problems and broader views not the details. Jurors and critics want to hear and
talk about the big ideas. For a jury member going to an awards presentation is a bit like
going to one of those TED talk things. As a jury member you want and expect to hear
about life the universe and everything in relation in a much focused way. Design Jurors
and critics like to debate ideas in relation to the design. Give them what they want and
don’t avoid talking about the conceptual apparatus and how it has shaped the building.

Of course, if you just talk about life the universe and everything and not the project
design then you should be doing philosophy.

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Structure

Guide the juror’s eyes to the design. The way you structure the presentation should
reflect this. Avoid the “this is what I had for dinner” or the “passage through life”
syndromes. Get to the point. The first thing a jury wants to here is about are ideas. This
will give them the context from which their eyes will begin to apprehend and understand
the design and inhabit the building in their imaginations.

Do it as an elevator pitch. In three or four sentences you should be able to say what the
project is about. What is it’s overriding concern or concept? The sooner the jury is
familiar with this the more they will feel comfortable with looking at the design. Don’t
leave the concept to the last minute. The best way to present to a jury is as follows. The
important thing is to guide the jury to the design and the images which describe it.

You also need to lead the jurors thought the building. You can do this by describing how
they enter the building, how they circulate thought it and what qualities of light or spatial
qualities it has once they are inside or moving through it. The point is that you need to
guide, not unlike a tour guide, the jury members or critics through your design.

Introduce yourself and the concept

Quickly describe 3 or 4 ways that the concept has shaped the design of the building.

Lead the jurors through the design quickly discuss: Siting, main entrances, circulation
and spatial qualities of different spaces.

Summarise what the design contributes to design knowledge and what you would do to
evolve the design further.

And then you can be ready questions. Of course you in the above scenario there are
whole lot of things you have not spoken about. Like materials or what or how its
constructed or where the toilets or parking are. Some jurors like to ask these questions
and by not mentioning them and yet being prepared for them. You will end up sounding
knowledgable and thoughtful. Nevertheless, the main aim in the question period is to
get a discussion going about the design, its associated concepts and what it says about
the designers attitudes towards the particular type of architectural or urban problem
the design encapsulates.

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Public Speaking

Don’t speak as if you are channeling a bad power point slide. A badly formatted template
with crap images and too much detail on each slide. Keeping it simple is best.

I once saw the director of an architectural firm destroy his firm’s chances of getting a
$150M project by the ineptitude of his presentation. After 10 minutes everyone in the
audience felt the same. After 10 more minutes I wanted to stab myself in the eye with a
biro. The problem was that the presentation went on for another hour. It was scheduled
to be only 35 minutes. The firm did not get the job and the primary topic of conversation
in my email inbox, by other attendees, the next day was how bad it was. I just hope
someone told him.

All the rules of public speaking apply. Don’t forget to wear your bow tie or best shoes.
Get a good nights sleep before hand and rehearse, rehearse and rehearse. Practice in
front of your grandmother or your non-architectural friend’s. See if they get it. After all
it could mean the difference between getting the architectural commission or doing the
Uber thing: Who wants to be an Uber driver after seven years of study?

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