Architecture is a profession for the elegant, scientific and artistic ones. It requires more attributes to be successful that most other professions. At the same time, it is one of the most rewarding professions. As an architect, you get the chance to build something that would likely outlive you and endure the test of time.
Learning architecture is a long process and hence requires absolute certainty from your side that it is what you want to do. If you want to be a professional architect designing skyscrapers, mansions or exotic buildings, you have to go through academic degrees, Masters and possible even Doctorates. Before exhausting all your resources, both financial and temporal, into formal education, you may want to assess if it is worth taking the effort.
To help you decide that, we want to let you know a few resources and tools that you can utilize to learn about basic architecture. Once you finish those resources, you would have a better idea of how much you want to take it forward.
Harvard’s architecture online course
The Harvard Graduate School of Design has started an online course on basic architecture that gives you an idea of how to perceive and assess different kinds of architecture, at both a cultural and technical level. Harvard’s online course is in line with the recent trend of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) which has gathered momentum. It is free of cost.
UNSW online course
The University of New South Wales (UNSW) offers an online course in Coursera that is focused on modern cities. The key focus of the course is to address the challenge of making the cities of the future livable, sustainable and environment-friendly despite growing worries of population explosion. It is free of cost.
International Career Institute (ICI)
The ICI here in the United Kingdom provides a 6 month short-term course on interior design and decoration, for those of you who are keen on pursuing that field. While this is not free, it is reasonably priced at EUR 910. Furthermore, that amount can be paid in minute monthly installments. The course is designed in such a way as to adapt to the pace of each individual student.
These are our favorites from amongst the thousands of online resources available. We recommend you to check you EdX and Coursera, which are the primary websites for MOOCs. YouTube has also some great short clipped tutorials.