Bullchaos

by Sherard Harrington

I’m coining a new term that describes the academic model of architectural programs. Let’s call it bullchaos.

Bullchaos is a course load that inhumanely does not expect you to sleep, cook meals, or enjoy any part of society while demanding you to design a space to be inhabited by humanity.

Bullchaos is what happens when you can spend 8 hours on 3 different detailed drawings (each equipped with its own detailed layover diagram, equalling 6 drawings in total) and have your teacher dislike all of them, without offering any constructive criticism.

Bullchaos is when you’ve been going to a school for 9 months and the tech guy you see every other week decides that now, as you sit down on a Sunday (because you’re at school on a Sunday) at the computer lab, which computers have scanners and which ones have rendering software.

Bullchaos is the expectation of proficiency in 4 different softwares, wholesale costing more than your already exorbitant rent—each—in order to work an entry-level position at a firm.

Bullchaos is not having time to apply to said firms.

Bullchaos is hauling a plastic bin with you everywhere you go because your school won’t offer you your own workspace.

Bullchaos is all art stores closing at 6pm on the weekends.

Bullchaos is that stuff that has been metaphorically (because, as another form of bullchaos, architects despise language as communication and rue the concept of hyperbole) heaped onto my front lawn, has been splattered all over the walls—I’ve got some on my shoe—this bullchaos is EVERYWHERE. Bullchaos! This shit is bullchaos!