THE ARCHIVE

There is a great deal of hype surrounding architecture students at Cornell and their purported all-nighters in Rand Hall – the so-called “light house” at the end of East Avenue. Those with friends in the college have no doubt been subjected to architects’ dramatic stories of sleepless nights; others need only look through the gapping windows of our studio building to see the presence of some diligent architectural souls working on their project at nearly any hour of any day. As a result, architecture students at Cornell have garnered a reputation for a maniacal work ethic and perpetual sleep-deprivation.

(image: cornell alumni news 1911)

It is impossible to refute this stereotype entirely, and foolish to believe it. For one thing, architecture students are spectacularly capable in the art of complaint and exaggeration, and these qualities lend themselves to extreme storytelling. There is also a tendency among architecture students to procrastinate in studio, making minor projects into supreme endeavors. Even so, there is kernel of truth in many of their stories: Architectural design is a time-consuming process and the production of drawings and models, in particular, can stretch long into the night.

In five years, I have experienced my fair share of all-nighters under the beaming lights of Rand Hall and, if nothing else, I have acquired some empirical wisdom on the matter. If you intend to forego sleep in favor of work, you ought to know how to do it right. Here, I present you with a ten step guide to pulling all-nighters in Rand Hall (personally tested as of Sunday night):

1. Determine your plan of attack early in the day. Once resigned to the fact that you will be staying up all night, you can relax a little bit.  There will be plenty of time to do your work later in the night.
2. Dinner is a key meal for late-night production. If you are already working in Rand, consider placing an order at Louie’s Lunch (607.257.4649) and walking across Fall Creek to pick it up. A double bacon cheeseburger, Cajun fries, and large chocolate milkshake will give you the energy you need for a great night. Don’t order Jimmy Johns; they will give you food poisoning (seriously, this happened to six of us last week. Damn them and their toxic mayonnaise).
3. Work as diligently as possible before Brian closes down the Rand shop.
4. At 11:50pm, stop working, collect your friends from Rand, and dash to the Green Dragon Café in the basement of Sibley Hall before it closes at midnight. The line will be full of likeminded individuals and the baristas will express frustration that architects wait until the last second every night to get their coffee. Kindly ignore their complaints, recognizing that this is your last chance for food and caffeine before morning.
5. Throughout the night, walk down the hallway periodically to the water fountain (the “hydration station”) for a drink. This form of procrastination mimics the smoking breaks customary among architects in years past, but won’t kill you.
6. Lose track of time listening to repetitive songs on Pandora Radio. It is dark and quiet outside, and the smell in the computer lab has intensified to a mind-numbing level. Try to enjoy the serenity of this dismal situation.
7. Do everything in your power not to nap between the hours of 2:00am and 6:00am. If you doze off, avoid resting your head on the keyboard of your computer as that will likely destroy any file you were previously working on.
8. The TCAT buses and delivery trucks will start rumbling around 4:00am and Joe, the janitor, will arrive shortly after 5:00. Pay close attention to these developments and begin to wrap up your work. Although purists believe that you should not sleep or return home at all during an “all-nighter,” it is ill-advised. Personal hygiene and mental health benefit enormously from a quick trip home.
9. Say “good morning” or “good night” to Joe and quickly gather your things to leave. Do everything in your power to avoid seeing the sun rise during your brief walk home.
10. Back in your room, take a 30 minute nap but remember to use extreme caution when setting alarms. This nap will simulate a night of sleep if timed correctly during sunrise (so that you fall asleep in the dark and wake in the light of a “new day”). Once awake, you should perform your normal morning ritual and return to Rand as promptly as possible. There is probably more work to be done, and you don’t want to lose your seat in the computer lab.

This entry was posted on March 2, 2010 at 00:07 and is filed under Architecture, Cornell . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.