We are proud to be supporting Owen through his Architectural Apprenticeship at South Bank University, London. As part of National Apprenticeship Week 2021, we asked Owen to give us an account of his last year, a sterling effort given the challenging circumstances.
It seems strange that only a year ago I was posting for National Apprenticeship Week under very different circumstances. The past year, has at times, seemed to crawl along but on reflection the time has almost evaporated! For someone who is very much learning their trade, there are immediately obvious challenges - not knowing what to do at times, wondering if I’m doing enough/the right things, wondering how I will get in all my required training hours. However, I count myself as extremely lucky to have been able to get a solid chunk of time under my belt before having to work from home. I can’t imagine trying to learn Revit from scratch, without any of my wonderfully understanding colleagues on hand. The same is true of university, while things like model making remotely present their own challenges, with no design studio this year, remote lectures have been fairly straightforward. More importantly I’ve got a great group of friends which afford me a support bubble. I really feel for the 2020 cohort that have literally never stepped on campus, never met their peers and have had to prepare for design crits 100% remotely. For me, the people around me (virtually) at university have been nothing short of essential to my sanity and my academic survival.
It wasn’t until I started writing this blog post, that I realised it might stir up some emotion in me but reflecting on the last year seems to have done just that. I’ve had an extremely easy ride compared to millions of others, I’ve even enjoyed swathes of this strange year but I think (like most), I now realise that it has fatigued me significantly mentally. With vaccines now being rolled out, I look forward to next year’s National Apprenticeship Week post with cautious but relentless optimism, we will get there. Hopefully I’ve not strayed too far off topic and if I’ve learnt anything in the past year, it’s that people around us are often what gives us our strength. With this in mind I would like to urge you to continue to stay safe, look after yourself and others.
Owen Faunt, gcp Chartered Architects
He has produced some fantastic work, below are some of the highlights, keep up the amazing work Owen!
