It’s a wintry Friday afternoon, and Danielle Mullendore, now a senior in FAA, is packing a suitcase. “The essentials,” Mullendore explains: a fresh pair of clothes, toothpaste and a few snacks. But it’s not a weekend trip to Chicago or a visit to an old friend.

Instead, she’s visiting the architecture studio. All weekend.

Final reviews are fast approaching, and Mullendore’s extended stay at the studio has one goal: meet her deadline.

“I’m probably one of the more extreme cases, but that project I finished early and that was good for me,” Mullendore said.

The design studio, the epicenter in the life of an architecture student, is a living, breathing, disheveled beast that has the ability to chew undisciplined students up and spit them out.

The architecture curriculum consists of five (and possibly six) semesters of a design class in the studio that incorporates elements taught in structures, construction technology and architecture history classes in a project-based environment. The first semester of studio begins sophomore year, and it can be a make-or-break point for students pursuing architecture.

“People have breakdowns, I guess,” said Declan McDonnell, senior in FAA. “Out of a table of about eight people first semester sophomore year, I think by the time second semester rolled around maybe four of them dropped out.”

Carl Lewis, assistant professor in Architecture and academic advisor, said that the sophomore year can be a shocking experience for some students, and that’s OK.

“Sometimes people realize that architecture isn’t for them, sometimes they come in with a romantic idea of what architecture is. They don’t understand the development part of all of this and how you just can’t plug in,” Lewis said.

He emphasized that succeeding in architecture and in the studio atmosphere requires students to develop excellent time management and collaborative thinking skills.

“It’s a tough place, but you’re taking all the threads and pulling it into the studio. So the studio is unlike any other type of class that’s offered at the University. It’s not a lab, it’s not a lecture, it’s not a discussion, it’s all of it — all in one studio,” Lewis said.

It can be all of it and more to some students, who will spend every waking — and some sleeping — hours at the design studio, especially come deadline time.

“It becomes everyone’s home away from home,” McDonnell said. “We have microwaves and hot plates, and people sleep under their desks. You could come in at like 4:30 in the morning, and it will look like class is in session, because everyone will be working on their projects.”

Architecture students have 24-hour access to the design studio using their i-cards, and within the studio they have their own workspaces which can function as a desk, dinner table, bed, worst enemy, and beyond, come final reviews.

“People get pretty cracked out; you see the coffee machines going, it smells like coffee in here all the time, a lot of people with their heads down on their desks at some point,” Mullendore said. “There are either people who are really frantic, or there’s people like ‘yeah, well, I’m gonna do whatever I can.’”

The intense environment is conducive to building camaraderie and friendships with peers.

“Most of us, our best friends are in architecture,” Mullendore said. “It’s good and bad. It helps when you have someone to complain to that understands. So I’ve been fortunate, but some of my friends have roommates who aren’t in architecture who come home and complain about homework or an exam, and I’m like ‘I haven’t slept in two days.’”

A collective understanding of the tasks at hand might make architecture students a little short on empathy, but Mullendore said it’s important to interact with the outside world sometimes for sanity purposes.

“You gotta get out, get away from it. Talk about other things sometimes,” Mullendore said. Lewis makes a point of advising architecture students to do the same by getting involved in the campus community, but ultimately your architecture peers are going to be your crutch.

“At the end of the day, we realize that to get through architecture you need a support system, and guess what? We’re each other’s support system,” Lewis said.

The architecture program is consistently considered among the nation’s best, and though many certification programs require master’s degrees in architecture, students like McDonnell think the studio atmosphere prepares them for the next step, and more programs could benefit from such a hands-on curriculum.

“I think a lot of other majors or techniques classes could use this as a model, because this is a much better way of learning, and it comes from your peers as much as your teacher,” McDonnell said.

For Mullendore, that peer learning has been crucial to her growth as an architect, and among the many lessons she’s learned in the studio, one is that she can’t pack a shower in her weekend suitcase.

“Before studio, you would have never caught me in my pajamas in public or, like, unshowered for three days,” Mullendore said. “Now, what the heck … I have become much more comfortable with being just gross.”