INRTU Students and Graduates Spoke About Internships in Russia, Korea and Armenia at the Celebration of the Day of Architecture

Undergraduates and graduates of INRTU spoke at the meeting "How I spent my summer". They told about their training, trips to foreign forums and internships. The event held on October 2 at the Architect’s House opened the Week of Architecture in Irkutsk.

The International Architecture Day is celebrated on the first Monday of October. Therefore, the Young Architects Club (YAC) traditionally hosts the Week of Architecture. This series of thematic events combines master classes, lectures, excursions, and creative meetings. The Architect's House-based festive week opened on October 2 with a meeting at which eight INRTU students shared their impressions of their summer training.

As an exchange student, Olga Kuklina spent a semester at Gangwon National University near Seoul. She highlights that due to the experience in Russia, most of the university-taught disciplines, such as interior design and media, weren't new to her. The student had a special interest in painting and modeling lessons. Unlike Russia's natural drawing-tradition, it appeared more common for Korean teachers to encourage students to imagine things out of their heads. Koreans are also increasingly using 3D printing for models.

During her training the student took full advantage of every opportunity to get to know the palace and temple architecture of Seoul and Busan. The skills she gained are sure to contribute to her thesis work. Olga's graduation project is focused on the connection between historical and modern architecture of Irkutsk.

The student found out about the internship at the INRTU International Affairs department. Except for accommodation, meals and airfare, the host party provided Olga Kuklina with free training. If you succeed in the competition, and further on will provide the trip reporting documents, and take an active part in the INRTU extracurricular life, you can get up to 60 thousand rubles covered by the University.

Valentina Sinchurina finished INRTU with a bachelor's degree. She had her student internship in Europe, as well as in Totan Kuzembaev's bureau (Moscow), participated in Zimnik, created art objects at the Archbukhta festival and won some professional competitions. She implemented a number of projects together with the INRTU Rebro team. The community, which appeared on ArchBukhta about five years ago, ended up as an architectural studio of the same name.

Last summer Valentina and another Rebro member Alina Sheveleva visited the Meeting of design students. The forum is held annually in different locations. This time Gyumri, Armenia's cultural capital and its second largest city, hosted the workshop. Being severely damaged by an earthquake more than 30 years ago, Gyumri's culture has been boosting over the last four years. Therefore, the workshop touched upon the issues of how people can handle the consequences of a disaster by transforming their surroundings on their own.

Valentina Sinchurina joined a team that made books in self-published style. When designing one of the books, she would approach passers-by, trace the outline of their palms and learn exciting facts about their lives. The material was later drawn up on album pages. Alina Sheveleva's team improved yards outside the center of Gyumri. Together with local residents, volunteers got engaged in collecting garbage, building summerhouses, sports and children's playgrounds.

Future urban planner Ekaterina Pozdnyakova took her summer internship at the International Center for Socio-Economic Research "Leontyevsky Center" based in St. Petersburg. Two years ago INRTU and the Center signed a cooperation agreement. Representatives of the University and Leontyevsky Center collaborate in the field of urban planning and transport planning.

One of the Center’s projects focuses on the development strategy of the Leningrad Region-located Vyborg district until 2035. On the basis of this document the Irkutsk trainee was assigned to prepare presentation materials. Ekaterina visited Vyborg to get better prospect on her work. Now that the electronic version of the presentation is ready, it is scheduled to be published as a book.

The Architecture Week will continued on Thursday, Ocober 5, with a collage master class. The tutorial was conducted by INRTU graduate and Kvadrat School teacher Nikita Oreshkin.

The International Architecture Day events was highlighted by the festive evening. on October 6 and October 7.

Photo by Maria Puzyreva