I have designed an architectural degree project. But am I able to write a thesis?

I am a student of Cultural Heritage Studies at CEU. And an architect. And that is not an easy situation as during my architecture studies I didn’t  have to hand in a thesis. Never. Sometimes we had to write some papers – around 1000 words but once in a year – and that was all. But now we have to hand in a dozen of essays in only three months. So it is very challenging to me to write all the time. I have to form my thoughts in words! And in one and a half year I have to hand in my Thesis! With big T. But you know what? Writing doesn't seem extremely different from designing a building. 

Let’s talk about the degree project in architecture faculty. I have to choose the function and the site. It is not an easy decision at most of the cases, but let’s start from here. I have a lot of visions, thoughts in my head, some clear details, some misty spaces, some words, some imaginations like people sitting and having chat on blue waving banks. It’s all mixed up.  

I search for some examples, some ideas: about the function, about the type of house I imagined, about materials, patterns. I check what’s happening in the area of the site. I do some researches about the city, about the district: the buildings’ functions, the buildings’ heights, types, styles, history, and so on...  

And I am walking on the streets like a ghost with a whole lot of information in my head. Some parts of my thoughts are more clear by that time, some parts even more misty, uncertain, but still there is some happiness around everything. Big plans, the nice wonderings…  

But it's good to clear that mist a little bit so as to be able to start. So I draw a mindmap. Or a list of thoughts. Or something just about the ideas. Then I draw how the functions should connect each other. Then I draw more and more space-like things. Getting closer and closer to form a building. It takes weeks, months. It becomes more and more clear what are the most important ideas, what is the thing I want to communicate. There are a lot of ideas, shiny attractive ones that are just misleading. Some of them overcomplicate the house, so I have to kick them out. Some of them are easy ways, but if I follow them I have to give up the whole concept.  

For me the most difficult issue is to take these decisions. I have to choose my way all the time. Sometimes some things just don’t work so I have to start again from the last decision. So I think, I draw and draw and think and wrap the paper and throw it away and think again and draw..., so it all starts from the beginning. During that time there are at least four breakdowns, one including crying, and two ’I am such a genius! ’ and one ’I am the best architect in the word! ’ moments.  

Does it seem familiar for those who have already written a thesis? I guess some parts yes. I have never written a thesis yet, - that will hopefully change in one and a half years, - but I have the similar feeling now at the very beginning of a thesis process then I had at the beginning of my degree project in Architecture Faculty. I have plenty of thoughts circling around my head: big topics, fields of interest. Some of them I am really in love with, I really want to push them to be a part of my thesis, but I feel that they might be misleading and they would extend the thesis to grow bigger and bigger and bigger until it would burst like a balloon and would say nothing just a bunch of thoughts would lie everywhere.  

Honestly I have never felt it such a sharp issue to narrow down the ideas and focus on the exact thing that I want to tell. Although I am just realizing that I constantly had to do it when I was designing a building... 

It's true that I still can't write. I don't know the academic language. I can't form my thoughts in a logical structure. I don't even know what kind of genre is an essay or a thesis. But I have some time to learn. And I have years of experience in designing buildings. This experience, these skills might help me. And anyway, at the beginning I didn't know how to design a building but I was able to learn it. It means that there is a glimmer of hope that I can learn how write a thesis as well. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it...