Architectural Conservation MSc postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Last autumn a contractor spent two days re-pointing the gable wall of the converted church hall where I supervise a café. I watched him rake out hard grey cement that an earlier repair had pressed into the joints, and noticed that the sandstone either side was crumbling while the mortar stood proud and intact. When I asked him about it, he explained that the cement was harder and less permeable than the stone, so moisture had been leaving through the masonry instead of the joints. He was replacing it with a lime mortar. That conversation gave a name to something I had half understood from my degree: repairs carry their own assumptions, and those assumptions can damage the building they were meant to protect. I want to study architectural conservation so that I can learn to judge such decisions properly rather than recognise them after the event.

My degree in History of Art and Architecture gave me a grounding in reading buildings as evidence. A second-year course on Scottish and northern English vernacular building introduced me to the idea that materials record regional economies, and I became interested in how ordinary commercial buildings have been treated compared with churches and country houses. For my dissertation I studied a 1930s cooperative store in my home town, now divided between a charity shop and a phone repair business. Working from the local archive's planning files, trade directories and a set of photographs lent by a retired staff member, I traced four phases of alteration to the shopfront. The most rewarding moment came when I matched a strip of terrazzo visible beneath a doormat to the original entrance shown in a 1950s photograph, which suggested more of the floor survived under later vinyl than the listing description implied. I was careful to present this as a hypothesis, since I could not lift anything to check. My supervisor encouraged me to think about significance as something argued, not simply assigned, and reading the Burra Charter alongside John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture helped me see how far thinking has moved from Ruskin's hostility to restoration towards a more structured weighing of values.

I recognise the limits of my preparation. I have no professional site experience, and my understanding of building pathology comes from reading and from conversations like the one on the gable wall. I have tried to build practical habits where I can. I keep a sketchbook of measured drawings of doorways and window details on my walks, which has made me slower and more accurate in noticing how joinery is put together. I have also worked through introductory guidance from Historic Environment Scotland on lime mortars and traditional windows, which gave me vocabulary I lacked.

My job has taught me things I did not expect to use. As café supervisor I manage rotas for five staff, handle stock ordering and deal with the building's committee when something needs fixing. When the hall's trustees discussed replacing the original timber doors with aluminium ones for insulation, I put together a short note for them comparing draught-proofing options I had found, alongside costs from two local joiners. The trustees kept the doors. It was a small decision, but it showed me that conservation often depends on presenting choices clearly to people with limited budgets and competing priorities.

Outside work I volunteer with a monthly litter crew on our stretch of canal towpath, where the locks, bridges and warehouses have prompted many of my questions about industrial heritage and reuse.

I am drawn to postgraduate study because I want the technical understanding of materials and the grounding in policy that my degree only touched on. I would bring careful archival research, patient observation and experience of working with people who look after old buildings day to day, and I hope to develop these into the judgement needed to care for buildings like the ones I have spent years looking at.