My first project director made me stand under a full-scale facade mockup during a rainstorm just so I'd stop "visualizing" sleek panels and start seeing water run-off. Imagination always leaves out gravity, wind, and dirt.

You got cut off right at the good part—I’d love to hear where you were going with the university piece. Do you feel school actually helped you train that spatial eye, or did it only really click once you started working with real sites and materials?

So true! Though half the time my "innate" visualization still relies on about twenty messy trace overlays before a space actually makes sense to me.

Really appreciate this—especially your point that spatial visualization isn't just a gift you're born with, but a discipline that gets systematically built over time. Training your brain to accurately predict complex 3D relationships in your head takes years of deliberate practice.