Surviving Collapse…

in wake of recent anxiety.

(1/4) Introduction

Teaching is a familiar gravitational field. 

I am a lifelong student, pulled by teachers, critics, and allies into their gravities. Specifically within the architectural discipline, learning is an impulsive orbit towards not just design, but an inhabitant of found and imagined built environments. Here, the craft of learning is the simultaneous admission of vulnerability, interrogation of existing failures, and the development of representational and communicative legibility. This informs my placement of design, deriving from a continuous self-reflection of identity, position, and background. Architectural instruction takes root in a transformation of selfhood into design stake—a cyclical operation to refine motivations. As applied, design practice is the fine-tuning of learning, positioning, and versed exercise; the expected becoming of which is teaching—a digestion of accountability. 

The classroom is a place of memory, where the experience of learning from the instructor carries further than the course content. In the studio, the instructor’s care for students is just as fundamental to the course knowledge. Productivity is the driving force of a studio, but unproductivity is fundamental to alleviating exhausted capacities (1). In the creative space, especially in architecture, powerful and healthy work emerges from students fueled with a personal stake and sensitive guidance; the impulse to care becomes the greatest influence that an instructor can offer. 

(1) Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (Brooklyn/London: Melville House, 2019). 

I orbit around prospects of teaching and design research, fascinated by any opportunity to program funnels that are equally disciplinarily-stimulating and dopamine-inducing. Within the staging of a collapsed-modernism—intersecting and pressing timelines—architectural representation becomes a carrier of audience intuitions.

(2/4) On Research

Collapse (v.): to fall or shrink together abruptly and completely; to condense

Collapse (n.): a sudden failure; a sudden loss of force, value, or effect

Collapsed (adj.): condensed happenings of failures

Collapsed-Modernism: state of surviving in contradiction

My research stages a collapsed-modernism.

As the term “postmodernism” describes time existing within perceived failures of the machine-living rhetoric—the upheaval of aesthetic tradition—its visage of nostalgic motif exaggerates a more generalist inhibition to return. The Jencks projection of postmodernism depicts a “double-coded” affection between the extrapolation of modernist scripture and the pluralist acknowledgement of local narrative (2). Evidently in his assertions in the “death of modernism,” he situates the architect’s hand as masterful, yet absent from labors of maintenance and repair—the failed and outdated inflation of Architecture (3). With an appropriate asterisk—and present, post, and late prefixes aside—the assumption that a modern-ism exists implies a status of architectural intervention responding to a tensioned cultural exclusivity, projecting a desire for control upon a land under perpetual risk. If the label of a modern-ism inspires romance between cultural positions and the built environment, utopian vision returns as a disciplinary response to dystopian alerts. 

(2) Charles Jencks, “Late-Modernism and Post-Modernism,” in Late-Modern Architecture and Other Essays (Rizzoli Books, 1980). Distinction between late-modernism and postmodernism as commitment and repulsion. 

(3) Angel Borrego Cubero, The Competition, (Office for Strategic Spaces, 2013). A documentary following Starchitect culture and the implication of Architecture as an exclusive club within the built environment.

Today, the normative timeline is shaping into an unstable frequency (4). Architecture School’s nature of intersecting with “-ologies” uncovers the multiplicity of dystopias and extinctions; there is no solid ground when the land is defaultly wrinkled and bodied with colonial endeavors (5). Catalyzed by Silicon Valley technological dissemination, data identifies as the evidence of productivity, stratifying “raw” information into formulas, rates, and speeds.

(4) Jack Halberstam, “Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies,” in In A Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Normative time in Halberstam’s context is the privileged construction of time and activity according to bourgeois culture of reproduction, family, longevity, soliciting, and inheritance—heterotopia. A definition of normativity then derives a function of structural modern power that opposes and sustains.

(5) Anna Tsing et al., “Introduction: Haunted Landscapes of the Anthropocene,” in Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts of the Anthropocene (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press, 2017). Extinction is both an end and a trigger to surrounding timescales, impacting land (and its living systems) with absence.

The first modernist interruption, caricatured by Global North industrial influence; then late-modernisms, extrapolating such values to the nth-degree; then post-modernisms, seeking answers from pre-era erasures; and now a collapsed-modernism? This may not mean a sequential phasing for the term “modern-ism,” but a speculation of its survival. Collapse—both as a condensing and a premeditated loss—could liberate “modernism” to carry contradiction. The generic “modernism” upholds an assimilation to neoliberal corporatism; what prefix describes the consequential events to a Jencks’s modern-izer hand? Following traces of consequence, the uncovering of multidimensional modernisms is infinite—an impossible survey, a self-stoking provocation.

Collapsed-modernism, here, is characterized by survivance within failures, or in landscapes beyond failure: coloring someone’s contribution to a collaged condition of precarity. This staging, a non-solution contradiction, loops the “post-” instinct to reject a trend and return to an all-encompassing action to crises. When these solutions live, the impossibility of utopia inspires a dystopic panic, where a solution-rubble landfill thrives with environmental, hierarchical, and tragic disparities (6). Collapse can describe this as two-fold: the distortion and competition of timelines, and the carrier-bag method of its visibility.

(6) Keller Easterling, “Impossible,” in Pedro Gadanho, ed., Utopia/Dystopia: A Paradigm Shift in Art and Architecture (Milan: MAAT/Mousse Publishing, 2017).

The collapse of timelines distorts a default standard of living into uncertainty. Living exists within loops of rejection and return towards a past, searching for methodologies in blighted hope. Crisis benchmarks the cycle, focusing in-and-out of normative time of a competitive attention economy. Competition adopts desperation for the crisis to remain in-tune with its contestants.

The collapse of timelines as failure observes a sudden crash with faint fractures, disrupting normative time from clarity to static. The narrative of failure strips its characters of leading roles, firing the protagonist and meeting an end; however, this end to narrative is not a conclusion, but a transformation into a world with a carrier-bag. As life exists beyond “the end,” Le Guin’s carrier-bag theory collects all material—central, peripheral, mundane—towards a systemic understanding (7). In this construction, events and crises are timestamp intersections with other timelines that overlay a built environment as multi-dimensional. Simultaneously, complexity is abstracted into screenplay directions, forensically diagnosing what happened (e.g., what collided, missed, imposed, resisted, blended). In this exercise of character and action, systemic thinking digests multi-dimensionality into legibility—a tool towards architectural positioning and imaging.

(7) Ursula Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” in Dancing at the Edge of the World (New York: Grove Atlantic Press, 1989). In design language, the carrier bag pushes the narrative-framework into a practice of world-building, evaluating every character, prop, interaction, environment, and such with a non-privileging agenda.

In collection of “-ological” precedents, an exploration of mundane artifacts—of ephemeral knowledge—may emerge an enchantment of collapsed-modernism that distorts normative time and fluxes towards friendly strangers (8). What are the existing modernisms that fall into wrinkles? How can carrier-bag world-building represent such survivance within collapse? 

(8) José Esteban Muñoz, “Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts,” in Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 8:2 (Women & Performance Project, Inc., 1996). Countering the desire for proof in the heterotopic timeline, where rigor rewards positive reception and incentivizes performative over lived work. Ephemera describes a knowledge-base that channels temporality: emergences, traces, shimmers, waxes and wanes.

(3/4) On Pedagogy

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt, of examining what our ideas really mean (feel like) on Sunday mornings at 7 AM, after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth; while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while tasting our new possibilities and strengths” (Audre Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury,” 1985).

Speaking of the postmodernist turning of past into present locality, the studio tradition is a unique space and time that frees and constrains in one gesture. Studio is a collaboration to populate legacy desks with evidence of creative fever. Yet, to generate such evidence, the institution of the studio expects performance art to barter time with objective satisfaction. Foundationally, studio serves as the place of design tuning and positioning, fishing out multiple trajectories of experience to intersect and influence within a defined semester: from discovery of aesthetic, to its application of spatial registration, and to its imaging of futurist impact. 

Ephemera can be utilized—trusted—in synthesis with empirical evidence, centering a design practice around personal stake and strength. Institutions of the North American invention are founded upon the value of imperial information— thoughts on rationality, order, and survey. While work of this valuation has produced significant worlds of understanding, this perspective was informed, performed, and conformed by bodies of the colonial archetype. Outside of this subscription— of rationality, order, survey— what modes of thought were dismissed? What if the information of the “hysterics,” the emotional, and the feminine were to emerge of equal value to the rational, orderly, and masculine? Thinking through ephemera as a grounding of dark-matter opacities, an architectural convention can brave a drawing methodology through sensation, intuition, and irrationality (9).

(9)  Sheree Thomas, “Introduction: Looking for the Invisible,” in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction From the African Diaspora (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2000). Thomas enables the term “dark matter” in describing the gravitational attraction towards a familiar, yet invisible, understanding. Metabolizing the finding-of-words, dark matter is a temporal identity to productively absorb anxieties of not-yet-knowing.

(4/4) On Methodology and Critique

Fine-tune (v.): to adjust precisely so as to bring to the highest level of performance or effectiveness

A foundational studio of design-thinking exercises an interrogation of student attractions, interests, instincts, and motivations, funneling such mysteries into experiments of drawing, modeling, writing, and ultimately designing. This is a teasing-out of student backgrounds, experiences, and identities as the grounding towards a lifelong development in stake and allyship.

Methodology begins with an introduction to subconscious practice, manifesting poetry through evidence derived from automatic practices such as free-writing, instinctive mark-making, and spatial interaction. As a precursor to self-reflection, a student must trust their body’s natural language to make, mark, and spark, which will develop into legible forms, functions, and ideas. Drawing, modeling, writing, and spatial registration requires time, repetition, patience, and adjustment to become craft; there are supplementary engagements to representation that communicate the sensory body in an immediate and intuitive fashion, inspiring multimodal design and research practices. Representational and critical systems research in documentary and film mediums incorporate video and sound sampling, suturing, and layering to build worlds. Architectural tradition is one instrument of understanding the built environment; experimental production of a sensory lens will examine and delineate controllable and uncontrollable parameters within both physical craftsmanship and broader built environments. Together, these practices foreground an investigation into action and consequence, producing a holistic, embodied critique of form, space, and narrative.

The process of design is personal, dedicating time, physical and creative labor, and care towards an external outlet. In a communal studio shared with allied creatives, the space is a ritual of arriving, learning, sharing, creating, changing… and leaving, unlearning, keeping, limiting, plateauing… Work is the evidence of these becomings, supplemented by the conversations and relationships exchanged within and outside the studio. Work is fundamental to design development— a personal development— as the receptor of creative curiosities, director of experiment and craft, and the prompter of conversation and feedback. Work speaks as its receptor and producer, but its role as a prompter requires collaboration between itself and an audience. In the vigor of the studio, the instructors, students, and invited strangers-turned-guests serve as this audience. This collaboration—between work and audience— is performed as critique.

Critique is a reflection of work legibility; not an evaluation of skill.

Critique is a welcoming of ideas, suggestions and advice; not an invitation for discrimination and unsolicited comparison.

Critique is an observation of reactions and reflections; not judgment.

Critique is a source of diverse feedback of confirmation and contradiction; not a place of defense and competition.

Critique may exist in several forms with varying degrees of work and audience. Desk critiques are low-stake and consistently-held throughout the course, aimed to progress work towards clarity and excitement. This collaboration occurs in individual and small group settings, where new ideas and explorations are comfortable topics. Individual conversations would foster familiarity between the student and the instructor, building an understanding of learning styles, creative processes, cultural and colloquial expressions, and pacing expectations. Small group conversations—either as student pairs or groups of three—would facilitate allyship between students, discovering shared project themes, representational methods, working and learning processes, and challenges and resolutions.

Small group critiques outside of the desk setting provides the opportunity for students to check in with one another, catching up with studio happenings and sharing feedback during pivotal points of production. Students would share their works in-progress and goals towards a formal review. In addition to instructor input, the conversation is primarily student-driven, providing supportive and relevant feedback towards the communally-decided goals. 

Formal critiques celebrate the milestones of a project, where all students will prepare their work to its greatest legibility and present at a point of clarity. These critiques would welcome a guest audience to provide feedback pertaining to their experiences, backgrounds, and identities. Leading up to formal critiques, students are encouraged to support each other’s process towards success. During formal critiques, students are expected to exercise respect for the work and the guest audience.

Around Teaching…

Thank you, Nancy Friese, for a transformative course. Find my teaching portfolio here.

What are your values?

Who are you in your biography? Are you your accomplishments? Are you a string of adjectives describing hire-able qualities?

In the Spring of 2023, I wrote a biography of myself at the beginning of the semester, and one at the end. ~ ~ The Difference Is Shocking~ ~

February 2023.

Buildings tell stories of protection, joy, and growth, but they implicitly recite journeys of oppression, injustice, and exploitation. In light of systemic inequities in cityscapes and the urgent action for countering exploitative design and surfacing erased voices, architecture has the power to repair stigmatized relationships and buoy minority cultures. The activist architect embodies compassion and curious intuition as guiding principles; this is Catherine’s ambition in design.

Catherine Wang is a graduate student at RISD pursuing a Masters of Architecture. Previously, she graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022, where she earned her BA in Architecture with a Minor in Environmental Design and Urbanism in Developing Countries— concentration in Latin America. At Berkeley, she founded a NOMAS chapter and led the organization to host design workshops at local high schools, monthly seminars of activist representation, wellness discussions among students and reports to the Dean, and more. Today, Catherine is discovering her role in architecture as activism, desiring ways to expand the definitions of the architect.

As a graduate student, she finds herself at a crossroads. Through an introductory fall experience, she sought courses outside of architecture that surfaced some frustrations with the design practice. As an aspiring activist architect, she has always questioned the utility of the architectural practice as a means to challenge the capacity of the architect’s voice and the unheard implications of their projects; however, she is currently unsure whether architecture would even be an appropriate avenue for these interventions. The conventional practice is additive— building new things, renovating the old into the new, displacing the old with the new— so how can an additive industry be productive and challenging towards systemic inequities where the immediate symptoms of oppression are deeply entrenched in historical and ongoing complexities? Are there ways for architecture to be subtractive, or are there separate modes of practice with a better-fitting infrastructure?

Catherine is seeking experiences that will challenge her perspective of social architectural interventions and their foundations that fostered them. Whether it be architectural or urban design, corporate or grassroot conventions, she is looking for guidance of sensitive architecture— architecture that is unafraid to be political and open to be challenged. Social activists fight for the unheard, oppressed voices-- this service is no different to architects. 

Today, Catherine is eager to find her niche in the design field and apply her development in ways she believes to be productive. She wants to become an activist, an architect, or wherever her intentions lead her– at the end of the day, she will be a responder, a challenger, and a designer.

That was fine, right? Clearly, Catherine here is trying very hard to establish what kind of designer she wants to be, all while catering to what future employers may want to hear. It’s confusing, even a bit misleading as to what really matters.

So… What Matters?

May 2023.

Cath describes herself as an “Aspiring Activist Architect,” and she has been for the past year. But does Cath Wang see herself as an “activist architect” years into the future? Does Cath Wang know what an “activist architect” is? She thought she did… She had certain criticisms of activist architectural precedents, certain opinions of architects who’ve pursued activist design, certain directions as to what kind of architect she doesn’t want to be. Does Cath have a definition of an “activist architect?” No. Has she been speaking out of her ass all this time? Perhaps, to some extent. Is an “activist architect” the accurate term for what she seeks? Not anymore, she thinks.

Activism is something that cannot be expected, designed, controlled, owned, or demanded. Nor are those additional buzzword themes popular in architecture, such as sustainability, community, innovation, etc. A process towards design must be worked for and worked through, and the same goes for the process towards understanding what really matters to the designer. When centering a practice, the practitioner must work their values. It’s funny, because when Cath thought she was an “Aspiring Activist Architect,” she found hypocrisy between her intentions and her outlined career. Through seeking unconventional paths, being told that architecture is not correct (“if you want to change the world, go become a lawyer, a doctor, a legislator…”), assured that the path she’s looking for must be individually forged— Cath has never been more unsure and elated with her future. Cath is happy that she has no idea what she’s doing. 

Cath does take pride in her laundry list of experiences that she’d happily type out with glee. Looking back, these instances seem to be glorious products of work and intellect. But actually, they’ve been earned with tears and compensated by a self-degrading-deprecating lifestyle. But Cath is happy today— happy that her future is finally set in being unknown.

That’s better… for now I guess.

Graduate Statement of Purpose

Below are my Statement of Purpose and Personal History Statement used for graduate admissions, outlining my priorities and ambitions for my architecture journey.

Statement of Purpose:

Buildings tell stories of protection, joy, and growth, but they implicitly recite journeys of oppression, injustice, and exploitation. In light of systemic inequities in cityscapes and the urgent action for countering exploitative design and spotlighting minority culture, architecture has the power to repair stigmatized relationships and buoy minority cultures. The activist architect embodies compassion and curious intuition as guiding principles; this is my ambition in design.

I dedicated my last year of undergraduate studies researching segregation and systemic inequity through urban vegetation. Today, the promotion of urban nature dilutes sustainable development and community revitalization. The installation of high-maintenance vegetated infrastructure measures biophilia with price, insinuating that healthy environments must be owned, controlled, and economically prosperous. As green-washing, building, and gentrification obscure the lens of environmental justice, an urban ecosystem is fundamental to a revolution of green responsibility, a way to disrupt social segregation between controlled and uncontrolled vegetative infrastructure. The urban ecosystem embraces uncontrolled plant growth in the urban city, envisioning symbiotic relationships between humans and nature, further dissolving the elitist perception of green building. This is the emergence of a larger narrative about green responsibility— holding neoliberal green movements’ social and environmental taints accountable. 

My social criticisms extend past my academic ambitions through the founding of NOMAS at Berkeley. Alongside a small team of peers, we accomplished our mission to emphasize minority representation in the architectural curriculum, empower underrepresented youth through design, and provide a safe, supportive, and productive environment for students, faculty, and staff. We hosted a monthly Seminar Series, in which we invited local architects and activists to share their perspectives on minority identity in practice and design, the architect’s responsibility in local communities, and decolonization of the built environment. Insights gained from this series are critical to how students view studio work, inspire purpose and decision-making early in design education. We volunteered at high schools with low college admission rates and dense minority communities, hosting community-based design workshops to introduce architecture as a method of space-changing and advocacy. As a result, we’re currently mentoring a few workshop attendees who are motivated to pursue architecture-related studies; this achievement prepares future designer generations with minority representation, with the goal to eliminate the label “minority.” For the College of Environmental Design, we’ve hosted regular wellness check-in meetings, faculty microaggression conversations, and cultural awareness discussions to supply support and safety— critical issues, trends, and feedback are then reported to the Dean. 

From mixing cement with clay and water beads to joining the Dean’s Zoom link; from watching grass grow from cement to guiding high school juniors through their campus renovation drawings; from drafting my research thesis to sharing stories as minorities in design with NOMA guest speakers; each interaction with my work is a single step towards understanding my place as an activist. As for the next chapter in my personal narrative, I seek to break down the wall between my activist and designer selves and explore the challenges, revelations, and truths that come. 

Personal History Statement:

My architectural education began during my junior year of high school, in which I pursued an architecture associates program at a community college. There, for two years, I nurtured an adolescent design mindset and assuredly committed my creative curiosity towards architecture. I spent my freshman year at Georgia Tech; there, studio work taught me to believe in my creative capabilities, while a year-long graduate workshop reminded me that I could work hard towards my interests, regardless of my identity and lack of experience. Georgia Tech defined my design methodology and prepared me for my transfer as a third-year at UC Berkeley, arming me with the desire to develop my design language and work ethic.

However, at Berkeley, my trajectory for architectural design halted. I was distracted from self-development, instead of focusing on design purpose. I realized there was no point in becoming the best designer without understanding the motivation behind design. Surrounded by courses and students that question and criticize architectural pedagogy and canon, I needed to evaluate my principles and motivations in my design process. During my time at Berkeley, I fought for my priorities in community analysis and social commentary in studio work. I extrapolated my material research work into a thesis on systemic inequity through the built environment. And lastly, I founded a NOMAS chapter, engulfing myself in a flood of persuasive communication, all aimed to: emphasize minority representation in architectural curriculum, empower underrepresented youth through design, and provide a safe, supportive, and productive environment for students. My venture through NOMAS unveiled numerous opportunities beyond the scope of my degree. Each interaction with local professionals, the Dean’s Office, and high school students fueled my desire to practice architecture. 

My past, and ongoing, internships are overseen by small firms. Through hours of drafting, designing, and learning, I concluded the importance of client advocacy. I watched my principals invest extra hours into meetings and drawing iterations, proposing multiple solutions to contractors and developers, all to protect the client. Many of the projects I worked on may not be the most beautiful or innovative. Still, they are incredibly worthy and meaningful to people as owners, tenants, or visitors. Social activists fight for the unheard, oppressed voices-- this service is no different to architects. I am committed to improve my creative development through a graduate studio in this connection between practice and service.

The Community Process— The Berkeley Experience

Below are my reflections on ENV DES 131: Community Processes. This is a collection of equal amounts of excitement and frustration. While I do not have any regrets about my participation in this course, I do have reservations about the course’s priorities compared to mine.

Final Reflection: 

As I read back the semester’s reflections, I was saddened by how the tone of my reflections went from optimistic and excited, to defeated and indifferent. At the beginning of the semester, I remember seeing this class as an opportunity to mature as a mentor and discover ideas that I can incorporate into NOMAS’s high school outreach workshops. I came into the class with more enthusiasm than I had with any other class, and I was willing to do anything to push the program forward for the high school students. However, with a slurry of family emergencies, personal breaks, and unexpected events in this class, I slowly lost hope for the class as an avenue for my goals. In our final Friday meeting, I was thankful to Professor Frick for providing a listening ear for myself and my peers, discussing the issues we’ve seen with the course and the potential solutions for the future. That being said, I was going to use this final reflection to list off my experiences with the course that should’ve been better; instead, I will describe some of the more memorable moments and takeaways that I received.

The greatest blessing of this course is meeting my mentee, Zem Zem. As a freshman, she is incredibly bright, curious, and fearless. Whenever I speak with her, I reflect upon where I was as a freshman and I am humbled to work with her and learn from her. Although architecture and design isn’t her devoted interest, she still gave 100% into the process, even though I believed that the process didn’t serve her back. There were times that she was frustrated with the program, but despite that, she decided to trust the process and myself. After our last meeting on Saturday, she was still very enthusiastic about the greenhouse, and began planning with Yalitza of how they’ll participate in the construction process.

Throughout the course, I was also able to connect with my peers, especially Quincy, Maria, Tiffany, and Hanna. While I heavily worked with Maria because of NOMAS, I was able to have a second shared experience with her. With Quincy, Tiffany, and Hanna, I was able to learn more about them and work harmoniously with them. Without them, I wouldn’t have had the same productivity as I had.

I am also incredibly grateful for Professor Frick. I’ve never had a professor that was as concerned about my well-being than her, from checking-in with my family-related absences to writing a supportive and thankful email for the extra work I’ve put in. Throughout the semester, she has shown her kindness and support for every student in the classroom, and I wish that more Berkeley professors would share the same qualities. 

Against the recommendations from most of my architecture professors, I decided to pursue my graduate studies immediately after Berkeley because there is still so much that I want to develop and learn from myself. My undergraduate experience is very unusual compared to others. I began my college career in the summer before my sophomore year of high school as an avenue to accumulate credits and taste classes of my various interests. In my junior and senior years of high school, I ditched my high school to attend West Valley College full-time. After my high school graduation in 2019, I attended Georgia Tech for one year; throughout Georgia Tech, I took the maximum amount of course credits I was allowed, took a year-long graduate design-research elective, and dual-enrolled online with West Valley to finish my general-education requirements for transfer. Then, in Fall 2020, I transferred to UC Berkeley. And for the past two years at Berkeley, I felt that I’ve learned nothing and everything at the same time. Upon graduation, I was fueled with the most energy and curiosity than ever before, and I had a lot of ambition for graduate school. 

Yes, I knew it is wise to gain work experience before applying, and it is unlikely that I would get in anywhere because of this lack of experience AND my regressed GPA from Berkeley. I had two internships, one full-time in the summer and one part-time during Fall 2021, at two very different and small firms; while I learned a lot and received a lot of design responsibility, that experience was meager compared to 2-3 years of full-time experience. But without those years, I felt that I’d discovered what I wanted to do with my architecture career, and I knew exactly what I wanted to bring to graduate school.

This was the same exact concern that my high school advisors had for me in my sophomore year: my grades weren’t terrific, and it was too early to commit to a college major. But at the end of the day, I know myself best, and through trusting my gut and putting myself through my ambitions, I was able to prove them wrong. When I started NOMAS, many advisors and faculty were concerned that we wouldn’t achieve all our ambitions AND maintain a successful academic experience— but we proved them wrong, and now they applaud, cheer, and claim their support from the beginning. With graduate school, now that I am finally going, I can do the same. 

All that being said, I am happy to close my undergraduate experience with ENV DES 131. Although the class was nowhere near perfect, its intention was enough to commit 15 undergraduate students to an extracurricular course that demanded time, care, and unexpected skill. I am happy to leave the class with my final conversation with Professor Frick and my peers, as it gives me hope that this class will have a lot of potential for growth and improvement, and that future students will have a greater impact on high school students than we did.

Listed below are a series of journal entries that followed my class experience.

January 29th: 

Yesterday’s inaugural session was a great opportunity to get to know everyone– Berkeley and High School students– and get accustomed to the fellowship position for the first time in a while. Throughout the session, I noticed how the high school students began to open up in different ways. During the introductory session conducted by Group 1, our table had one high school student who was quiet at first; being the only high school student at the table, I believe he felt singled out. But after a few minutes of us sharing stories and laughs, he slowly opened up and shared with us his recent projects in school and his career interests. Most of this conversation occurred during the downtime after the Group 3 ‘Community Agreement’ discussion, and I’ve noticed in general that all tables were having natural conversation and banter during this time. It’s interesting how the parts of the session that weren’t planned or designed were one of the most effective.

Quincy and I led the Community Agreement conversation, which also experienced a similar trend of awkwardness-turned-genuine discussion. In the beginning, the discussion felt one-sided, as if we were laying down a set of rules instead of encouraging the idea brainstorm. But the last question about expectations broke the ice and gave some of the high schoolers some confidence. I believed that this expectation question established a tone that UCB students were new and learning from this experience alongside the high school students; although we arrived with prepared material and speaking roles, this question gave the high school students a chance to tell us their expectations and wants out of us. I like the list that we compiled, as it states an overall understanding of mutual respect, learning, and safety.

In the end, concluding with the team-building activity and lunch, I noticed that the student that shared my table during the introduction was smiling, speaking louder, and standing straighter. Over the course of the semester, I look forward to building trust with the students and building a fellowship-friendship relationship that would last (hopefully) further than the project itself.

February 16th: 

I wasn’t able to make it on Friday or Saturday due to a family emergency, but after reading everyone’s reflections, I’m getting an idea of how things went. Saturday sounded pretty rushed, busy, and hectic, but despite this, everyone seemed to stay pretty productive and kept up the interaction with the high school students. Similar to the first session, it seemed that many people connected with each other during those “gray areas,” like walking between the youth center and the site. But overall, everyone wrote about the excitement and the exhaustion, juggling the site analysis work and connection with the students.

Since I wasn’t able to make it, I do have some questions concerning how we can improve for the next session. 

• How can we establish a time management system? Would this require breaking down sections into more bite-size activities? Or allow for the organic conversations to blend with the activities, so there are fewer feelings of time-crunch or pressure?

• How can we think of other creative ways to interact with the students? Some people mentioned that not every student was able to participate. I’m not sure if this was a timing issue or an issue of engagement. I understand what it’s like to feel detached from an activity because of my different learning and communication styles, so is there a way to involve different types of learning/collaboration? Like catering to a student's strength as we get to know them better. 

I look forward to coming back and catching up with all the fun, and seeing the site and work that everyone’s produced!

February 26th: 

After missing a week of action, I was excited but nervous to return. I looked forward to seeing everyone again, but I also knew that students wouldn’t be as familiar or close with me than with others. Reflecting back to the first session, I felt the most comfortable with students during group activities or casual chatting.

However, in terms of my performance that day, I wish that I could’ve done better to engage the high school students. At the start of the day, I had the chance to talk to Lesly with Maria and I was happy to start the day with sharing laughs and facts about one another (and a weird rant on veganism and ethics of meat consumption…). But the trip to and from the architecture firm and the tour itself was not as successful as I’d like. On the ride over, I didn’t sit with a high school student or attempt to make much conversation, even with my peers. The same was with the way back as I kept to myself. I know that I am a timid person, but I know that I can find a part of my personality that is more outgoing, performative, and personable. I could’ve “fake it til I made it,” but at that point I was a bit frustrated.

During the tour, I noticed that students in the back of the room, who couldn’t really see the renderings that Ken was presenting, were bored and took out their phones. At the moment, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want to interrupt; but in retrospect, I should’ve suggested to rotate the crowd around so students in the back can get a better view. Also, Ken was naming some concepts and construction techniques that I was familiar with as an architecture student, but I’m pretty sure that most high school students were lost. Professor Tolbert would ask clarifying questions to explain some elements, but I think I could’ve found spaces in Ken’s presentation to remind him that most people in the audience may have no idea what he’s talking about. When it came to questions, that’s why I asked him about career failures and lessons learned, since those anecdotes would seem more relatable and bring some casual-ness to the conversation. In the future, I think it would be nice to invite professionals to the Youth Center and have a round-table discussion on professional development, entrepreneurship, and such; the environment would be less “professional,” more comfortable and relaxed, and less about learning the accomplishments and goals of the firm. 

On the bright side, I had a lovely conversation with my mentee, Zem Zem. Although our time was cut short during lunch, I was able to learn about her desires with the course and her personal goals throughout high school. She is interested in so many things outside of architecture, and she is motivated to learn as much as she could in all these areas until she resonates with one in particular. We talked about the role of passion in education, careers, and personal development, and we shared some stories of how we got here. In the end, we exchanged phone numbers and looked forward to the next session. Working with Ruby in Communications, we sent out the first email this week recapping Saturday, providing Ken’s email, and some reminders for the next session.

March 5th: 

I was excited for this session since we’ve planned for a day of activities that related and connected with one another. I looked forward to the presentations of other groups and to seeing how the students would interact with the magazines.

In the beginning, after setting up the charrette materials, I made myself engage with the high school students, especially those on their phones and sitting alone at a table. Since I had a lot of “should have” moments last week, I did my best not to let my shyness or fatigue get in the way. I sat down at Nylah’s table and started some awkward small talk. Although uncomfortable for the both of us, Nylah looked up and put her phone down, and responded to my random questions, eventually filling me in on a MOMA field trip she went on this week, and how she was bored and annoyed by some classmates in her group. She seemed to want someone to ask about her week and ask curious questions about those events; as she talked, I could tell that she wanted to share her week’s stories with me and vent some of those feelings. Although our conversation was cut short by the session starting, her body language was more relaxed and ready to participate with the class. Since our sessions are held on Saturdays, we are all coming into the room with long weeks and stories— in future sessions, I’ll try to lend an ear to more students and let them get some thoughts off their chests before we start.

With the charrette, I thought that the event went smoothly overall, and the ideation section gave us some quality time with our mentees, learning about their thought processes and introducing them to some new information they find in magazines. Zem Zem was very eager with her ideas, and the solutions in our collage came naturally to her. We’d come up with ideas and solutions ourselves— writing them onto the boards— then looking for images that correlate to those thoughts. As she flipped through the magazines, she’d have moments of “This is exactly what I was talking about!” or “This looks cool, I haven’t thought of that before… which gives me another idea!” Her process was so fascinating to observe, and I look forward to seeing how she’d take this curious mindset into a drawing. 

Yalitza also sat at our table. While she was quiet for most of the time, she’d extract images of the rural aesthetic— fields, cabins, farming, etc. — and take peeks at the images that others were putting together. While I could push Zem Zem with questions and “what ifs,” Yalitza responded more with visual inspiration first. As we went through the magazines, I’d rip out pages and hand them to her, asking “I think these relate with the images you have. What do you see?” And she’d converse with me then. While Yalitza isn’t my mentee, she is close with Zem Zem, so I’d like to find more ways to engage them both since they seem to have different learning styles.

Zem Zem and Yalitza were both hesitant to present, but when they stood in front of the class, I think they both did well. Zem Zem had a lot to say, and I just had to encourage her to have that confidence. Yalitza had really rich ideas that she is eager to share, and I just had to introduce her. From then, they were natural at presenting. While they both can improve with presenting, I was impressed by how eager and confident they were in their ideas. I hope that by the end of the semester, they’d build confidence in their presentation skills the same way they became confident with their ideas.

In our Friday class, we talked about “buzzwords” that we may know about, but the high school students may not. On Saturday, I noticed that we were throwing around those words again (ADA, SDG, etc.). Even in common terms, like “sustainability” or “accessibility,” we should discuss those definitions and interpretations before using them since those words do have a lot of history and evolution.

March 30th: 

Overall, I thought the tour went well. While the timing was rushed towards the end, I think the group I was with had a good amount of time exploring both sections of the tour. Personally, I’ve never entered the Center for the Built Environment, so it was nice for me to learn something new about the CED. I am also grateful that I could invite the two NOMAS mentees to join. In the future, I wish we would’ve prioritized planning in our Friday classes. Especially that week.

While I understood that we needed to generate ideas to present to Blk Girls Greenhouse, it felt weird that us, Berkeley students, were the most involved. Initially, I thought that we will be guiding the high school students through this design process together, not meeting with them one-on-one to “develop ideas.” That was the part of this class that I was most excited about— sharing the design experience and team-work with the students. That Friday, we pinned up nearly-completed designs, and brought them to the Saturday meeting to “catch up” the high school students and “develop their ideas.” I felt that this process was a bit backwards, but it’s just unfortunate that we didn’t have more time and more meetings with the students to facilitate a more hands-on process. That Friday, we spent most of the class time in this pin-up and a few minutes on the Saturday planning, thus the Saturday program felt a bit rushed and unorganized. During the final 20-ish minutes on Saturday, Zem Zem looked confused and asked me “so you already had a design? So what was I really doing?”

April 6th: 

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this Saturday's meeting. On Friday, we did our best to synthesize the ideas of our mentees into our original design, prioritizing their inclusion. Considering how the mentees felt when we last met, we needed to make sure that their ideas from that meeting were addressed and presented, even if our overall proposal was incomplete. Since I wasn't able to be there, I took our Friday sketches and drew a cleaner plan and model for the team to present. 

Earlier in the week, I checked in with Zem Zem to see what she thought of Saturday. She said that things went smoothly, and that seeing the presentation of our synthesized ideas excited her.

I won't be able to attend class this Friday, but I'd like to stay in touch with design progress and offer my services to draft, model, anything

April 27th: 

Last weekend was stressful and a lot, but I’m glad that the presentation worked out okay and that Kalu and J’Maica had comments to respond with. There were several points that they referred to from previous meetings, but I wasn’t aware of those wants (such as the copper aesthetic).

The college application portion was pretty chill, although I kind of wish we’d implement Christine’s idea that she shared during Friday’s class. But throughout the session, I got to hang out with Zem Zem, Yelitza, and Tiffany and catch up with some laughs.

FALL 2021 Research Thesis - A Reflection

The end of this semester marks a pivot in my architectural understanding, meaning that I’ve evaluated my priorities in my path of design. As I’m applying for my graduate-level ambitions, I am taking a step back to realize: what is important to me? What about architecture gives me the power to do good?

A year ago, I remember writing my first post on LinkedIn, publicizing my pride in how I passed the LEED Green Certification exam the night before my 19th birthday. At the time, I thought I was taking a step in the right direction— collecting trophies of understanding that demonstrate my “woke-ness” amongst my peers. Now, within a super fast year, I have so many criticisms of LEED regarding its adjacency to free-market neoliberalism and its lack of accessibility to implement effective environmental improvement within vulnerable areas. And, within that same time, I’ve done so many things that have about nothing to do with polishing my resume. At 19, I did everything I could to perform towards excellence through academics, resume titles, and formal beautification of projects. And now, at 20, I virtually threw all of those priorities away. Instead, I spend my time working and engaging with meaningful topics, instead of “studying” or “discussing” them.

This research thesis, for example, I took on knowing that I will need to pull off extra work to boost my academic portfolio. I took on this research knowing that I will be the outlier student amongst my class. I took on this research knowing that I will walk through studios, perhaps envious of the creative fun that my peers are experiencing. But, I knew that this research will transform my thinking. Instead of saying “living walls in my project will achieve biophilia, enhance urban biodiversity, and bring freshness to the architectural experience” in studio, I will say “living walls are beneficial, but they come with a price of social stigma and green gentrification.” This research just one of many imperative motives for me to truly understand my design choices and to challenge them with alternative cases.

This link forwards to a summary of my fall thesis development.