 building and her observations about the city. So I think in this way, she's a really important figure for us and within the syllabus, she I think offers a different view of the world in its way that she's presenting architecture, the way that she presents the city, that these two things are, for her, these kinds of immediate observations, like she's responding really in real time, she's documenting, not through drawing, but through writing. And that it is very much about also a creative practice, I think, so like how one is inspired through the observations of the everyday, I think is something very admirable. And I think we've seen this in some of the other architects that we've looked at as well, but in different ways. Perhaps we could return to Jane Drew and think about how she started the Architects Yearbook or perhaps maybe some of Lena Bovardi's work, early work when she was still in Italy, but this kind of practice of documenting things from the everyday, from going into the city, observing things, the idea around social spaces and a kind of critique of that. At the same time, she is also looking at architecture in a really specific way. And I think it goes hand in hand with how she's looking at the city. And so how, in the case of some of the blogs that she's writing specifically on her website, which is really the focus, I think, of her work that we'll look at today more so than anything else, is just the way that she puts together the actual blog. And I'm sure it's similar to other things that you're familiar with and that we see quite often. We all know that in making blogs, there are certain softwares people use to set up their page, right? So in that way, some of these things are not necessarily out of the box, but I think what the kind of careful selection of images to correspond with text is something that is carefully thought through in my view. And the way that she's selecting certain projects and talking about them, and that there's a concern for very particular issues in her work. And so I think these are some things that we could definitely start to pull out and begin to look at, let me see here. So one thing I wanted to talk about, so I want to start with this text. So it's a little old, but I think it shows already her thinking and certainly what I would say is she's become known for and is important in her work. So the title of this blog, which I think it's blog 22, Mind Shifts, Limited Means Can Yield Greater Beauty. So where we left off last week and looking at the Graciela Eturba photography studio in Mexico City that she was writing an article about for Domus, here she's talking about, now this is five years earlier, right? And so I think it's quite interesting now to see something from last week, so recent writing about brick, also this kind of perforated brick pattern. Clearly it's something she's deeply interested in and on her mind and becomes part of this ongoing series of writings. And so already we see this, but this is a very different project than the one for the photographer in Mexico City. In this case, the idea of this house, it's called Termitari House by Da Nang from Vietnam. And here she's listing out the cost of construction. So what does this tell us already about her interests and her work, right? She's a figure who is interested in the world at large. And so she's already establishing through her writing, observations about architecture in places across the world, right? So she's not just focused on one region. And even though I think a majority of her blog texts are about Africa and perhaps Western Africa, but here she's talking about a project in Vietnam. So already we get a kind of sense of her, let's see, her vision for thinking as an architect and thinking as an architect in the world at large in this particular moment and thinking through a certain set of materials. So in this case, a simple block and brick building, right? So something very small. So as she starts to write, and I really appreciate her writing for the just very clear, the kind of direct and I think immediate accessibility I think we have as readers to her writings. So, and she's very declarative in her statements, right? As architects, we have been learning to do more with less since the last economic downturn. I think that's true, but anyway, this proves very difficult as through the years creativity in architecture has too often been synonymous with the technically heroic, the strange or the purely sculptural and too often the expensive. So I think this is also quite important statement. So she's already, she kind of gives us the image, right? This is the first thing we see is the image of the house. And then she starts off with these two statements, right? Already sort of saying, what has already been for a long time, a criticism of architecture, right? That it becomes so expensive, it's sculptural, it's overly wrought through the technology or the technical. But in a way, she's already sort of setting the stage for what she's interested to talk about and interested in her work. So anyhow, so she goes on to say these projects push the technical envelope and can be quite astonishing and awe-inspiring, which is great, but surely architecture is first and foremost about making space, right? So here she's asking then a question, right? So I think as a kind of strategy for writing, sort of setting up a few very declarative and clear statements and then drawing us in more by then asking a question. So in a way, just to kind of go through the writing how she's breaking this down for us. So I think this is important, especially I would say as for you guys in studio coming to the end of the semester, how do you begin to explain your projects and present your projects, present your work, your ideas, right? Through something that becomes very much more declarative than about, this is what I did, right? But here are the issues I'm concerned about and then even throwing a question to kind of draw people in I think could be, is a very useful kind of strategy or approach. Why is it that unless great monetary means are put to use, we believe that only the basic, the bland, the boring can result. Does easy access to fancy tools and materials often compromise the ability to create? So she goes on, obviously a few more questions, which is very interesting and is, I would say kind of returns us to when we had Deanna Aggrest come for the seminar, she was saying she always had these set of questions, right? This was always for her, or maybe she even had just one question, I think at one point she was describing as the thing that motivated her in her research and her work at a really young age and probably in a kind of similar age to Merriam, right? So, and which is like also for the majority of you guys at your ages, right? So I think what are these kind of key questions you can begin to ask? You know, and so then she goes on here and talks about, this is short, it's just like two more pages, I wanna go through this. The economic hard times that hit America and Europe are a basic fact of life in most African countries. So as African architects, if we want to create architecture that responds to our realities, we have to become really good at making spaces that use available materials in creative ways to fulfill the needs of the people that will be inhabiting them functionally, sorry, functionality, ventilation, thermal comfort, solar control, et cetera. But this is also a really exciting premise for making architecture. Our limited access to certain technologically advanced materials, which are really only necessary if we are trying to recreate a foreign way of building is actually a marvelous opportunity. Okay, so here then also she's going deeper into what she means exactly, right? So she's kind of setting the stage by talking about the economic constraints that have happened in the US and Europe, which are really, as she's pointing out, this is business as usual in a majority of the world, right? And so kind of reminding the audience and the reader that, wow, what may be exceptional in one place is actually quite the norm everywhere else, right? So we operate from a place of privilege in these other places, right? And it's much harder in places like she's describing here in the case of Africa. And so she also, what I think in a very nice way describes herself without calling herself out by name, right? So as African architects, right? So she's very pointed and assertive in saying who she is, right, through the writing, right? But she's not saying I, but she's saying so as African architects. So I think that's really, that's interesting. You know, it's also she's not describing herself as a woman architect either, she's an architect, right? So I think that's also quite important to note that point. Anyway, okay, so, and then further, you know, this paragraph talks about ideas around materials, but she's also doing it in a way that she's never forgetting about space, right? So it's both about technology, access to materials, what are those advances? And, you know, setting the distinction between, you know, working in a context that is not already built up of these advanced materials or technologies, right? That maybe is not even as urban, but just is operating through a whole other set of constraints and a whole other set of resources, social structures, economic structures, right? So she really makes this hard line distinction, you know? And I think this is a really important question for architecture. And I would say also for us at GSAP because I think we are a school that looks at both of these sides, right? The highly technical, the highly advanced, so much materials, excess. And then we're also dealing in studios and seminars and contexts and students who are from other places around the world that bring a different viewpoint to the world, to building, to understanding what their places are made up of, right? And so to be able to have someone who can be of both minds in a way and I think be respectful and thoughtful to think about when you start working in another location, you don't just immediately import all of these high technical materials and so on, right? And we go back to thinking about Lena Babardi who's bringing everything over from Europe, right? So, you know, this kind of complex way of parsing through how do you build something? What do you build with? When is the right time to do that, right? So you guys should also feel free to jump in at any point here, in any case. Okay, so what I think then she goes on to say is it allows us to focus on space, its quality, its light, its shadows, its tactility, its proportions, its uses, its poetry. So what here I think is also then really important is being able to return to all of these disciplinary concerns, right? So in a matter of a few sentences and this blog so far, she's really laying out a very clear trajectory and thought process of how she approaches architecture, right? It's all of these things. It's not a matter of saying, I'm only going to look at one thing, form and forget about the rest, right? Everything else is secondary. She's really saying, look, these are all the conditions under which we're working today. Okay, so then she goes on to say, working on a project in a developing country can actually free architects from distracting technology and allows them to focus on what actually matters. The creation of beautiful spaces, not the production of a sculptural object. So anyway, I think this sentence is really key and I think this really summarizes for what her interests are in architecture and the way she's thinking about building in the world. So that's quite important. I think you could argue, well, we could hear more about how does that work? And that's where I think in this case, it's required that you go through several of the blogs in that way and to really look at some of these other projects that she's worked on because she does get into that, into some of her blogs. So I think what I'll do, I'll just finish this and then I'll jump to one of the blogs. I wanted to just also briefly show the thesis project. Hopefully you guys look through all of the essays and texts that I put on courseworks. You should look through them all. I'm not gonna cover them all today. Some of these things are for you just to also reference on your own and download, you have them for your own collection of things. And then at 945, Julia Gamalina from Madam Architect is going to join us and we're going to talk about Farshid as part of that session when she comes on. I thought she had covered Maryam but she says not yet. So I think when I met with her, she'd said maybe she was talking about that. So anyway, so we'll focus more on Farshid with her but I just wanted to have a little time to go through Maryam's work with you guys. So in many developing countries, beauty is in the everyday and the utilitarian. Light is filtered and ventilation is achieved through a beautiful brick or carved screen. Roof parapets are full of symbolism. Building facades are expressive. Everyday clay water containers are worthy of an art exhibit. Mirror entryways are exquisitely carved. In these places, beauty is everywhere but is often missed as poverty is the only thing that catches materialistic eyes. But really, as we develop our architecture, we can inspire ourselves from the creativity that surrounds us everywhere. Made with limited means, injected beauty into everyday life, we can find endless variation and adaptations to the limited array of tools and materials that we have at our easy disposal to create stunning work. Our own brand of modernity can be born of such an approach rather than equating it to a bad and expensive copy of what modernity looks like elsewhere. So I think that's very poignant. And I think if we kind of go back and look at someone like Jane Drew, she encountered these same kinds of questions to some degree, right? Or she came to these questions through her practice, right? As opposed to them being already inherent at the beginning of her, like starting her practice, right? So I think it's kind of interesting to think about in a way the starting of the class and then more towards the end of our class, how we're thinking about writing and immediacy. So let's go to this one, say construction magic. Can you guys all see this? I like the title, construction magic. Mostly construction never feels like magic. But anyway, okay. Architecture is one of those fields that cannot fulfill its agenda by itself. That is very true. For architecture to become reality, not only do we architects often collaborate on designs, but we then need engineers, contractors, consultants, et cetera to bring our work to life. This is sometimes painful, full of conflicts that can make the construction phase the least anticipated stage of a project only made palatable by the fact that said project will soon become reality. So imagine my shock when I recently realized that collaborating with the builders, artisans and contractors on our projects in Niger is becoming one of my favorite aspects of architecture practice. So that's quite remarkable, I think. So again, here I really appreciate her for the straightforward writing, the observation, and also what could really become very critical writing and somber and negative is not that at all. In fact, here she's showing us the opposite, showing us how to, how do you achieve that? And so through this kind of writing, through the documentation that she's showing, revealing to us a way of working and what that looks like and what that process is like and to do that through writing. This is not, so let's say lofty, that we can't engage it, right? Because there's always this idea, as she says in the title, the kind of magic, that it's almost mystical or there's something around it that we don't quite ever engage it and it's both something because it's so real and dirty in a way, right? Like you're in the dirt in concrete and brick and the site work and these things, right? Architects have to engage in that, but often in academia, we never approach that, right? Or we do it only through a wall section or something like this, right? So here, she's really trying to engage in that she's really showing us what that process is like and doing it in a way that is full of delight, actually. And so even in her previous article, by sort of setting up issues around the everyday, she's trying to find that even through the process of construction. So I think that's quite important. Okay, I don't know that I wanna read through everything but let me just go through this. In many African countries, we often complain about the lack of a skilled labor force in the construction field. For those of us who were trained in the global north, it is easy to get frustrated because things are not how we expect them to be. Consequently, a constant struggle has been figuring out how to find the right local people for our projects. When we conceived our first project using each bricks in Niger, the challenge was evidently finding the right contractor for the job. There had been a few projects in Niami that sought to highlight the value of earth architecture. They were being financed by NGOs or private investors so we looked them up to gauge the quality of the work. We found projects we liked and asked around to find out who was the contractor for the job and whether the clients would recommend them. With those simple steps, we hired our Nami 2000 contractor pictured above and it has been a most rewarding collaboration. It turned out that through his exposure to earth techniques in previous projects, he was fast becoming an ardent proponent of projects that used it, leading us to be in perfect alignment of thought and ethos. Okay, so again here, I think very revealing in terms of the process of how you work in a place that maybe you're not accustomed to working, you don't have those necessary contacts or direct experience with building with someone. So she breaks this down very carefully and clearly. You know, in a way, this is also, it's, you know, what would you guys say this is as a style of writing? On one hand, it feels like a kind of diary. It's also somewhat of a report, maybe. What do you guys think? I'm talking to just black screens here. I think you're right. I think it is kind of like a diary slash report, especially when I was reading through it. I don't know, like, because, but it's also pretty exclusive, like it appeals to architects because, I mean, you're laughing at certain things that she's saying because you know what it's like, right? So you can relate to it. So in that sense, I don't know, it's super interesting. I really appreciate, wait, hold on one second. Sorry, my mom's watching TV. I really appreciate that in this blog, I don't know, I get really interested when she talks about how people, she connects with people like so. In the previous blog, she wrote about maybe local architecture and that she's interested in, you know, like really using the locality to build. And then in this one, she really talks about how she communicates with people and how she communicates her design intention. And I don't know about like that interchange is so personal and she, I think this way of writing lends itself to talk about it really well. So, yeah. Yeah, I think so too. I think that's good. Anybody else, what do you guys think about this kind of style of writing? I mean, I really enjoyed like reading her work. It was so like, it's kind of breezy to sort of read through it, you know? And in some ways, relatable, because like when I was reading the Domus article that you shared, I was actually thinking of like the work at Pakistan a lot. And also about the ways how young architects are working, like even how I've worked there. And it was, it's just, I think she writes in a way that's, I mean, I really like it because I didn't have to read over and over again, which I really appreciate as even as an architect, you know? So I kind of wonder that if she's like writing these things that are specific to architects, but also trying to approach like a wider audience, you know? To not make it too difficult to understand. And it's almost like, like the thing she talks about are very like, I mean, they're like, like even this article and the one on Domus, like they're just simple ideas of how we're building and how, you know, the building practices are changing, especially in the global South, or like how maybe they should be. But I mean, those are, I think, notions that are very much the interests of architects and not so much. I don't think normally people care that much per se, but yeah, I think, I feel like if anyone read it, they would immediately understand what the gist of the writing is. Yeah, I think it's interesting also because it's not just about architecture, ultimately, right? And I think this gets at what you're saying too, that it is, the writing is in a way, it's opened up for a broader audience. And for sure, the allied disciplines can relate to this writing and find useful information in it and be drawn to it, I think, attracted to it. So I do think for sure I would say, I have not met her personally, so I can't speak to that, but I would say, you know, that the idea of an architect as a public figure, for sure is interesting to her. And certainly doing the Rolex program and then teaming with Adjaye, we clearly see that idea of how the architect through social work being in the world, in the way that Adjaye had been, and the work of research, the work of teaching somewhat, and then of course all the other projects that have much higher budgets and are maybe more cultural, institutional kind, more institutional work, let's say not cultural, but more institutional work in that way, clearly set up a kind of paradigm for her that she seems to be following. But, you know, I really appreciate the things she says, like she calls it after texture, you know, these kinds of inventive words and, you know, again, like returning her as a figure into the writing without calling herself out in it, right? And I think that's kind of a very smart, clever, thoughtful way to do that. And, you know, especially as a woman architect, right? And in the context of, let's say, something like building and the construction site, you know, just sort of show us this experience. You know, but what's interesting is that she's doing it in a way where she's not, not every image is of her in the field also too. This is another tactic, right? That we've seen time and time again where architects are, you know, showing themselves in the field, you know, she's doing it through writing. Anyway, so I think it's interesting. I'm not saying she's not ever putting herself there. Of course, that happens. But, you know, I think that, you know, to sort of emphasize this idea of the work, of the buildings over the person, right? And that's sort of another, like, going back to the very first class, like showing that selection of images, right? When we typed in Sejima versus Nishisawa, right? What we saw was the image of the actual architect as opposed to the buildings, right? And so, you know, so I really, in that way, I really like this format because she's showing, you know, the content and it's less about herself as a figure, right? In the writing, you know, or again, to think about Lena Bo Bardi and herself standing on the staircase, right? So, you know, I think these are, you know, different attitudes, different approaches and I don't know, Eduardo, were you going to say something? Oh, just like it's nice, like everyone said, it's nice to kind of have that like ease and almost like nonchalance to the writing, but it's still kind of full of, I don't know, like you said, she like makes a point, like it's clear. There's still that kind of weight to it that might, that other sort of writing might have. But I was also just thinking of kind of like the structure or like the way the writing is sort of put together and that it kind of complements the type of building and the way of working that she's sort of talking about. Then it like, as a pair, they kind of work nice together, that it's not something overly raw or like too out of the way with the words, but that I don't know, it just like reflects the building process and how she's talking about it. Right, exactly. Yeah, I think it's good. I mean, I also think it's quite strong in setting up, like bringing the subject of Africa to also, to an audience that would not know it perhaps or think of it as the other and distant and as she even says in her writing, like this place of problems or there's less accessibility to things. But she turns that around quite well and makes this accessible to us, right? And I think that's also really important, like how we, from the global north, how we think about the global south and other places around the world that are different than the context of New York City or other cities that have been constructed with the most accessible materials, the most advanced technologies, et cetera, right? And so I think that's also quite important a way of showing that, but at the same time, she is still showing modern construction. It's not as though this is a return to some archaic way of building, right? And there we could look back to Jane Drew and her book, Architecture and Environment and those drawings that she made of construction. This is very similar, right? So in a way, her blog is also kind of repeating that same sort of technical know-how, that same accessibility to materials, right? Just looking at this image of her construction. I don't know if you can see my page here, but the construction site with the rebar, et cetera. So, okay, let me try to see. I wonder if we should be like critical in a sense that, like who are her clients, right? I mean, who is she building for? Who's funding, who's actually funding the project? I mean, we know she's trying to be economic about it, but I think that's more of a statement, not just for Africa, but for everyone really. Right, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I wonder about like what the criticism would be about the way she's building and writing about these things, because she is approaching it from kind of foreign angle as well, even though she is African, right? I mean, I don't know, I'd just be interested in like a push against that or something. Yeah, sure. How do you, what would you say about that if you were to write something, what would that be? Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm not the other side at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If anything, I'm more in line with her than, I mean, I think we all are, right? Because we can see it so clearly. I mean, that's also why it's easy for us to digest because we are educated and we have like, we can see these things from a different point of view as like a, almost like a plan, laying out a plan and kind of putting together the pieces. But I wonder about someone who's even more local, right? And what connections that they've made that might differ from the way she's working? Maybe some of the challenges that they have that she doesn't. Yeah, and maybe even some of like the easier things that they go through that she has difficulties with. So, I don't know, just like a difference. Yeah, that's good, I think that's good. Okay, let me see here. Wanted to just show, let me see here, screen share. Just briefly the thesis project in case you guys didn't have a chance to look at this. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't quite know what to do with this here. Okay. Okay, so she's worked on the University of Washington as it says, mobile loitering. So the title, a response to public space needs in Niger's post-colonial, highly gendered urban context. So again here, I think, someone who is very consistent in what she's writing, what she's thinking about, and kind of growing up in a way along these lines, setting all of this up for other articles to come. And so, clearly thinking about writing as an important part of the practice. And so here just, I would recommend that you guys go through this, but I thought it was interesting, the first sentence by their very nature, city streets provide opportunities to create life in between the more strongly defined entities of home, school, office, and markets. In this space, one can easily appear to be on his or her way to somewhere, but never actually to be going anywhere. The act of mobile loitering is a tactic that is commonly employed by young girls in Niger's capital of Miami in order to socialize with one another. Anyhow, so it kind of goes on, in this case talking more specifically about the kind of quality of life of young girls specifically, but more broadly talking about the relationship of public space to these other kinds of programs. So, and her thesis, she says the thesis, this thesis proposes a new type of public space that is adapted to the cultural norms of some Muslim cities. It takes the form of an activity circuit that links major public spaces currently used by the youth of the city while adding program components along a defined route to augment them. So, kind of setting up her ideas around both sort of research project, but then also a speculative in a way design project. And talking about ideas of social space, social public space and the qualities of those spaces. So here, it's less about upon, let's say building component or a critique of technology, but really a kind of highly focused look at what cities and public space mean in that way. And then this quote, which I thought was really interesting as well. It is a practice of being attuned to faint signals, flashes of important creativity and otherwise desperate maneuvers, small eruptions in the social fabric that provide new texture, small but important platforms from which to access new views. So somehow, while this is about a kind of description of ideas of public space, to me, it also talks a little bit about the way she thinks just about the world at large and views into architecture, right? So these sort of her writings, you could think about them as these platforms that are being used to access new views into the world at large, so anyhow. But I would just invite you guys to look through this if you haven't, I think also as a kind of counterpoint to doing just a drawing project as opposed to a kind of written thesis and a drawing project, right? But to just look at the way that this is broken down and how she starts to talk about this and what are the kinds of choices that she's making and where do we see those threads that go on and are then looked at in her writings. Hi, I see Julia's here. Hi, how are you? I'm good, good, relatively good. Okay, great. Well, I wanna welcome you to our class and thank you for joining today. It's great to have you here. Super excited for the students. So I'll just turn it over to you. How would you like to start? I think it would be nice if you could tell the students about yourself and maybe we can have a little bit of a conversation and then would you like me to pull up your website? Does that sound good or do you wanna do that? Because you can share everything from your screen, I think, for us that should work. Sure, yeah, so we can do a couple of things. I can just casually tell you guys about myself and take you through the website and we can look at some stuff or I can go through the PDF that Hillary had originally put together. I don't know if that would be, it's very formal and it's like, there's a lot of slides that I flipped through so I don't know if it's the best thing but we have those two options, whatever you guys think. Okay, I'm open. Whatever you feel comfortable talking about is good. Yeah, let's see. Maybe I can use the PDF as a reference and maybe once we, once I talk about meta-architect instead of flipping through the slides just because there are so many and in person I would flip through them quickly but since it's digital and everything's a little slower it might not be the best. So why don't I do that? Part of the presentation that's about me first and then I can share the meta-architect website. So I'm just gonna- Okay, that sounds great. Let's see. I'm gonna share my screen. I think I would need permission to do so. Okay. Okay, let me know if you guys can see this. Yep. Great. Great. Screen mode, okay. So essentially what I was gonna talk to you guys about today from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania where I've been staying with my mom for the past month is sort of how meta-architect came about and within that like it's just natural that I talked a little bit about my career path and then I delve into meta-architect and what it's about and who we've profiled and I can do that again through taking you guys through the website which will be a little bit more comprehensive I think but just to start for those that aren't familiar with it, meta-architect is a website that's dedicated to telling the stories of women that are working in the field. It started out as being primarily women that are architects that are professional architects but then quickly I realized how many women there are in the industry that are really influencing things and advancing the industry through other ways whether it be through law or being a CEO or being a journalist and so and those stories are typically not told because we do tend to focus so much on the design aspect and so I've been profiling some of those women as well but to take it all the way back, I was born in Siberia very, very, very far away and I lived there until I was eight years old and then my family and I immigrated to Toronto, Canada and so my sort of my formative preteen childhood years were primarily there and then finally I did high school in Colorado and that's also when my little brother was born, big age gap but so I think just moving around so much totally started the seeds for where I am today in so many ways, part of that was just I simply became really attuned to the environment around me and it's actually funny moving from Navasibiris to Toronto wasn't the biggest culture shock because they were both really cosmopolitan cities and sort of the way I would navigate myself through the space around me and the city around me was kind of the same like public transportation and a lot of walking, things like this so it actually didn't feel that foreign obviously the language and culture was a whole separate thing but then moving to Colorado that was a huge culture shock for us my mom didn't know how to drive, I didn't know how to drive there were hardly any like pedestrian sidewalks, everything was very car oriented, everything was very spread out it's the first time we had lived in a house anyway so just like picking up on things like this the built environment is kind of what consolidated everything for me so that's part of why I went into architecture and then the other part of it was just moving around so much my mom very early on sat me down and basically said, I can only guide you in certain ways I'm also new here so for things like applying to college and taking the SATs and anything to do with navigating academics in my career she was like I can't really help you with that like I can give you general people advice and life advice but for specifics on how to do things in the States you're gonna have to go to your teachers and so I had always done that and then all through college I would go to my professors so that mentorship aspect and just asking lots of questions on topics beyond just like the assignment in front of me was when it became a part of my life very early on so like I mentioned I studied architecture at Cornell and one thing that has been a constant throughout all of my schooling all the way from elementary school through university was that it was always very dense just like extracurriculars galore and sports all kinds of like theater I did a lot of theater in high school and so it was never just about one aspect for example not just about design or not only about writing but like everything coming together and so finally eventually when I entered into professional correctness and started working as a designer as an architect I'm not licensed so you know I can't say that but that's something that I realized that working nine to five or more like nine to nine and only being focused on drafting on the one hand it's a really great foundation because you really do get into all the nitty-gritty and you're forced to work things out in that way for me it wasn't right just because I was so used to such variety and stimulation in all kinds of different ways and I think I was always really craving that and actually that's how I started thinking about integrating more writing into my career that's something I always knew I wanted to do and I had grown up journaling a lot and as much as I drew growing up and that's another part of the reason why I got into this I also wrote a lot and I would like you know write like little books growing up and illustrate them so it was always the image and the word and working in architecture I realized it was mostly about the image and beyond that mostly about kind of the technical aspects which just didn't, it wasn't me I didn't feel like myself doing only that so then after I had worked at a firm called Studio V this is where this image is from only working on design and sort of some construction aspects I went over to another company that focused on workplace design for companies like Squarespace and Tumblr and these really like contemporary and fun tech platforms and I had wanted to try that scale of work just because you know I'm sure you guys know this is about architecture but projects take a long time design takes a long time buildings take a long time to come to fruition and I thought by doing something more interior-based it would just be a little bit of a quicker timeline and I'd be able to see a project from start to finish and boy did I not realize how true that would be and what that would mean because when I first joined I started working on company headquarters for a new company, a new media company that was gonna be a combination of Horizon Media and an agent counterpart and they were starting from scratch they had just hired all of their C-suite level employees you know a new CEO, a new CFO, things like this and I came to the company at a point where they were just about to start doing interviews with all of these people and so I was in the room when we were interviewing them about what do you envision the company to be what do you envision the space to be so that's like love of interviewing it had started before but it was certainly reinforced there and so you know I was involved to this very, very, very early stage then worked on the design of this project in Los Angeles through construction documents did some CA stuff and then I had a project go on hold another project for about two weeks and I wanted to do something with that time and the other thing that was happening at this company is that they brought on kind of an interim director of communications for a temporary period of time and she was this really, really fascinating German art historian and just like wore super-makes and clothes and just like interacted people in ways that I hoped to as well one day and so in this kind of two week period of pencils down I just came up to her I got permission from my project managers and I came up to her and said like what do you need? I wanna help you with any communications because I knew that she was overworked she was only the only person that was doing that at the time and so she said oh my gosh thank God like yes I can put you to work and so I ended up actually promoting the project that I had just worked on you know, posting about it on social media pitching it to press, researching press outlets to pitch it to and kind of saw the communication side of the practice also submitting it for awards which is a really great exercise I mean you guys think about how to present your projects in studio I mean it's very similar to that you just figure out how to talk about your work in a very succinct way and for a very specific audience whether it's press or an award submission or whatever it is or the general public with social media and so after I had worked with her on this I realized that I really wanted to focus on this for a little bit I think to be completely frank I was also just burned out from the hours involved in working on design and maybe wanted to take a break in that way and so I asked this company if this is something I could do full time and they said no you know with firms, especially smaller firms it's there's budgets and there's so much that they might not be able to take on that's overhead which is how to know how much you guys know about the business side of the practice but essentially it's just things that you're paying for that your clients aren't paying for and not all firms can afford that so anyway because of this I then decided that I should look at other firms then I went on to Cooper Robertson as kind of a stepping stone in between firms and helped them with marketing and business development and communications efforts so kind of the trifecta of firm development and from there realized that the business development side of things is what I would want to try next it's just I wanted to get to know the industry at all levels not just consultant facing not just client facing but like just all the players that are involved I thought would be good for me to know about early on so I went to FX Collaborative and there I worked in their cultural educational studio trying to find work with museums and universities and libraries and that work I mean I was doing it specifically for that studio only because that work is fewer and farther between I mean if you think about a developer their aim is to put out projects every couple years and very often and the phone rings a lot at architecture firms if you have some of those developer connections whereas with institutional projects the Statue of Liberty Museum is probably gonna be the only project that they build for maybe a quarter century even so you really do have to be more proactive about those business development efforts and that's what I did. Now I'm at a firm called Trey Han Architects Full Time which I'll get to in a second but that just gives you sort of the career arc and how I was able to integrate more writing into my career and get to know some of the people around beyond maybe the consultants that you'd work with on a project and that has been really, really, really satisfying. Anyway, taking you guys back to this moment at Studio V when I was working in design so what I had just described that's all about professional practice and sort of my nine to five schedule obviously there was a whole other thread happening simultaneously which is what had led to amount of architect and so again when I had graduated from school and was working in the industry I realized that that mentorship that I was getting from my teachers and professors that I had talked about that was no longer like a given or a built in system and professional practice just because of course you can talk to people that you work with about certain things and especially if you're at a larger firm where you can find a mentor that's maybe not necessarily working with you on projects so there's no kind of conflict of interest there but I was working for smaller firms and I didn't feel comfortable talking to people about sort of my general career goals or the fact that I was only planning on staying at the firm for another year there's just some things you don't wanna talk about with your bosses or the people that you work with and also all the teachers that I had described that I would talk to were all women because I just like as a young kid I felt more comfortable seeking out kind of mother figures and talking to a sort of a man was not what I was doing when I was like eight years old anyway and so there were frankly just not that many women around me either in professional practice that I wanted to talk to so I realized I needed to be a little bit more proactive about seeking out mentors sort of in the same way that you do business development and you don't wanna be reactive to things you really wanna get ahead of things and be proactive about it that's how I went about finding some mentors and some women to talk to and look up to thankfully one of my professors and I really encourage you guys to take as much advantage of your professors as possible not in the sense of taking advantage but just like they are the gateway to so many things for you that make a list of all your favorite professors and just like make appointments with them to talk about everything else that's outside of your schoolwork because it just it plants the seed for so many amazing things I think Hillary I hope you don't get overwhelmed with emails after this but anyway one of my professors started a nonprofit called Architect that was mainly meant it was meant to be a forum for women to be able to talk and share information but also it was meant to bridge the gap between practice and academia because she thought that that was something that needed to be done the wonderful thing about Architects is they hosted these BRICS mentorship sessions which were amazing it was they were very intimate meetings at someone's home and it was kind of an open door thing for young women to come in and ask questions and sometimes they would be kind of just open sessions and we could talk about anything and other times they would be themed and so we talked about those that want to start a family on just lessons learned from other mothers in the industry, we talked about getting your license kind of negotiating salary, all kinds of things and at this point is when I was really craving that writing aspect that was so present in my life that wasn't when I was working as a designer and so I knew that Architects had an online blog just like from time to time someone would write something and post it and so I said, can I report back from these amazing sessions where I'm getting so much great advice and can I post about it on the blog? They said yes and so I did that a little bit and finally out of these sessions I had also met some really great mentors and started meeting with them regularly and was also getting such good advice that I really really wanted to share it I just after every session I would walk out or after every mentorship meeting I would walk out and be so excited to start the next day and be so motivated to move my career along and I just thought that everyone should be feeling that way so I started interviewing I think at first it was very very sporadic I think I did like four interviews over the course of two years so one and every six months just because that was the time that I had and also because I was much slower at editing and things like this at the time now that I've done so many it's a lot faster but it certainly wasn't at the time and so what happened is those four initial interviews I had talked to Vivian Lee who was formerly at Richard Meyer now she's at Woods Baggett it was time for her to do that and with her what I had noticed she was my first interview and I realized I was speaking to somebody sort of at the peak of their career that was looking back at a lot of things and I realized wow I have so many girlfriends that I know that are kind of in the trenches right now going through starting a firm or having a baby what is that like and so then I spoke to a woman, Irene Schneid who's a teacher at Pratt, a professor at Pratt and she was just starting her teaching career she was just kind of recalibrating from working in an office to being a full-time faculty and also she had just had her first daughter her first child and so we talked about that next I interviewed Sarah LaPère-Galot a partner at Soldorff also kind of looking back at a lot of things and having achieved what she has achieved in her career and then talked to another younger woman, Jenny Payson who was starting a firm and also pregnant while she was starting a firm so having that collection of a variety of kind of experience levels was really helpful but then I realized it could really be so much more and so architects and I decided to do a guest editorship where I would interview a woman a week for about three months that ended up being I think four months because I had reached out to a little bit more women that was necessary just because I figured some people would say no but nobody said no so then it was a four month thing and that's how Madam Architect kind of officially got started it was a column, a guest editorship on Architects' blog and I called it Madam Architect I think it was called Conversations on finding your place and hitting your stride or something and this is Hay Slade, owner of Slade Architecture and anyway after I had done this guest editorship I had never expected this but the interviews got so much great feedback and were shared everywhere and I was really not expecting that kind of response and I didn't realize how needed something like this was and so when the guest editorship was wrapping up I figured I don't wanna stop this because I just really enjoy every part of the process so much from the conversation to the editing uploading the images, sharing it with the world to hearing the feedback that I decided to launch Madam Architect as its own entity and so it went live as a website in May of 2018 so we're actually coming up on our second year anniversary we were gonna have a party I was deep into planning with the Jane Hotel and then of course everything happened so the party is postponed but hopefully we can all get together and celebrate soon so that's I mean I can stop here that's kind of the general career arc I'll just run through maybe what I do at Treyhand now because again my daytime title is director of strategy at Treyhand Architects their firm that's based between New Orleans and New York and people often ask me what strategy means and I'll say that it means a different thing for different firms for example when I was at Aplaside there was a director of strategy there and for him it was more about design strategy so his role was really about being there being very hands-on on the very early stages of a project and figuring out what the best design is or what the best initial concept is from a strategy perspective a Treyhand strategy means something else it's basically just business development strategy but in all not just about getting new business although in some ways like everything is about getting new business and keeping the firm going but also about the brand and how we talk about ourselves certainly about communications and media and so really strategy for me now means putting my design, communications, marketing and business development background all together and figuring out how we can evolve Treyhand Architects and also of course some of the lessons learned with Madam Architects because Trey my boss really sees Madam Architects as a startup that I've been able to sort of launch and develop and kind of evolve and so he wanted me to bring some of that thinking into the world of practice so yes that was a lot that was a mouthful so let me know if you guys need any sort of break but otherwise I have the Madam Architects website pulled up do you guys wanna should we take any questions now or take a pause or should I just keep going it's up to you it's if anybody has any questions they're welcome to ask raise their hand just call out it's good what we've been doing yeah otherwise I think we can keep going one thing we were talking a little bit about which I did think I mentioned to you is about for Sheed and I think it's to especially kind of maybe we could talk a little more in depth about her interview and something like that cause I've shared some texts for these guys to have looked at for today but they'll be looking at it after and yeah great yeah for sure she is one of, she was one of my favorite interviews and I was lucky to meet with her for breakfast in London I've gone to London on a personal trip to this little girlfriend of mine and got an email from a TA of mine at Cornell it's like so many connections all over the place that was like I see her in London do you wanna talk to Far Sheed and I was like oh my gosh how can I say no I mean I didn't want it to be a work trip cause I had really needed a break at the time but we ended up meeting actually over breakfast like a true English breakfast and she ordered porridge and I just like thought that was the best thing but I'll give you guys a little bit of a background on Madam Architect and take you through the website and then we can look at her interview but basically Madam Architect has really evolved and we're continuing to evolve we're actually gonna launch a new column next week and this also, so we were planning to launch this new column for a long time it's gonna be about writing about your work and then actually one of the essays is gonna lead into another column that we're gonna start kind of in response to the COVID crisis I'll talk about that in a second but there's a lot of new things happening thankfully I'm getting some other writers on board because at this point I just can't handle everything myself especially with work so the interviews really did start as kind of interviewing women in architecture on their careers and at first this has always been actually a priorities variety in every sense of the word I mean racial diversity of course also diversity in age we're not just profiling emerging architects although we do talk to a lot of them but we also talk to people that are quite seasoned maybe in corporate offices or that have just been in the industry for a long time also diversity of focus like maybe you do materials research that's very unique or you approach architecture from a lens of I don't know whatever the filter might be but we try to get variety of that in some ways and then obviously we talk to historians and curators, communications professionals the interview that went up yesterday is actually with a PR firm and people like that tend to be so behind the scenes or tend to be such kind of catalysts for other people to get good recognition and tell their stories but they don't always get to tell their stories themselves so things like that are really important let's see so just some of the categories so we have this is what's great about the new website I don't know how many of you guys have seen the old website but it wasn't able to categorize the interviews in this way so I'm really happy that now we can but our most popular interviews in 2020 have been with MBRDVs, Natalie DeGrease, Jennifer Bonner Kim Neuscheller who's a trained architect who's now in construction and has just seen the industry from so many sides I would encourage you guys to read that one and then Kim Holden who used to be the founding partner at Shop Architects and who's now a doula, a birth and postpartum doula so that was pretty cool and got picked up by a fast company a really cool story but let's see so for example, just to give you guys an idea of how I've been kind of categorizing this like we have a lot of people that talk about activism in the profession, Gabrielle Bullock who's the third interview in this column architecture and activism she's the director of global diversity at Perkins and Will and so we talked about what that means and about how she's defining success in her role and that's a really interesting thing it's like how do you define success in kind of expanding diversity in your firm in the field, et cetera and that was really great Kimberly Dowdell also, oh my gosh what she's lived like nine lives in the industry and she went to school for public policy after studying architecture and urban planning has worked in development for the government at firms, everything so that's been really important and then Madam Architects I'm really sorry to interrupt I just want to make sure are we on the right screen for you what you want to show it's just as today on Madam Architect what we do, yeah, thank you, sorry Yep, I'm just going to stop the share for a second here I have been taking you guys to the website and not realizing that it's not showing the right thing okay, here we are, let's see okay, are you guys seeing the categories now? Yeah Okay, super, so what I was talking about just now architecture and activism that was this side of things then we also Madam Architect abroad we try to talk to people that are not only based in New York which was kind of how the whole project started and that was because I was able to meet with people face to face, which I found really important to sort of get some of that intimacy and to make sure that that carried on into the finished work but we have spoken to Anna, Paula, Ruiz Alindo she's Mexico City based obviously Fursheet is in London Regine Leibinger is in Berlin Frida Escobedo is also a Mexico City and Dorte Mandrup is in Copenhagen so there's geographic variety too in the States, we've talked to people based in Boston Los Angeles, Seattle, Cleveland, New Orleans and Atlanta, we're starting to do more of that then we've talked to people that are really driving the business side of architecture, so Kirsten Sebelia is like a marketing guru for Dattner and has been doing that for the majority of her career Bola Williams-Oli is in finance, she's a CFO so that's a fun take on the profession too then we talked to SOM's council, Sarah Sparer and that's a really fascinating thing that we certainly don't talk about in school just like intellectual property and scope creep and all kinds of things and then finally Sheila Sogaard who's big CEO and Tammy Hausman who's a communications professional and then entrepreneurship has been a big theme for us I also noticed that we tend to talk to a lot of founders which is really really good and there's a ton of firms that are doing really extraordinary work and kind of advancing the industry and the firms that they create on projects they do but we also then talk to people at kind of these much larger offices because that's also a really interesting thing and there's a lot of things to be learned it's like navigating things politically but in terms of entrepreneurship we have these two women that founded a PR company there's an amazing blog out there called Afro Chic and actually it started as a blog it's now a brand and they do their own design but we talked to Jeanine Hayes specifically about the COVID crisis and all of us being at home now and like how you can make your home more dynamic on Tap New York also a publication that's now a company obviously Kim Holden's new startup then we talked to Andrea Seal about kind of being a partner with Enrique Norton for so long and then now going off on her own. Let's see we also, so in addition to the kind of the feature interviews we also do a days with column where we just ask a person to write up what their day looks like because I think it's super interesting to see how people iterate all the things that are important to them in the span of their careers but then also at the scale of one day and just like how they manage their time and how they incorporate what and when so we've done a couple of these we do these once a month and then also we used to do a column called Favorite Things where I just wanted a counterpoint to some of these heavier longer interviews and just something fresh and light and for women to just give their recommendations about their favorite movies and books and things like this. This actually I'll tell you guys that this was getting the least readership I think partly because we weren't promoting it as much we weren't pushing it out on all the social media platforms but also the images that I was using for this I just pulled from Google which I could get into trouble with because I do not own these images and the women that I interviewed don't own these images so we're thinking about if we're gonna continue this or not and if we do it might just have to be images that women take themselves of like the book in their home or whatever but more on that and then finally I don't know if you guys are familiar with this section but we haven't asked the editors column where once a month we'll compile some of the questions that we get often and we'll kind of write answers to them so we're getting a lot of questions now about what happens when people are gonna be graduating in May and so we had Elaine Molinar who's managing partner at Snow Heta and he's slayed who owns a firm kind of talk about what that might mean and what are the best things you can do. We talked about working from home about just like getting started in the industry and the resources you should use so I would encourage you guys to flip through this and if you have any other questions please send them to the submission form on the website. So anyway, that's kind of what it is today and again we're gonna launch a couple of things next week so also sign up for our newsletter you'll hear about those and then for our sheet, oh my gosh that was yeah I, one of my favorite interviews to have conducted but basically we just talked about how she got started from the beginning and one thing I learned and I keep learning from these interviews is that there are so many I don't know if you guys have talked about this yet but Europe had such a great competition system for young architects through a lot of the 90s and maybe the early 2000s I'm not sure if they do so much anymore and I don't know if it's something that the United States ever faced but so many women that I talked to that have started companies in Europe have been able to do so because they've won like they would apply for competitions when these prizes get a really great financial award and use that to launch their own firms and so this is what Farshid did with her then husband and a business partner who now has his own firm as well but we sort of talked about that and getting started I think she also talked a lot about her professors being really helpful and also other architects she talked specifically about working in Japan on the Oklahoma International Cruise Terminal and she said that when they were working on this the Japanese architects would actually be really, really helpful there wasn't any sort of competitive nature I mean maybe not that she talked about but she said there was really a system of nurturing in Japan that was and sort of mentorship professionally in this way that also didn't quite exist in the States or wherever else she was working in Europe but then we really talked about what it means to she was in practice with her partner they had split up, they split up the practice and so she kind of was reborn and started her own firm after that and has done some very, very significant work like this is the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland but she talked a lot in her interview about having to continue to reinvent herself in order to stay relevant I think so often you hear in the industry like where's the fresh young talent who's gonna bring new ideas to the table and of course people just entering the industry will do that and you guys will all do that but it doesn't mean that those that have been in the industry for a long time can't also continue to contribute in innovative ways and that's something I think that's been really important to her and that she's very conscious of I can't just continue with business as usual I can't just continue to do work in the same way that I've approached it in the past because it's a different world now so what does that mean and how can I continue to advance my practice given all that, so that's the summary it's funny when I asked her we talked a little bit about business development and it's really funny to ask that of some architects because some people are very open about how they get new work they'll just say oh it was serendipitous in this way I mean sometimes it's serendipitous sometimes it's not other people will be a little bit more general about how they get work and then Farshid was just like I do my best like I think some people are kind of reluctant to give out their new business pursuit secrets which is like totally fair but let's see what did we talk about we did talk one thing I didn't mention is I try not to in these interviews ask about what is it like being a woman in architecture because number one we all know like I think there's enough that's been written about that obviously it's some if you're a woman in the field there have been so many disadvantages throughout the years but sometimes of course it inevitably comes up and so one thing we talked about is there was a headline of an article that was written that was something like Farshid Musavi beats out David Chippafield in OMA for this project and it was almost like I don't know the way I read it was it was almost like the headline was suggesting oh my gosh we can't believe that a woman beat out these two men I mean I think in some ways it was congratulatory but in other ways it was like this shouldn't even be that shouldn't be the sentiment of the headline like it should be like this architect got this project and yes obviously other architects didn't but it shouldn't be in this way that like we can't believe this woman beat these men so we talked a little bit about that which is an interesting thing and maybe I had misinterpreted the headline and the sentiment behind it but that's just like the first impression I got that we talked about what else? That's good what about just her right did you talk with her about her writing in general she's done books with students and given so many lectures I think part of the course is about looking at a broad range of forms of writing so I was curious to know if you spoke with her about any of those things Yeah not so much in the interview more just off like in and around the conversation we were having but essentially that just fed into how she has able to maintain momentum and kind of stay relevant and reinvent herself and I think women also write less about their work than men do and this is something Hilary and I talked about when we had met and writing is a really crucial component to advancing your practice and advancing ideas and it's you know people can look at your building and think whatever they think of it it's I mean it's kind of like looking at a piece of art you know everyone's going to have a different reaction to it a different interpretation that's based on their own life experiences but so in through some of the writing and some of the lectures that she's given I mean A that's how you stay in front of people and that's how you continue it's just like a business development thing it's how you keep reminding people that you're here and you're here to contribute something but also it's I think it's a way for people to connect with your work on another level which has been really helpful we didn't we didn't talk too too much about it but I would say just like having the experience that I have in the industry is just another way to continue to contribute and and as many ways as you can do that you know through obviously through project work but also through exhibitions through your writing through speaking through I don't know documentaries filmmaking whatever it is there those are all different outlets to continue to communicate and to sort of spread spread your ideas spread your influence and it's a good definitely something that should be paid attention to and that architecture should be doing more of my voice is getting raspy I don't know if you guys can hear that but it's been a lot of this is actually my third um student presentation this week I think the first few weeks of stay home we're very it was just like a lot of work and finishing deadlines and things like this but somehow the speaking stuff really started this week and I'm losing my voice now yes it's you're not used to it it gets it definitely can happen for sure that's great I don't do any of the students have any questions at this time please ask your questions sure there must be some yeah Julia this is uh really awesome I'm also going through your website right now and I was just wondering are you is are you where do you see Madam Market at going like I mean this was just like off the bat like I was just thinking that are you thinking of like global collaborations you know because like I'm from Pakistan and I was just wondering like there's so many amazing women who are practicing there and I'm sure it's the case like you know like Mayim Kamara is an example and there's so many women out there who don't even have a voice and they're just working working and kind of you know between all these men like I mean I don't even think a lot of people would know these I mean I'm just curious like do you see it going everywhere like I would imagine you would make those connections even through school right yeah what do you mean by collaborations do you mean just like profiling more people or yeah yeah exactly like maybe expanding the profiles like you were showing us your broad categories like you know I was just thinking more about like I mean I know you're it's it's still very new but I could see this like you know do you think it would get further or are you trying to yeah yeah for sure I don't think we would do I don't think we would use the madam architect brand and like do madam architect Russia or like you know I don't think yeah yeah go that way just just because of like the capacity I have right now but of course like we're we do an interview a week sometimes we do more the other part of it is you know there's we're a team of four now me and three women that are also editors and they help me with transcripts and some of them are doing their own interviews now which has been really great and they're also based you know one is in Atlanta one is in Houston and one is in New York and so we're trying to expand some of the geographic reach that way I think just like because we're all working full-time it's hard to do more and like it's hard to do more interviews we're certainly looking to do a bigger variety of interviews and another in other countries as well but no that's that's definitely a goal but in terms of it's it as a platform like you know we're talking about maybe maybe putting some of the interviews into a book I don't know like a documentary series has also been talked about so there's definitely like we're planning farther reaches both in terms of like where people are based and what they're doing because you're right there's an endless supply of women and I've actually gotten questions before about like oh cool you published a hundred interviews like are you done are you gonna stop this I was like no there's so many people and so many stories that have yet to be told um so yeah no that's that is something worth thinking about just um yeah thank you I have a question about um I guess your parameters like how do you decide um which women to interview and then I guess how do you formulate like a set of questions around that uh and is it like an I'm sorry is there like an identity that you're looking for for this for this catalog of interviews like sure sure yeah it's it's interesting I get this question a lot and like it's interesting because um because it's not kind of done in a vacuum like I don't do interviews like I don't just interview one woman um and then no one else and what I mean by that is we have a monthly lineup right and so we interview someone every week and so who we choose to profile has a lot to do with who we've also who we profiled in the past to we're profiling that same month and just to make sure that variety keeps going I would say um yeah it just really depends just based on you know we look at where people are in their careers will kind of perspective they have to offer if they're talking about what it's like to be a partner to firm or if they're talking about what it's like to start a firm um you know and then the focus aspect I mentioned before like what it is they actually do in the industry so we make sure to get a variety of that I would say yeah it's not about one specific criteria that applies to everybody I mean I think we're just looking for as many different stories as possible and anyone that has contributed significantly I mean you know we talked to Kelsey Keith who's the editor in chief at courage like obviously the way she exerts her her contribution and her influence is is really widely spread because it's it's a publication that you know is read in many places and focuses on many places so so people like that that just like have a lot of influence and are um kind of forming what the conversation is is important but yeah I mean I think every month we aim to interview somebody that has been in the profession for a while and maybe has thrown firm every month we're looking to interview someone that's emerging and just just getting started every month we look to interview someone that's in the industry but not an architect so a communications professional lawyer just like someone that is influential in other ways and then also once a month I mean I mean not even once a month we try to do this as much as possible but we make sure to feature women of color and that's like a criteria that's pretty set just because it's in the same way that a platform like madam our protectors needed where it's focused only on women I think you know these spots and making sure to make very intentional room for women of color is important to us as well so yeah that's kind of the general criteria but again it just it's all about how the group comes together and like whoever is going up next week has a lot to do with who we just profiled before them and who we're going to profile after them yeah that makes sense I mean I was really curious about how you come upon all these women as well like how you get exposed to them but this that makes sense yeah yeah how we find about them I mean when I first started I just knew a ton already and like actually you know my college experience and being at Cornell I mean so many amazing women have have come through whether they're TAs or professors or PhD students so that's where I got started I think that's you know wherever you go to school that's like your foundation and that's where a lot of things will stem from and so like take every advantage of every opportunity you have and then I get a lot of pitches every time I speak to a woman or every time I do an interview I say you know who else should I speak to and they'll give me a couple of names and then other people you just know of and want to talk to them so it's a whole variety of things but yeah we get a lot of pitches it can be overwhelming and it's really hard to say no or not right now but such as such as life thank you how do you prepare for the interview as in and um do uh has it changed over time the kind of questions that you um ask mm-hmm yeah mm-hmm yeah so at first when I started I would so there was like a kind of a formula to the interviews the madam architect feature interviews were a very particular type of interview where it was about the entirety of someone's career and kind of how they got to where they are what where they are means to them and what have been some challenges kind of looking back at everything and what advice they have so it was very broad I also didn't tend to do too too much research before I spoke to women obviously I knew what they did and kind of maybe some of where they came from but in some ways I didn't want to know too much because I didn't want to project my own interests onto their careers or what might be important for them like I approach these interviews in a pretty open-ended way by saying like you tell me what's been important to you through your career and what you wanted to do because I feel like if I was asking about a specific thing like I'm interested in that specific thing and that's what I want to know but is it important to them is it what they want to talk about like it was really important that it'd be their story so that's kind of how it started now that I've done so many refining that you know maybe some of the answers are very similar or obviously you don't want all the interviews to say the same thing and they never will because everyone is so different but now it is we do tie in some more topical things into the interviews like the one with Junien Hayes that went up earlier this week from Afroshik that one was both about her career but also about like what's going on right now and her advice with dealing with things right now so those questions are starting to make their way into the interview but also like to my point about having a column like Days With where it's about the day I mean we're introducing some like different ways to interview and different pieces on Madam Architect beyond the feature interview to kind of tap into other themes and other discussions and other questions and so that's some of what are what are new problems that we're launching relate to I was also wondering like there are some questions that get asked so often to only women professionals and then there is some like hesitation around answering those and so how do you navigate that which question like you were saying there were some women who are starting a practice and they were pregnant at the same time and the family and this and these are some topics that you that don't get asked to men in the same profession so have you faced anything I mean like this when you're interviewing yeah yeah I think those are important things to talk about I think parenting and actually like integrating whatever else is going on in your life whether it be parenting whether it be you know you're taking care of your parents that are living with you whether it be like a medical thing or maybe it's a hobby that someone does and they cycle a lot and do all these trips like I think all of those things should be talked about unfortunately especially the stuff about parenting does tend to fall on women because for so long they've been the primary caretakers and also because they're the ones that carry the child like I think in some ways it would be really I think the questions I'm asking of women that are like that should be asked of men I don't I don't agree at all that they just shouldn't be asked of anybody because I think that does a huge disservice to like ignore a huge part of life that people deal with that like like in some ways we talk you guys should read Angie Lee's interview about this she's a partner at Fx Collaborative she you know she talks about how you're expected to parent like you don't work and work like you don't parent which is hugely unfair of everyone in any setting so I don't think things like this should be ignored I don't think just because we don't ask them of men we shouldn't ask them of women I think we should ask them of everybody you know instead of asking how do you manage child care and and owning a practice to women we should totally be asking that of men and actually what will happen because I have asked them of those questions is men will say oh you know my wife helps me but I think like we need to shine some light on that you know and and say okay well that's is that like the way that it should go yeah so I don't think we should stop asking them overall because that's just ignoring a huge part of life that affects a lot of things I think we should just be asking them of everyone I agree with that I think that's good are you have you interviewed anyone so you've talked that you kind of broke down the different categories in a way and you know sort of telling us each week what your plan is or each month and I was thinking a little bit about some of these people that wouldn't fall under the term architect or even be in an allied discipline but more of like a mayor or someone in policy and how how could you for instance bring this and that you know that relation the people who are really visionary and thinking about the world through space and things like this could be quite interesting too yeah we interviewed actually we interviewed Alicia Glenn at the end of last year who's the former deputy mayor of New York we don't know what she's going to do next there's a lot of speculation that she's going to start a real estate firm but you know we spoke to her we spoke to Mary-Anne Gil-Martin who's a developer former CEO of Forest City Rattner who's now who now just launched her own development company Mac Partners and we talked to Mary-Anne Tai who's a really like I think she's been voted or she's been a bunch of like most powerful New Yorkers list she's a broker she's a real estate broker and has kind of led some really significant deals like you know Vogue and Condé Nast Leasing and Building in Times Square so we have spoken to some of those women and that's important to us as well we want to do more of that it's turning into not just being women that advance the practice of architecture but kind of women that are influential in the built environment and I don't really know how to articulate that in a slogany way like women that advance the practice of architecture is like a a good way to describe it I don't want to say you know the women that build our cities those are trade women but you know I can't claim that but yeah we are looking to interview more people that are influential in the built environment beyond just like designing it or making or caring it out but that are making policy decisions and you know within government and beyond yeah that's interesting I mean it's like those who shape the world somehow yeah through building through writing I mean you're one of those figures for sure as we were we were just looking at the work of Merriam Camara before you joined and you know looking at her website and the blogs that she writes you know the way that she writes is very direct and you know kind of talking about the process of building something or construction making distinctions between global north and other places but really thinking about and writing to the idea of how architecture comes about in a city but always thinking about architecture and city together and thinking about these social spaces and and just one of the things we were talking about in a way is like how is how is the writing done so that it is both on one hand for the discipline but also distinct and and perhaps more for the public at large or that it or that it could be right and so in a way I think you're maybe you could talk a little bit about that through the through your through your blog yeah absolutely so actually it's so interesting I think everyone everyone I've interviewed that's within a common theme whether it be like people that have started their own firms or people that have started their own firms while having their first child there's always like similar things that they'll say and I've interviewed a few editors and journalists and you know critics and critics now and that's that's what their whole mission is that's what all of them say their mission is is to translate some of these ideas to a broader public I think yeah with madam architect it's also it was really important to me that the interview topics not be too insular like I think in architecture you know there is words that we use that you know our consultants don't use and that the trades people don't use and that are kind of yeah it's a little bit of a cocooned world a little bit sometimes and so with madam architect I try also try not to get too much into design in some interviews it's inevitable just because that's what the focus is and like I said I try to let the interview drive itself and the women to define what the story is like and not me but I've wanted these interviews to be very accessible to other women and other fields or anyone and then in other fields too and just everyone to be able to understand what architects are about and what they do and what they hope to do and also about how we navigate their careers so it's been interesting and I'm a member of an organ like a group called the wing which is a co-working and social club for women and unfortunately they've had to close down all of their spaces just given everything that's happening because you know being a physical business is really there their bread and butter but I had met and the reason I joined is because I realized all of my friends were in architecture or real estate or design in some way and I just I knew nobody in government I knew nobody that was a journalist you know I knew nobody in fashion and joined this group to meet these women and so many friends I've made there they read madam architect and madam architect has become kind of a source for them and so I think at large with the writing that comes from madam architect I think I do aim for it to be not just for architects and I think it's also I have two missions obviously one of them is to elevate women and elevate and you know bring attention to the work that women are doing in ways that haven't been done before but also it's to elevate architects period in a way that's really digestible and I'm hoping that as madam architect kind of gains more and more traction and you know it's highlighted more in other ways that people will know of it and read it that are not in the practice and thus like know more about architects than what our goals are and things like that do you I have a couple of questions so student if you guys have questions please jump in I was curious we had a speaker a couple of weeks ago who's a writer and she came and she actually showed us all her journals that she writes in and she read from them and you know was encouraging everyone to write every single day and I'm curious yeah I'm curious if you if you also do that I mean it's I don't know how you do it you know you're you're practicing you're also maintaining this and you're collaborating with others and but I was curious do you keep a separate something separate like do you have things you write about the interviews that are separate from the content that came out of it it'd be interesting to think about these observations and you know yeah I would say when I just with my schedule being what it is now the writing that I do is madam architect like it is what you see before I started though I was really yeah I was really really looking to integrate writing into it and I would just do that by journaling every day and a lot of it it actually got a little stressful at some point because I would write about all the things that I wanted to do or like ideas I had and I one thing I I'll also say is I would never plan for madam architect to be what it is today and I never I never woke up and just said to myself I know exactly what I'm going to do I'm going to start this website and I'm going to interview all these like never never never it was so organic and cumulative and like I was describing you know at the beginning one thing led to another but but as I was going through all that I had a ton of other ideas and there was a project I was running for a while on Instagram where I was doodling every day I don't know I think I had a goal just like being in front of a screen but working in practice I had the goal of yes writing something every day and I would do that by journaling just like about my day or about things I wanted to do or ideas I had and also by doodling and doing these small easy drawings and I used to have a project going on Instagram where I would post one doodle a day and that was my goal is just like before bedtime I would do a little bit to music and then the next I would post it on Instagram it's still on there it's at or if you guys are curious it's called Lena creative L-I-N-A and I thought maybe I would start like a creative agency from this which did not happen but it was I guess for me writing writing was just an example of like a personal project that I that was important to me to keep going so in the same way that this woman said you know you should aim to write every day I totally agree I would take that even beyond and just say you should do one thing a day that like is for you where it's what you want whether that be I don't know taking a walk and photographing everything you see on your walk and the streetscapes of New York whether it's doodling whether it's writing whether it's like having conversations and maybe you face time with someone for five minutes every day I just anything like that advances your interests and kind of your mission I would encourage yeah for sure the idea of just being creative all the time but something that's not for a deadline or a project or for someone else but to kind of keep that you know it's a must design if we talk specifically about design or perhaps writing as well just the practice of doing that over and over it's a muscle right and if you exactly let that atrophy it's much harder to come back to that for sure exactly that's that's it interesting yeah I would actually want to to ask a little bit since you also mentioned it now like about media itself so why you chose to write it I know that MetaMarket has the Instagram and just your thoughts about like these different types of media especially now where we're all contact with that because of our current situation but how do you think these different kind of media affect what you have written in different projects and you've talked about maybe doing a book later on and this has a lot to do with our class because it is about architects going into this media so just your general thoughts about this kind of differences yeah that's a great question it's kind of similar to the point that I was making before about if you're practicing architect you should be taking advantage of every single um path of output like a building is output lecture is output you know writing is output and and all these different ways reach different audiences and get people to understand your work at a different level it's kind of been the same way for about a architect in its evolution like social media has been huge for us and it's completely how we were able to gain a following that we did just by sharing every interview every week through all the different platforms and like Instagram is one way and that reaches a certain audience you know it's very millennial heavy and now Gen Z and so we reach you know people like that in that way LinkedIn reaches some of the older practicing professionals Facebook you know reaches people's grandmother like aunts and uncles and and so we don't we don't discount any way to spread the word and work I don't know I hate I hate people that are like sorry I don't hate people I hate when people are too exclusive for something like oh I don't do that because it's not cool or I don't know I think you should just take advantage of like everything you have at your fingertips in every way and something will come out of that so anyway for us like sharing on media and making use of different media just reaches different audiences in different ways and so with a book like what would be nice about that is you know it's a very permanent like Madame Archie the website is sort of an archive like people have asked me to do a podcast a bunch of times and it's very labor-intensive or I think it would be so it's not something I can do right now but also with a podcast like it feels a lot more ephemeral than like a written record of the interview that's going to be online for you know a long long long time and a book goes even beyond that like a book will be in someone's home for hopefully the rest of their lives you know or for years and years and will be this constant reminder so it's just like different media platforms reach different people and connect with people in different ways and yeah I don't exclude anything I mean obviously I excluded a podcast just because it's not possible right now but maybe that that'll be right for us in the future so that's kind of how we approach it just everything has purpose and everything is value I mean there's time for one more question I know Julia you have to hop off soon yeah yeah sure I don't know if there's one more we can do two more I just wanted to ask you about the like the editing process do you ask like you do the interview and then I guess there's a lot of like post work just a few times more than others yeah yeah but how do you just how do you do that how do you edit how do you what's that process like sure yeah it's changed over time just because I've done a lot more and so at first it was just extremely extremely iterative in the same way that you would approach a design project like you sketch or you draw through something once and follow through and then you come back to it and you get feedback on it and you do it again it was just like that I would transcribe the whole interview which I don't do anymore because oftentimes like I know now when I conduct the interviews I'll take notes on moments where whoever I'm talking to gets particularly excited or particularly passionate and I know that what they're talking about is the thing that is more meaningful to them than maybe some other things that they've talked about so I keep that in mind but yeah I would like transcribe the whole thing read through it once see what stands out read through it again start taking things out read through it again and it would be like a series of I don't know six or seven or ten read throughs but that was at the very beginning before I was experienced in something like this now it's a lot a lot faster now I don't even transcribe everything just because some things are things that everyone says and have been said in a lot of interviews so they're less they're kind of less salient and less about that particular person so we don't you know we just move on sometimes what will happen and conversations tend to be it's longer or shorter like you know if I end up talking to someone for two hours I'm not going to transcribe that whole thing because that would be four hours of transcribing and then who knows how many hours of editing and some interviews are only a half hour in which case usually I'll transcribe everything and that'll be the interview so it kind of depends but yeah just it just comes with experience and following through and the accumulation of another edit and another edit and another edit and yeah I would just say it's very very similar to how you would work through like a studio project and just like taking a stab at it and then again again again great well thank you thank you I'm sorry oh go ahead go ahead no no no just something really quick you said there are for people working with you now right for the for the website are they all architects or yeah actually they are which has been really cool well so they're all trained as architects one is a licensed architect and a mom of two and she was my very very first editor that had reached out also everyone's volunteering I'm volunteering they're volunteering and so I haven't really gone out to people to recruit for help even when I really needed it because I didn't feel like I could kind of put this on someone and say hey can you do this for me and also you're not going to get paid like that's not so everyone that is that is working with me have reached out themselves and have wanted to do this knowing that that would be the case which has been I've been lucky in that way but yeah what one is a licensed architect one is recently graduated and so she's working as a designer right now and one studied architecture and then studied landscape architecture worked as a designer and then did something very similar to me and switched over into marketing and she really loves writing so it's actually interesting they all have different strengths I would say one is very very organized and really good at just like operations kind of things one is really good at promoting and talking about the work like talking about the interviews after the fact and one is really really good at editing and proofreading and so that's been interesting to see but now they're all doing their own interviews too which is kind of nice because I love that it's starting to be a network of women that speak to other women and then write about other women yeah amazing that's great well thank you so much Julia for coming today and for madam architect it's wonderful that we have that as a source and thank you so much and thank you guys for all your questions they were so they were really amazing and not questions some that I hear more often but some of these were really unique so I appreciate that gives me a lot to think about too that's great great thank you so much thank you bye everyone thanks for joining thank you everyone we can we can stay on just for a couple more minutes so I don't know if you have any questions or comments from today it's always useful for me to hear back from you what you thought of the class and so I'm happy to hear things today or if you want to send me a note by email that's also works really well and I've been collecting those over the semester so it's super super useful for me so please share any thoughts you have as I'm thinking about how this class evolves and how what it could be like in the future is helpful so so I think technically I guess this is our last meeting it seems hard to believe that but I do have the there are three more Zoom calls set up on the the link and I would like to still meet and I'm happy to meet again and I think I did have a couple makeups anyways but just in our you know sort of readjusting we're a little bit out of sync and so what I was thinking and I mentioned last time but for the next meeting we can look at the work of Anne Lakatan and then a Momoyo Kajima from Atelier Bow Wow so I'd like to look at the those two together for next week I know we're moving into final production mode and for studios and then final reviews will be starting so I understand if you can't make it but if you can come even for a little bit that's I'm happy if people sort of pop in and out that's okay and then we can meet again the following two Fridays and perhaps the last session could be for you guys to just share what you've worked on and so on I will send you an email with a kind of final deadline when everything is due I'm happy to push that to like the last moment possible if should you finish early you know feel free to send it in you don't have to wait but otherwise let's just hopefully keep meeting over the next couple of weeks if you would like to talk independently also I'm happy to do that or we could certainly turn these Friday sessions into that where you have more of a one-on-one but just send me an email and we can find time to meet that sounds good to everybody okay all right I don't anyone have any comments or thoughts from today all right no just it was really cool to listen to her just as a feedback I think maybe to the other uh seminars you give you should invite her again yeah okay good that sounds great yeah good yeah yeah it's inspiring I just I just think I feel like I'm now going through like her website of thinking there's so many things that women also have to think about I mean even men have to think about but really you're you're not just an architect you're also so many other things and I like I was just like wow that's it's kind of great to get that and also just something she mentioned about like taking advantage of or not advantage but like you know you using the people you have like you or resources that are to us I never like actively think about it I think it's something we just have but it's true there aren't enough female mentors too so that was nice I'm glad you get that yeah that's good well they're definitely out there I mean I think also as a student you have each other and I know it's hard now that we're physically separated but you need to work a little harder to keep up your contacts you know with your classmates and they really will be a great resource for you in in the future but I like this idea of going back to your first comment about you know not just an architect but all these other things and I mean when I was a student in undergrad it was really you were an architect and that was it but as I learned more and the world was evolving going to graduate school it was you know multi hyphenated person right? So you can be an architect a writer educator planner urban designer scientist right? Like there's this kind of endless stream of things almost so it's and I think for sure GESAP is a school that advocates for that and establishes a kind of platform in ways that other places don't and you know for sure being in the city allows for that right so great okay very good all right well everyone be well stay safe and let me know please write to me I'm happy to to meet outside of the class so okay bye