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

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

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