I’m an architect in training with five years of experience in residential, education, and mixed-use projects, through all phases from concept through construction. I love the process of drawing a line and continually rehearsing it until it’s a building.
I am also drawn to the prefigurative aspects of architecture as a container for change and new futures. Lately I’ve been inspired to research and write about socially sustainable architecture and how we can invite our village into the home through community housing models.
Architecture is a deeply intimate practice. We design spaces for the connection of families and communities, and yet it seems very rare to turn that lense backwards to consider the personal life of the architect.
As my career progresses I feel it’s impossible to extricate my design values from my life experience. It has been integral to finding new lenses to consider the democratization of architecture via its professional pipeline and access to services. I’m a single mother with an abundant village of support who fill me with gratitude and inspiration; I sit at the intersection of a number of curious experiences that should be more readily discussed in the field.
Work samples may be viewed here.
Dreiling Terrones Architecture, Burlingame, CA, US, Project Manager
- Create feasibility analysis for residential and mixed use property owners
- Work closely with principals to conceive, develop, and administer construction documents for education, residential, and mixed use projects
- Resolve code compliance issues for homeowners
- Represent and advocate for projects with municipal agencies
- Maintain the firm's graphic and file management standards
- Project manager for a $10 million modernization of a public school campus, from design development to closeout
- Developed a working knowledge of building code through assembling construction documents and responding to agency comments
- Completed AXP hours
National Capital Planning Commission, Washington, DC, US, Office of Public Engagement Intern
- Created diagrams to illustrate concepts of the Federal Urban Design Element of the Comprehensive Plan for the National Capital
- Developed daily content for social media campaigns
- Drafted monthly newsletters and reports of agency achievements
- Archived news articles daily of media relevant to agency interests
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, US, Bachelors, Bachelors of Arts, Architecture
Major:
Bachelor of Arts with Honors, Architecture
Minors:
City and Regional Planning
Global Poverty and Practice
Social and Cultural Factors in the Built Environment
I believe architecture and design are not just disciplines with material and aesthetic value but processes that can influence people and organizations for the better. The design process of places, products, and experiences can be used as a tool to complete more than the physical output of a project - along the way, designers are impacting beyond artifacts to less tangible things.
I believe in prefigurative politics and see the built environment as a primary tool in the process of imagining the future.
Berkeley Prize - Semifinalist, Honorable Mention
The Berkeley Undergraduate Prize for Design Excellence endowment was established to promote the investigation of architecture as a social art. Each year the Prize Committee selects a topic important to the understanding of the interaction of people and the built world that becomes the focus of the Essay Competition.
In 2015, the Committee asked students to consider, "Which architects, individuals or institutions have made an effort to improve the living, working, education, and recreation places for the poor and underserved in your community?"
I responded with a case study of small architecture firms operating with a sustainable non-profit structure on projects for the benefit of their communities.
Judith Lee Stronach Undergraduate Summer Travel Scholarship, Scholarship
The Judith Lee Stronach Travel Scholarships are meant to encourage the study of new places, cultures, and peoples, as well as a commitment to social responsibility. All travel should have a service-learning focus, combining educational goals and community service in a way that enhances student growth as well as the common good.
I used this award to participate in UC Berkeley's Cal in the Capital program to intern in Washington, D.C. with the National Capital Planning Commission, the federal government’s central planning agency for the National Capital Region.
