Juinkye Chiang

The Spring 2024 semester in New York City has been indispensable to my education and career development as an aspiring architect looking to work there in the long-term. Not only were the instructors at the Fisher Center top performers within the discipline, but they were also familiar with an often chaotic and intimidating environment of architecture in New York City. Research on the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and a studio project designed from these findings came out of a twice-weekly studio course, in addition to an architectural history elective on parks and wellness in the city. The semester offered first-hand experience with significant projects, offices, and processes located in New York City. 

Given that I was able to shadow a large New York-based firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox, at the end of this semester for three weeks, I was able to discover the breadth of the discipline and how different specializations collaborate to make architectural practice possible. At KPF’s size, they are able to accommodate marketing, environmental performance, computation, and digital fabrication, and visualization teams on top of traditional design teams to aid the process of design and project delivery. It was important to witness the mingling of these expertise sectors, as they built on top of each other in the way that they facilitated and bolstered the work of design teams. 

This semester brought me much closer to the work of New York City firms, allowing me to research and witness their projects first-hand, while also discovering the processes behind such projects. For example, the studio’s focus on landmarking encouraged students to watch the public hearings for intervention on landmarked buildings, especially looking at how the architect advocates for their project in front of a municipal committee. As a result, I was able to transfer this knowledge to interviews with these very firms, securing an internship position with Perkins Eastman in New York City for the summer of 2024. Building on top of the professional experience I have gained in the city, beginning with the off-campus semester spent there, I have accepted an offer to intern with Brookfield Properties for the upcoming summer of 2025.