Side of Design

BWBR’s 2024 Scholarship Recipients Challenge Injustice in Design

• BWBR • Episode 54

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The most recent Side of Design podcast introduces us to two architecture students whose work demands we reconsider what makes good design. Sierra Espinoza and Pwapadeino Wonosikou, this year's BWBR equity scholarship winners, aren't waiting until graduation to tackle the industry's most pressing questions about who benefits from the spaces we build—and who doesn't.

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Matthew Gerstner: 0:00 

This is Side of Design from BWBR, a podcast discussing all aspects of design with knowledge leaders from every part of the industry. Hello and welcome to Side of Design from BWBR. I'm your host, Matt Gerstner. Today we're so excited to recognize the achievements and talent of the recipients of BWBR's annual equity scholarships. Each award is designed to support equity in the built environment by providing a $2,500 prize to a student of architecture, interior design or graphic design. Applicants submitted both a personal statement and a sample design project, and we were truly blown away by the caliber of submissions we received for these annual awards. And this year's awards winners, Sierra Espinoza and Pwapadeino Wonosikou, are with me today.

Matthew Gerstner: 0:45 

Sierra, winner of the Scholarship for Gender Equity in Design, is a BSArc student at Howard University. Her project Resilient, Biophilic and Equitable Puerto Rican Housing imagines a resilient housing community located in San Isidro, puerto Rico, a small neighborhood that has historically been decimated by tropical storms. The development reinforces community and links each resident to accessible support and encourages comfort, connection and choice. Three prominent markers of trauma-informed design supporting hurricane survivors. 

Deino, winner of the scholarship for Diversity and Inclusion in Design, is a Bachelor of Architecture student at Dunwoody College of Technology. Her project Hikima, “The ability to know and apply”, imagines a learning environment in Nigeria where most curriculums and schools mimic those in the United States or England. Her concept negates this, emphasizing African education and architecture as a point of knowledge and pride in the community and globally, with a focus on the importance of culture, climate and connections with one another. Welcome both. Thank you for joining me today.

Sierra: 1:55 

Thank you for having us. It's great to be here.

Matthew Gerstner: 1:57 

So excited to have you both here, being the recipients of both of these scholarships. It's a great opportunity to share your projects with our listeners and get to know you both a little bit better. I'm just going to start off by asking if each of you could tell us a little bit about your background and what made you want to go into design.

Sierra: 2:16 

So hi everybody, I'm Sierra Espinoza. I'm a current fourth year architecture major at Howard University. I am from Brooklyn, New York, originally, but I live in Alexandria, Virginia, now. But I honestly was interested in architecture because I was always surrounded by art as a child. I've come from a big art family. On my mom's side everybody is either a painter, sculptor, jewelry maker, photographer, etc. Except for my mom who decided to go into law, funnily enough.

Sierra: 2:40 

But I always grew up just around art, going to art galleries and things like that. So I had a huge art influence. I've also just always loved science, whether it be environmental science, chemistry, et cetera. I also was able to watch my dad build my grandmother's house in Trinidad and Tobago when I was a young child. That's where my dad is from. And so I think just being surrounded by the influence of art, science and construction kind of meshed into this strong interest to go into architecture in college. And yeah, design plays a big role in shaping communities. It can either have a positive or negative impact. As Americans, we spend about 90 percent of our time indoors on average, and so architecture is everywhere and it influences quality of life. As a designer, we should strive to make them as healthy and equitable as possible for everyone, and I just wanted to use my interest in architecture to help make that impact, while simultaneously looking at the past, present and future to shape solutions and strategies.

Matthew Gerstner: 3:39 

That's fantastic. It's a wonderful description of where you've come from, what's important to you and where you want to go. I love to hear that.

Pwapadeino: 3:46 

Not similarly, but I like to think of myself as like a product of, like my lived experiences. I've had the opportunity to live in Africa, Europe and now I'm in school in North America and just something that has been evident for me, growing up in, like these different continents have been like the types of buildings that have been produced that I've been able to see and visit or like just live in those spaces. And I think my decision to study design was fueled by that curiosity of why buildings differ and how they differ from one another because of, like, geography or their culture or just traditions, and that in turn, I was like, wow, if I could learn more about this, why they differ, that would just be amazing. And then going on into architecture school seeing how communities impact building design, tradition and just like people and programs impacts design, it's just been a curiosity for me that has made me pursue education and career in design.

Matthew Gerstner: 4:53 

Well, that's fantastic. One of the things that you both said was curiosity. You're talking about integrating with all of the communities that you're developing for and how architecture really can bring people together and it can improve lives. We are really looking to try and bring people together and make things better and use design to do that. So that is, it's a fantastic way to talk about things. So what do you see as the role of design in an equitable built environment?

Sierra: 5:30 

I think that design can be a powerful tool for resource allocation and community empowerment.

Sierra: 5:32 

When designers consider the needs of the community that they design in, access can be expanded and more needs are met, so that could be access to things like education, recreational opportunities, jobs, health and wellness resources, et cetera.

Sierra: 5:45 

I also think that design can help to establish, like placemaking, and a sense of belonging in communities, especially marginalized communities. For centuries, even thousands of years, just in the world as a whole, but like especially in this country, there have always been a group of people that are essentially like, cast away from everybody else, whether that be socially cast away or physically cast away. They're just not as valued as other groups of people, and so if we design spaces with the needs of those marginalized groups in mind, we can help to flip this narrative and give people the necessary sense and reality that they do belong and that they are seen as equals. And, I guess, to bounce off of that, architecture and design can help to address barriers that do lead to those social and physical walls that we put up. Yeah, so design is just a tool that can remove barriers that prevent access to spaces and resources and things like that and make things more accessible to everybody to everybody.

Pwapadeino: 6:46 

Yeah, I think. For me, I think a design is like physical representation of solutions, in terms of when there are problems in society, when you need a school, when you need a hospital, design creates those solutions but gives it a space to have those solutions. And so, for me, when I think of design, it has this power to create beautiful things but, like Sierra mentioned, also to destroy things that are already beautiful. The country has a history of destruction or creating destruction in communities with design, with design of highways or design of like spaces that, um, strip the community of beautiful things they've already had. But then, in turn, it also has that power to create and be like this physical representation of solutions and remedies to things that have happened in communities. So it's a double-edged sword, in a way, in how it can create and how it can hurt and destroy.

Matthew Gerstner: 7:48 

Well, it's absolutely true, I can. I've seen that in our communities here, just how they call it progress. Right, they call it progress, they call it moving forward, but there's a lot of beautiful things that get taken away in order to do some of those things and there's no way of telling whether it's truly going to be progress and helpful. So to see that you're both so, so focused in on, on making sure that design going forward is going to be an equitable thing for everybody, that is that's fantastic. I loved it. Seriously, this is probably one of my most favorite conversations that I get in all of the podcasts I record every single year is to hear from young professionals in school just finishing up, maybe they're on their master's, maybe they're on their bachelor's and the ideas and the connectedness and the awareness is just amazing of what's coming out of school today. I'm just soaking in what you're all saying, which is really cool.

Sierra: 8:44 

Thank you, thank you, yeah, the future is very powerful, so we have to seize the moment and do our best.

Matthew Gerstner: 8:50 

I couldn't agree more. That is fantastic. So can you tell us more about the project that each of you submitted for the scholarship and how equity is central in its conception?

Pwapadeino: 9:02 

I think when I was doing this project, we were working on a high school and a lot of the things we would look for in terms of like precedence, you would never see schools that I went to. I went to a boarding school in Nigeria for high school and I think I had a really great education in terms of like, when I moved to America for college, I wasn't behind in physics, I wasn't behind on like the sciences, I wasn't behind on the arts and in my mind, I'm like wait, I had a great education, I was able to come to America and not be behind. Why isn't my heritage, my culture, celebrated in what I'm studying and in what I want to do? And so, while doing the research for everything, I'm like wait, it's not only my education, my traditions and for an architecture, just being environmentally cautious with climate and just like passive housing. Those are things we study.

Pwapadeino: 10:03 

But when I look at precedents, I don't see a lot of things that are from Africa or, like, from other parts of the world. You see a lot of things from Europe, you see a lot of things from America, but I'm like well, we have knowledge to give and our knowledge isn't diminished because it comes from other parts of the world. It should be glorified and it can be celebrated, but not only celebrated, because people don't use it. It can be used in research practices and construction practices and like other parts of the world, and so I think for me it was more of a if I moved to this country and other people not only me moved to this country and we have an education where we can still be on the same level of people that graduated in America and we can learn, that should be celebrated. And because I'm in architecture school, the way I can show that strength and that resilience and like our knowledge is through architecture, and that is why I wanted to shine, for just people to come in and for myself as I graduate.

Matthew Gerstner: 11:05 

There's really so much to learn from every culture around the world, and I think in European and American society a lot of that gets lost. It really does get lost and we are trying to find it again. And so, hearing that and hearing, there's so much to learn from the region that you grew up in. You know, when you're talking about the use of resources, the culture is, you know, can be so significantly different, and it's absolutely something that should be celebrated and certainly learned from.

Pwapadeino: 11:34 

Thank you. 

Sierra: 11:35 

 

So for my project last spring semester spring 2024, third year studio, we had a design studio focused on developing resilient housing, and so our site for the class was San Ysidro, Puerto Rico, which is a small neighborhood in Puerto Rico's capital of San Juan, and, as I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast probably knows, Puerto Rico is often neglected by US government aid during tropical storms and hurricanes, and they're left to fend for themselves without adequate access to fresh water power. And this is super crazy, because Puerto Rico used to be an independent island. It was incorporated into the US as a territory, and the US loves to strip resources and use the island for profit, but when it's time for them to recover from storms and when they need help, they're just left in the dark. And this is an issue that exists not only in Puerto Rico, but other parts of the Caribbean and just worldwide, and it's accelerating rapidly. And just as designers, as we confront the threats of climate change, worsening storms, sea level rise, et cetera, we need to think about how new resilient forms of housing that can meet the needs of vulnerable populations in these areas most affected by climate change could be developed quickly, and so my project prototype essentially seeks to respond to this issue and provide Puerto Ricans with affordable, modular, customizable, trauma-informed, which is a big thing, biophilic and community-oriented housing units and neighborhood layouts that establish neighborhood self-sufficiency and reinforce community.

Sierra: 13:05 

A lot of the research that I did before developing my housing prototypes like news articles and things like that stated that Puerto Ricans would rather not be relocated after they lose their homes in tropical storms, but if they had to be relocated, they wanted to, as a community, be moved as a unit, rather than have individual families be relocated, and so that really stood out to me, because Puerto Ricans, and just humans as a whole, we're social beings.

Sierra: 13:34 

We rely on our neighbors. If you are baking a cake and you don't have enough eggs, who do you go to? You go next door and you ask your neighbor for eggs. It's the same thing like when your house floods or your wall has fallen and you need to rebuild, you go to your neighbor, and so community in Puerto Rico is just a super strong tool and concept that should be maintained In current aid efforts on the island. When they are relocated, they're relocated separately and they lose that sense of connection, and so a big part of my project was figuring out how we could keep communities together, when providing new or when rebuilding communities essentially but I don't want to ramble about this too much but community connection, modularity, flexibility and customization were huge themes in my prototype to provide equitable housing on the island.

Matthew Gerstner: 14:23 

You mentioned a couple of things that I think are super important. One Puerto Rico is a United States territory and they're not getting the support they need from the US and it's so sad, and I think we've seen that in the news too many times. I think it's absolutely amazing that you've been looking at how they are underserved by our government, and the fact of trying to keep communities together is such an important thing. Those are absolutely remarkable concepts. When you're thinking about design, I absolutely, absolutely love it. So you've given us a little background on your concepts and your designs that you've submitted for our scholarship. But what do you think, personally, is the importance of diversity overall in the industry, and why do you think it matters?

Pwapadeino: 15:14 

I like to think of it, I use this illustration myself all the time when I think of just diversity in spaces. When you're either designing in school or you're writing a report or something like that, you always need some sort of second eye, and that second eye is like a different opinion that helps, gives you feedback or just tells you like oh, edit this, do that. And when I think of that first city in spaces, that's like the illustration I have in my head. You have this project, you want to make it better, or you have a team, and if everyone thinks the same way, that doesn't help. That doesn't help produce something great or something that is a lot more improved.

Pwapadeino: 15:57 

When you have someone of a different culture, identity, race, gender, tradition, they're, they come in, they're like oh well, where I'm from, which probably could be the client, where the client is from, where the client's experiences, it's like okay, we do this this way, we do that way and like, sometimes it's not only like like years of experience, it could be someone that's younger, that comes in and they're talking and like well, in my tradition this is how it goes and it could be similar here. So when I think about it, I think about it as different eyes on one project or different opinions on one project that make it stronger, because you've seen and heard the input of like different people and it's not like this conglomerate of a person doing it all, cause you think about the real world and just working. You don't do it all by yourself. Like a company isn't one person, so you might as well make it different people from different walks of life. 

Sierra: 16:56

Very true.

Matthew Gerstner: 16:57 

Love that.

Sierra: 16:58 

Yeah, I completely agree with what Dana said. To continue off of that, when you understand people that are different from yourself, or people that just have different perspectives from your own, you can design better. I think in our industry specifically, like historically, designers that lack an understanding of the issues within the communities that they design in struggle to design for those communities. As a result, their designs lack the things that the community needs, like access to healthy foods, educational resources, healthy buildings, green spaces. The list goes on.

Sierra: 17:28 

And so, essentially, designers are hurting communities and not helping them, and, as designers ourselves, I'm sure we'd rather help and not hurt. So diversifying the industry and just having people that are from different backgrounds whether those backgrounds be cultural, racial, socioeconomic, etc. Can help to remedy this issue. And even if you don't share the same background as the community that you're designing, and taking the time to understand those people whether you're talking to community members, going on site visits, doing extensive research on those areas can help immensely. Yeah, if we had done this from the beginning of time, I'm sure our built environment would look extremely different than it does now, but we still have a ton of time to make positive change.

Matthew Gerstner: 18:14 

Both of your descriptions are so fantastic because you're talking about the idea of one mindset, designing for a community, like a homogenous mindset, even if it's 10 people working on it.

Matthew Gerstner: 18:26 

If they're just trudging right along, looking down their path and not taking the input of the community where it's going it's, you're creating a project that is destined to fail ultimately, which is not good for anybody.

Matthew Gerstner: 18:40 

And then looking at truly being a listener as a designer, I think, is another thing you both said, like listening, listening is so key, and it's something I picked up on both from what both of you were saying. If you don't listen to the communities again, it's just never going to work. And having a broad aspect, and it doesn't have to be like, like you said, you don't have to be necessarily representative of the community that you're designing in or for, but if you truly listen and you understand what they're saying and take all of that into account, yeah, if we did this from the beginning of time, this earth would not look like it does right now, right? So, thinking about those things, what changes would you like to see in architecture and design going forward, whether it's in the business practice or in the final products. What kind of things do you think you'd like to see changed?

Sierra: 19:38 

I personally would love to see a bigger focus on community-based design and meaningful impact, especially within larger companies. Also, more of a focus on prosperity rather than profit. Of course, architecture is a business and there's money to be made, but we need to start thinking about how can money be made and how can communities be served. At the same time, we need to invest in our communities and not overlook them. A lot of people think like marginalized communities or areas are just not worth investing money into. But if we took the time to understand the barriers and inequities that those communities face and have been inflicted upon them, we can eradicate that sense of, or that act of victim blaming I guess you could call it and the narrative of unworthiness and invest those resources and time to make equitable spaces. But yeah, more prosperity rather than profit.

Matthew Gerstner: 20:30 

I love the way you put that together, because prosperity and profit they're not the same. They are not the same concept. That is fantastic.

Sierra: 20:39 

Thank you.

Pwapadeino: 20:40 

For me. I don't know if it'd be much of a change, but like a continued momentum towards, like environmental impact and social responsibility. I feel like something as I've grown through, just like my academic career, is environmental impact with buildings and how buildings create all of that, and social responsibility, kind of how Sierra mentioned. But sometimes I see businesses or firms and it feels very surface level or it feels like it's like oh yeah, this is happening in the world today, so we're going to make a post and say this, and then you look at the work and you're like well, who's benefiting from this? Or whether it's moving materials from countries or things like that.

Pwapadeino: 21:28 

And then when you do all these things, how does that affect communities? And I think just having an intentional approach towards all those things is just important to me because, like I said, it sometimes feels surface level or sometimes it just feels like maybe, like Sierra mentioned, it's not profitable. So like, if this, if this community isn't well, how much am I going to make from it? Nothing, so why am I going to do work there? And so, seeing intentional approaches towards those two things or something I would like to see continue to grow.

Matthew Gerstner: 22:07 

With eco design, we've just scratched the surface we really have as an industry. There's so much more we can do and I love to hear you say that that's, that's a focus, that's, that's a change that needs to grow. That's that's very cool. So, looking forward, now we're gonna, we're gonna look at, we're gonna look into the future. I'm gonna pull out my crystal ball and we're gonna say, I'm gonna say what are you looking to do in the future? What is … you're done with school, you're five years out in your career. Where do you see? Where do you see yourself? What do you see yourself doing?

Sierra: 22:41 

So my plans, honestly, are still not fully planned out. Um, I kind of like go with the flow. I'm a go with the flow kind of person, so I'll see where life takes me. But, um, definitely I'm going to get licensed as an architect as soon as I can, right out of school. Uh, potentially, uh, go into residential design.

Sierra: 23:02 

I'm also interested in wellness architecture. So not necessarily health clinics, but more of how can buildings as a whole, whether they be residential, community spaces, retail reinforced concepts of wellness? I may, because I said I'm originally from Brooklyn, new York, so I'm probably going to relocate back to New York and work within communities in New York, specifically housing projects, yeah, and that's actually where I'm planning to take my thesis for next year. I'm planning to reimagine social housing projects in New York City, specifically Brooklyn, but that umbrella might be expanded to other areas within the city. But reimagine those housing projects to be equitable, healthier and potentially biophilic spaces that can better serve marginalized populations. Hopefully, this thesis will give me a clearer lens into where I might focus my blossoming career when I first graduate.

Matthew Gerstner: 23:56 

I've got a feeling that's going to help and it's a much needed area of expertise, especially when you're looking at city development, when you're looking at Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, it's going to be very important 

Pwapadeino: 24:31 

I think for me, similar to Sierra I want to work on getting licensed and start practicing after graduation and getting licensed as soon as I can and another reason for that is because I know there's also a lot of work to do where I'm from, in Nigeria. But another, like I spoke about, just environmental impact.

Pwapadeino: 24:34 

I would like to proceed further education in environmental building design with a focus on just like environmental impact and social equity and communities within America and outside of America and hopefully one day,  work for the United States, the United States Green Building Council, um to actually be a part of like that push in those two areas social equity and environmental impact. Hopefully be in DC, which is a goal because, they heard, headquarters is there. But I know that's something that, as I've grown through architecture school and working on my thesis, right now I'm doing a project that's very tied into people in the environment and how resources and like activities on the site have created a barrier for people and strip like the environment of like just in terms of like emissions with like gas and food access and growing food, and so my thesis kind of is focusing on something like that. So I think getting that degree in environmental building design and working at organizations that push that from an architectures point of view would be important for me and something I would love to do in the future.

Matthew Gerstner: 25:47 

The ideas that you are growing in school are definitely fantastic and they are definitely going to take you places, and I absolutely appreciate having you both on today.

Sierra: 25:58 

Thank you so much. Thank you having you both on today. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been super great.

Matthew Gerstner: 26:02 

This has been Side of Design from BWBR, brought to you without any paid advertisements or commercials. If you found value in what you've heard today, give us a like, leave us a comment or, better yet, share us with your network. You can also reach out to us if you'd like to share an idea for a show or start a discussion, email us at sideofdesign@bwbr.com.