Although we’ve come to the end of the road of this semester and for most of us, our academic career; this is only the beginning of rest of our lives and our future careers.
In collaboration with HDR's proposal Focal Point (the St. Anthony's replacement hospital located at 31st and Kedzie), our semester design project looked into challenging that program. In our proposal we are addressing population health, and how we can design a healthy community. Using an urban design approach, we decentralized the Focal Point program to create better accessibility of resources to the neighborhood, and we decided to use an existing amenity (the historic boulevard + Douglas park) to promote activity and community engagement. My studio partner Noopur Thakkar will create a final blog post with details on our project so please stay tuned!
During the final exhibition many people loved our project and the ideas we were proposing. I believe that arranging the presentation the way we did, allowed people to flexibility of jumping from one project to the next and returning if they had more questions. It also allowed our team to have more time to have conversations and thoroughly explain our design decisions. Being Nominated for the Graduate Design Excellence Award was definitely an academic career highlight for me. In all the years (6) I’ve been a student in the ISoA program this is the first time I’ve ever been nominated for this award, and it means so much to me that I was able to achieve this before graduating.
This semester I took a leap of faith in deciding to take the Chicago studio, and although there were a few road bumps for me, I am beyond grateful that I decided to come and take this studio. While I’ve never taken a Healthcare Studio, nor did I have prior knowledge of the subject. In the previous semester, I took an Environment, Behavior and Health Seminar that discussed the many ways your environment impacts your health. A major part of that course was analyzing how your zipcode (where you live) is a major determinant of health, your lifestyle and your life expectancy. This course helped shaped my desire to pursue the health and well-being focus degree. I knew that this semester’s studio would fall under the Health & Well-Being focus and that within the coursework we would be addressing inequities in healthcare; and we would be designing a space in an under-served community.
A few of my personal passions lie in social justice, public interest design, urban design and how public policies influence urban design; and designing buildings/spaces that services the community. When you are passionate about what you’re doing and you have a solid team, everything that comes along with it flows naturally. By far this is the best project I’ve ever produced as a student.
I believe that taking this studio opened up some avenues of ways that I can align my passions with my career; that in hindsight might seem indirect, but are very direct in achieving the goals that I want. I love to learn, and someday I may even pursue a Doctorate degree. I know that I will always be a student in some way, shape or form.
All throughout my years in college, professors have consistently mentioned the importance of formulating relationships with your classmates, and carrying them through once you graduate. It’s interesting because in undergrad most of my friends were not students in architecture; I had friends studying food science, public health, business, finance, etc. One of my friends currently works for the Obama Foundation and another is now a coordinator for the Rebuild Foundation. I think it's critical to have friends from different networks, because in one way or another everyone will find a way to connect professionally. I posted our virtual reality walk-through video on Facebook and one of my friends is already wanting to discuss how we can formulate a school board for the “Lawndale School for Health and Food Sciences” because they want to make it a reality.
Thank you Prof. Worn for an amazing semester; I've learned a great deal of information about the realities of Healthcare, and you've opened so many doors for all of us who took the Chicago Studio.
While this is the end of the posts for this semester’s coursework, it certainly won’t be the end of the work that’s to come for the future.