What made you decide to become a designer?
I originally wanted to become a landscape architect because I was interested in exploring the dichotomies between urban and suburban landscapes and infrastructure as a teenager while growing up in the city of Boston.
During my first year in architecture school I had an internship with the Boston Planning and Development Agency, where I was immersed in the world of urban planning, zoning, and transportation planning and I put serious consideration into pivoting one of those fields.
However, I ended up remaining in the realm of designing the built environment because I found more opportunities to directly address social and economic inequities in built architecture and construction.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve done at STA?
The coolest thing I’ve done at STA is put together a construction set and push a project from drawings to construction completion in 1 month (The Record Co., 55 Morrissey), with the help of my awesome colleagues. It was an expedited design process and we were contacted with the goal of quickly creating a new recording space for local musicians who were recently displaced from their former studio that abruptly closed. That TRC would reach out to STA for this urgent task speaks to the level of trust that is built from the values we share with our clients. This is just one of many examples of tangible ways that we at STA are able to drive change through design.
What is your favorite color?
My favorite color is pale orange because it’s bright and optimistic, but not too saturated.
What is your favorite food?
My favorite food is steak tips, with sides of roasted broccoli and mashed potatoes, but I only eat it on occasion.
What is one song you know every word to?
“Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy. I’ve heard that song so many times throughout my adolescence.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Playing video games at home. Specifically, Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch, I’ve put in an unreasonable amount of time into that one game. A rough estimation would put it at over 1,000 hours of time since its release in 2020. Most of that time was spent designing buildings like I would here at STA.
What’s the best place you have ever visited?
The best place I have ever visited is Berlin, Germany, for the food, art scene, history, and of course architecture, both historic and contemporary. I studied abroad there for a semester and have fond memories of spending time there with my classmates.
What is something about yourself you could totally brag about but usually don’t?
I met Frank Gehry here in Boston back during my first year in architecture school. He had met with the former Director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency, my former co-op internship, and I was invited to meet him as well.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
“Treat others the way you’d like to be treated”. I’m aware it’s become somewhat trite of a saying these days, but it’s still something I think helps when communicating and building professional relationships. You never know what unspoken impact you can have one someone based on how you treat them.
What’s a small thing someone did that really encouraged you?
At my first internship at an architectural firm during my last year of my undergraduate program, I remember being uncertain about whether I would make it through graduate school and earn a master’s degree because of how daunting the entire process seemed at the time. I had a coworker who went through it 10 years before who simply said to me, “You can definitely do it. It’s not that hard”. It did in fact end up being very difficult but keeping that simple motto in my head as I went through school really encouraged me to work through until the end.
What’s your favorite season and why?
My favorite season is summer, because it’s the only time where it’s not freezing in Boston. It’s also the time of year when many projects are in construction and it’s exciting to see projects that had been started as line drawings earlier in the year take form and become an actual, physical space in the summer. It makes all the hard work worth it.
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Be your own mentor. It’s good to seek out role models and to look up to people who are positions you would like to be in career-wise, however I’ve often found that most mentors somewhat coach you on how to be them rather than yourself.
What energizes you outside of work?
My faith. It drives a lot of things I do in life and how I think about them.
What’s a trip that changed you, and why?
When I was in graduate school, we had a travel studio course in which we went to the Republic of Benin in Africa to study urban fabric of informal settlements and architecture from a global/NGO perspective that respected the integrity and agency of the people who lived in these areas. I hold that trip in high regard with respect to all the places I’ve ever visited around the world because it changed my perspective on both how to build buildings and relationships with people and how I view myself.
What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?
I love to skateboard and have been skating since high school. I even bring my skateboard with me on vacations to try out new skateparks.
-Helmsley
