Madame Architect

We close out the year with our highest readership ever, our first construction tour as part of our "Madame Architect Presents" event series, and the "Architecture in Media" award from AIA New York | Center for Architecture! Our interviews are at the core of Madame Architect. We've always interviewed women all around the world, but this year we ramped it up, interviewing architects, entrepreneurs, and students from cities like Lagos, Johannesburg, and Paris to Beirut, New Delhi, and Bangkok. We've spent days in Kigali, Kochi, Utrecht, and Berlin. We've reached new communities and new readers, resulting in our highest readership levels of all time! We've seen steady growth over the years but this year was exceptional. Thank you so much to all of our readers for supporting and sharing our work and bringing us to new audiences — here's to 2025! #madamearchitect

Our final #MadameArchitect interview of 2024: Ya-Ting Liu, the first ever Chief Public Realm Officer for the Office of the Mayor of New York City. Liu is responsible for coordinating across city government, community organizations, and the private sector to create extraordinary public spaces across the entire city and continue to drive the city’s economic recovery. Liu brings over fifteen years of policy, community organizing, coalition building, and government affairs experience to the role. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Liu talks about the importance of concise communication and being able to synthesize many different perspectives, advising those just starting their careers to show up in person and engage with their city: https://lnkd.in/eUrtHpAA

This month for #ExpandingtheConversation: Majed Abdulsamad, AICP, a senior associate at WXY and the co-founder of Syrian Youth Empowerment, a non-profit organization supporting higher education access for refugees and students impacted by the war in Syria. Majed has extensive experience working locally with different New York City agencies, and nationally with the cities of Rochester, NY and Dallas, TX. Prior to WXY, Majed worked on public realm and street design initiatives globally at the Global Designing Cities Initiative under the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety in São Paulo and Fortaleza in Brazil, Mumbai, India, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Majed is also the Chair of Land Use and Waterfront at Manhattan’s Community Board Six (MN CB6). In his interview with Julia Gamolina, Majed speaks about how incremental progress in long-term objectives is what drives meaningful change to impact lives: https://lnkd.in/ekpe--2Q

This month for #NextGen: Amanda Ugorji, an architectural designer and artist interested in the potential for interdisciplinary design to act as a conduit for justice and equity. She recently graduated with an M.Arch from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has worked in architecture and resiliency planning in the Boston area; film, urban planning, and community engagement in New York City; on a public installation in Seoul, and on an exhibition production in Romania. Her goal is to continue working with collaborators on projects that move toward a more just and joyful future: #madamearchitect https://lnkd.in/e2tKrKJw

#DaysWith: This month, spend a day in Kigali, Rwana with Dufitimana Sylvie! Sylvie is an architect at MASS Design Group and serves as Communication Manager for the Global Health Corps Alumni Rwanda Forum. Passionate about empowering women, she co-founded Rwandan Ladies in Architecture to mentor female students and promote architectural awareness in Rwanda. Sylvie’s award-winning design in the 2020 Kigali Outdoor Public Bench Competition underscores her commitment to creating impactful public spaces. Her day involves coordinating with MASS’s Boston-based landscape team, a short ice cream break, and winding down with craft projects: #madamearchitect #massdesigngroup #architect https://lnkd.in/ecpgZkgC

Today on #MadameArchitect: Hiroko Kusunoki, the co-founder and director of MOREAU KUSUNOKI along with Nicolas Moreau. At the heart of the practice’s work is a series of cultural and educational projects, including the award-winning proposal for the Guggenheim Helsinki, the Sciences Po university campus in the center of Paris, the Powerhouse Parramatta Museum in Australia, which is envisioned to become one of the biggest cultural hubs in the wider Sydney, and, most recently, the Centre Pompidou 2030. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Hiroko talks about the evolving museum typology and the importance of its adjacent public spaces, and launching her own practice, advising those just starting their careers to find a firm that nurtures their development: #moreaukusunoki #centrepompidou Read here: https://lnkd.in/e5qhwqGg

This month on #SharingNotes, our column where we talk to stellar professionals in other fields: Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director at Work for America, a new nonprofit initiative working to make public service a more desirable, accessible, and stable career path that uplifts families, communities and our country. Caitlin’s career spans the public, private and non-profit sectors. She has developed social impact strategies for global brands and served as a philanthropic advisor to Van Jones. She was a founding employee at an affordable housing fund and Chief of Staff at a mission-driven govtech company. She has served in local, state and federal government, including at New York City Hall and in the White House Liaison Office of USDA. She has worked on political campaigns and ran external affairs for the organization that manages Times Square. Caitlin earned a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University and is a graduate of Coro New York Leadership Center. Read below! https://lnkd.in/ewgCyeGw

Today on #MadameArchitect: Amy Kulper, an architect, theorist, and curator whose teaching and research focus on the intersections of history, theory, and criticism with design. In September 2022, she joined The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL as Director and Professor of Architecture. Previously, she was the Architecture Department Head at the Rhode Island School of Design where she was actively engaged in the project of making architectural pedagogy and practice more accessible, inclusive, and equitable. In her interview with Gail Kutac, Amy talks about reformation at The Bartlett, the focus of her research, and the difference between an education in the UK and the US, advising those just starting their careers to leverage their life experience into their designs. #madamearchitect #bartlettucl

Today on #MadameArchitect: Olivia C., an architecture student-turned-entrepreneur who founded The Clearly Collective. With clients like the US Olympics, Olivia committed to her business full time in 2024, joining University of Virginia Darden School of Business’s incubator program. She’s now preparing to move to Milan to launch her destination collection in spring 2025. In her interview with Patrick Dimond, Olivia talks about growing and bootstrapping her business before focusing on it full time. Read below!

Today on #MadameArchitect: Catherine Clark, a British architect registered both in the UK and USA who spearheaded the interests of British and American architects in working towards reinstating a Mutual Recognition Agreement between the regulatory bodies in both countries, which was ratified last year. She now runs Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), North America, and was previously elected as the President of the RIBA-USA. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Catherine talks about how her experience moving from the UK to the US eventually paved the way for her advocacy focus, advising those just starting their careers to know that they can put their architecture degree to use however they want to. Read the interview here: https://lnkd.in/grUmtTC8