On The Ground

Site Planning
Yanbo Li
M.Arch I ’26

Advanced Studio travel locations become questions. Could you see yourself living in Seattle? Can you handle a Boston winter? Is your Spanish passable enough to join past YSoA alums in Mexico City? Could you get a visa to work in Thailand? Would you marry that cute Irish boy for a EU passport?

Every semester, we attempt to understand a place as deeply as we can for one week. After New Haven, what place will understand us, for the next year, or five, or fifty?

Housing Crisis Over
Susan Sontag
M.Arch I ’27

Core 4 cancelled after site visit. Students met developers who fixed housing in Bridgeport by building luxury condos. They hoped the waterfront views and beautiful fixtures might increase the median rent, thus making it a more enticing city to move to.

BP26 Design Phase Comes to a Close
Maggie Holm
M.Arch I ’28

Building Project Hell Week is upon us! After five weeks of BP, first years feel enthused but disillusioned. Some (thankfully) feel it wasn’t as “spicy” or friendship-destroying as foretold by years above. Others feel that the whole production is a rigged business stunt. The previously required but now cut “how to work on a team” workshop undoubtedly should have made a comeback.

Nonetheless, the chance to provide beautiful and affordable housing to two families at the Howard St. site remains the principal driving force behind the twelve thoughtfully conceived proposals!

Rehearsal for Missing This All
Marusya Bakhrameeva
M.Arch II ’26

I woke up with a clear thought: I will miss this. Somehow, my mind skipped over the deadlines waiting at school, and instead, I saw time before graduation counted in months and their halves.
I will miss the room I woke up in, the people I message the moment I unlock my phone, and the plans we have. I will miss the paprika carpet, famous rusted walls, and the neo-Gothic decorations of the old campus. I will miss all of it. And this morning, I began to practice feeling more grateful for the fact that I am still here.

Shared Longing
Shreshtha Goyal
M.Arch II ’27

Traveling to Thailand this week reminded me how architecture shapes community, even for someone whose social battery runs low. Temples, homes, and markets aren’t just walls and roofs but invitations to linger, bump elbows, and exchange smiles. Food culture imitates this design, meals are placed at the center of the table, meant to be shared. Shared resilience becomes part of daily life: neighbors gather, meals are shared, and public spaces invite lingering despite challenges. Architecture can be quiet, but it teaches belonging in the most deliberate ways.

Frostbite Weather
Author: Layna Chen
Program/Year: M.E.D

With temperatures below freezing, group meetings have been on Zoom although resources are pooled together. Grant season looms for all.