On The Ground

A shared ring
Tony Salem Musleh
M.Arch I ’26

Reflection is nostalgia’s antidote,
an assessment of three years of work.
Praise will be offered, and so will critique,
both are met with the same open ear.

At the heart of these conversations
one might not forget Deborah’s original mission:
Bring the ivory tower closer to the ground,
where work speaks, not money.

I offer gratitude,
for a cohort of hearts and minds,
drawn from different places and paths,
yet here becoming one.

As we say farewell to this shared castle,
we carry something with us:
A silver ring, made by one of our own,
binding us together beyond far spread futures

…yet to come.

When do we roll credits?
Maggie Holm
M.Arch I ’28

If the three years of M.Arch I were a triple feature, the first film would be sprinkled with fake-out finales. A student would naively ask, “Is this the break?” to which Louis Koushouris would rebut, “Design never ends.” When that eight-week respite does come, the fanatics will stay in their seats (build a house with Adam Hopfner), the careerists will stretch their legs and buy Twizzlers (New York City internship) and the homesick will take a lap outside and have a smoke (flee the country). Two films ahead after this brief intermission.

Two days. Two Years.
Marusya Bakhrameeva
M.Arch II ’26

04/24 & 04/25. Two days during which we occupied every pit, penthouse, and even the stairs, turning them into thesis exhibition spaces. For the first time in the program, each of us had a personal presentation time and space.

For two years, we existed as one entity, a cohort of post-professional students. During those two days, that unity unfolded into seventeen distinct stories. Each space carried its own method and aesthetic, aligned with the ambitions of each project.

It was a pleasure to observe the challenges each of us faced and the ones we created for ourselves, and how inventively we worked through them. It was a pleasure to be one.

Symposium Season
Layna Chen
M.E.D

It’s conference season. Estella Dieci is presenting at the Environmental Humanities Symposium. Layna Chen at the Society of Architectural Historians in Mexico. Everyone is in preparation for the final roundtable. Second-year students have just submitted their thesis—just in time to enjoy the warm weather.

Mexico
Alberto Martínez García
Ph.D

Many Ph.D students and candidates from our school are currently in Mexico, presenting their work at the Society of Architectural Historians symposium. Alan Alaniz is participating in a panel about the construction of political borders, Jiaqi Wang is talking about earthquake prediction in socialist China, Alex Kim is talking about the internalization of games in planning cities, Gabrielle Printz is presenting her work about the history of the Cold War, and Lisa Beyeler-Yvarra is one of the chairs of the Graduate Student Lightning Talks. Although the schedule is busy, some mandatory stops to see the architectural milestones of Mexico have been part of the itinerary.

Foot out the door
Tian Hsu
Undergraduate

Never has the arrival of warmer days felt more depressing, as us seniors edge ever closer to graduation. Our corner of the 7th floor sits increasingly empty as we spend our last days of school eloping to the Elm or frolicking on Cross Campus in the sun.

Any sense of happiness, however, is undercut by confusion around the latest assignment: bathing. Required deliverables are models on models of bathing (with no drawings) with the professors preferring fully exposed glass walls making this studio a kinky and voyeuristic way to end our architecture career at Yale.

For now, we remain largely absent—a reminder to all that there is life beyond these concrete walls—until finals week, when we’ll return en masse to fight over laser cutter slots.

Headlines!

3/20
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan. And Spring Break.

3/31
MARIA G CAMASMIE opens the Pinup Café, a student-run espresso stand that peripateticates through Rudolph Hall. It is to the pre-renovation cafe in the 8th floor penthouse what the contemporary practitioner-adjunct is to the starchitect of yesteryear.

4/2
Deans PHIL BERNSTEIN, MARTIN FINIO, and NADINE KOOBATIAN slam back shots with students at the post-Open House party at Partners. DEBORAH BERKE declines the tequila but attacks the dance floor like it’s the 1980s. Admitted students overheard saying, “Wow, they’re not like regular deans, they’re cool deans.” Current students consider whether applying to be a bartender is a better bet than trying to land a job at a firm.

4/2
PRISCILLA BARKER, YANBO LI, ANGE LONG, and NUR NURI install “Pre-Mo Po-Mo: Micro-Urbanism in Jože Plečnik’s Ljubljana” in the North Gallery, complete with OSB replica bench where you can finally sit and talk to your crush without even leaving the lecture reception.

4/4
HANNAH SHERIDAN unveils her class ring design featuring a bush-hammered texture. Now you can replicate the feeling banging your head against the walls of Rudolph Hall no matter where life takes you.

4/5
Jesus rises from the grave. So does your realization that there are only three weeks until finals.

4/9
“Domestic Revolutions and Feminist Cities,” the symposium organized by TATIANA BILBAO and ANNIE BARRETT opens with a conversation with professor emerita DOLORES HAYDEN on designing and organizing around care. Maybe if CHARLES GWATHMEY had been born 30 years later, we would have a communal kitchen in Rudolph Hall.

4/9
MEIXI XU and YIRU WU lure the student body to another Thursday night at Partners, this time with no parents.

4/10
Registration for Fall Classes begins months earlier than previous years. Instructors baffled at the expectation that they make a complete syllabus ahead of time, having originally thought that was more of a midterm deliverable. “An Atlas of Postmodernism” with MARK FOSTER GAGE proves popular, despite the work of the previous year being so outrageous that it killed the course’s originator, former dean BOB STERN. Slay?

4/16
In his farewell lecture, PETER DE BRETTEVILLE (Architect!) brings family storytime to Hastings Hall, delighting the audience with a lifetime of work and anecdotes. Highlights: Coked out film producers, Ken Frampton, “I/we love you” x2, a full standing ovation. You will be missed.

4/17
First-year lottery for summer visualization courses confirms that nobody but PHIL BERNSTEIN wants to hear about AI.