On The Ground

Be careful what you wish for
Tony Salem Musleh
M.Arch I ’26

Halloween has passed,
but something stayed with me.
In the dark corners of Rudolph’s lower floor,
it overcame me—
I saw my people and knew their thoughts,
each pause, each echo of a word.

It might be supernatural,
or simply too human.
After two years together,
there is nothing left unknown.
No argument unargued,
no chat unchatted,
no discussion undiscussed.

We once wished for a school that would listen,
that believed in us.
Two years in,
I’m not sure I still do.

My thoughts feel thought out,
my pages filled with the same sentences—
ink turning pages dark,
once again an empty book,
thirsty for something new.

Chapel St FC Finishes Second
Majdi Alkarute
M.Arch I ’27

The co-ed intramural soccer season wrapped up on Halloween weekend with back to back playoff games. Chapel St beat its rival, Invisible Feet, with two incredible goals in the last five minutes from Justin Morande and Idris Young. It was a rough game. Someone ripped off a chunk of Moss’ shirt. Still, we want to thank our rivals for having a girl present on their “co-ed” team for the first time in years. We came into the second and final game excited to win championship shirts—for Moss’ decency if anything. Unfortunately, Chapel St was drained and unable to land a goal, losing 0-1.

Scared Straight Back Onto Sixth
Maggie Holm
MArch I ’28

On the whiplash that was midterm week followed by Halloweekend:
“I died during midterms and Halloween raised me from the dead, only to now be haunted by the Sunday Scaries.” – Logan Ali
“Perpetually hungover from alcohol and workohol.” – Jess Kong

Epic Time
Marusya Bakhrameeva
M.Arch II ’26

In epic tales, time bends. A war can last ten years yet end in a single page; a child can stay young for chapters and then grow up in a single paragraph. We are now entering that same temporal distortion. After a year of polishing our thesis topics and presenting extended research at midterm, we somehow have only five weeks to complete the design phase. Logic offers no help here. Only epic time might. From now on, time will bend and stretch through collective effort, allowing us to create more than the calendar would ever permit.

Brief to Build
Shreshtha Goyal
M.Arch II ’27

As different as were the briefs for advanced studios during lotteries, so are the ways we reach the final presentation. Some studios overflow with clay models and hill sections, others hum with 3D printers or crop models. Each path is its own adventure, trying to solve the unique challenges each project presents. As we move towards the next stage of refining our schemes, it makes me wonder: how will time shape our ideas, and which moments will leave the biggest mark on our final work?

An Open Question
Layna Chen
M.E.D

It was a busy week for the M.E.Ds, with Open House on Thursday and Roundtable Presentations on Monday. Applicants of a range of backgrounds introduced themselves via Zoom. As the group stayed for questions, I found myself recalling my own first embarrassingly juvenile application.

When the M.E.D program became fully funded in 2024, the intention was to remove barriers of entry for incoming students. Yet, one wonders if cohort became more diverse as a result or if the program just became more exclusive? Of our current group of six, two of this year’s incoming students graduated from the same schools, and in the same year, as the first-year cohort.

Elsewhere (Halloween on the 7th floor), Iskander and Vinh dressed up as ICE Agents while Alp appeared as “Joey in the episode of Friends when he wears all of Chandler’s shirts.”

Under the Canary Sun
Jaime Solares Carmona
Ph.D

Alberto Martinez Garcia (’30) spent the last few days in the Canary Islands, not to escape the cold weather in New Haven, but to finish building his pavilion, which will be on display from October 30 to November 28 at Plaza de Stagno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. After countless
hours moving rocks and plastics, the DE ROCA MADRE pavilion, designed with Alejandro Hidalgo, Eduardo Terán, and Andrea Cuadro, was inaugurated on Thursday with a public ceremony and a full week of events. The building is a vertical cage that depicts the geological-anthropocene section of the island’s soil.

10/26
After being rescued from the streets behind Stop & Shop by GABRIELLE NEWMAN, a very sweet cat takes up permanent residence with YANBO LI. TBD whether this will solve Rudolph Hall’s mouse problems.

10/31
Shout out to MCKENNA SABON, LURYN HENDRICKSON, HIMA GOBBURU, LUCAS GILLIE, NUR NURI, PRISCILLA BARKER, LINH MAI, ANGE LONG, YIRU WU, MARIA G CAMASMIE, MEHMET RIZAOGLU, VICKY KIZZA, NIKHITA MANU, EMMA BITTNER, JUSTING LEVELLE, ÉLISE CELESTIN, ELLEN ZHU, WHITNEY O’REARDON, TARA VASANTH, and MEIXI XU for organizing, hosting, or otherwise helping with the annual Halloween house crawl. Undergrad infiltrators were kept to a minimum.

11/1
Despite the absence of the FINALfinal.png brand, the much-anticipated annual Halloween party at the Sculpture Building proves a certified banger.

11/4
Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral election, promising rent freezes on rent-stabilized apartments and voicing his support for three ballot proposals designed to fast-track affordable housing through the city’s review process. Time to email your Core 4 projects to the new mayor’s office?