When I was fourteen, I decided that I was going to be an architect. At that time, it wasn't because of the buildings or the famous architects I read about in books; it was because I knew that it would help me make a difference in my home country, Kenya. By simply building more houses, i thought more people would have homes. People I saw sitting on the roadsides, sleeping under benches, and walking the streets…I wanted to help them. It was after I started high school that I opened my eyes to so many more challenges beyond the housing shortage in Kenya.  At this point, I wanted to become an architect and better understand the role that architects can play in improving the built environment and ameliorating substandard living conditions across the globe. 

 

I have spent the past five years studying Architecture, Graphic Design, and Film at Syracuse University, and continued to expand these studies in Urban Design and Film at Columbia University in New York. Here my passion for designing better livelihoods for Kenyans, creating more job opportunities for women in fields like design, construction, and engineering, and pursuing my love for film to tell the stories of women whose voices have been silenced has only grown stronger with time. 

 

Each year since I was six, I spend time visiting the Mother Teresa Homes in Nairobi. Looking around the property made me eager to create structures that acknowledge and cater to residents’ disabilities and improve their lives. I want to build vibrant spaces for the vibrant personalities that make up this underserved community. I’ve encountered girls with disabilities who come from backgrounds of abuse, hate, and abandonment. Here is a place where ethnic background matters little; where, under the shelter of one roof, a community has formed. That's the power of architecture.  Living in Kenya has made me eager to become an architect who works with local communities to design and build structures that support their needs. It’s a dream of mine to develop a modular educational structure that is accessible across villages in Kenya and other developing countries. I want to design buildings that meet the needs of and improve the quality of life in those communities. 

 

Although I am an architecture student, I have always been drawn to telling stories and having the power to create new worlds that people can either relate to or escape to, and that’s why to architecture is more than just designing buildings; it's designing experiences, and I desire to exaggerate the use of narrative to create experiences that shape and improve lives. The built environment and the atmosphere that architecture engenders play a crucial role in visual storytelling, whether it’s in modernist homes or futuristic landscapes. This connection intrigues me, particularly how cinema has influenced our collective perception of urban, suburban, and rural spaces. A common question I am asked is how I balance my time between architecture and writing, but I never feel like I have to make time to write. Writing and architecture are complementary. In both you are creating something from scratch and building it to tell its own story, through collaboration and constant edits and continued discussions.

 

Throughout my whole life, I have wanted to do things that leave a mark. I know how privileged I am to have grown up in such a diverse community with a family who supported me. I know I will never stop learning, nor do I want to, and every conversation I have, every class I take, and every paper I write is one more step to fulfilling a dream a fourteen-year-old me had.