A few months ago I read the book, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco. The book is a gripping account of the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s. The conglomerate comprised of the iconic food company Nabisco and R.J… Read More »A Day Trip to Winston-Salem
Virginia tech is known for having great dining hall food and in 2014 gained national recognition when it claimed that top spot out of 396 colleges as the best campus food in the nation by The Princeton Review. However, now other schools have caught up… Read More »Dining at D2: A VT Dining Hall Experience
Every year there is a weekend architectural competition in Virginia hosted by The American Institute of Architects. This year’s took place two weekends ago, from February 2nd to the 4th. It started at 5pm on Friday and concludes at 9am on Monday. It included five… Read More »AI’s Role in Architecture: 2024 AIA Competition
It is in human nature to seek the restoration of architecture that has been destroyed. Often, the immediate response is to reconstruct the destroyed structure as was, as quickly as possible to suppress and erase the trauma of destruction by eliminating its visible scars. As… Read More »Rebuilding Narratives: Rebuilding Spaces
I explored Chinatown in New York City for the first time this past Friday and I loved it. Growing up around NYC Chinatown has always been a familiar name, yet I’d never actually been there. Although I’ve visited Chinatowns in other cities, such as D.C,… Read More »Chinatown Chronicles: A Day of Delight
Every year, my goal is to read 52 books. 52 books for 52 weeks of the year. Despite my persistent efforts, last year saw me falling short, and this year, I found myself 11 books shy, concluding with a tally of 41. Balancing my literary… Read More »Reading Resolutions: A Review of 2023 Reads
As I approach my last semester, it’s astonishing realize that I have only one semester remaining to complete my degree. The journey began in the Spring of 2020 when the idea of pursuing this path first crossed my mind. Looking back, four years will have… Read More »From Idea to Reality: A Four-Year Architectural Adventure
For my thesis, I engaged in four design competitions over a span of four weeks, effectively transforming each competition into a design charrette. A charrette, characterized by its brief and intense nature, serves as a focused period of design work, aiming to foster creativity, refine… Read More »From Devastation to Reflection: Architectural Responses to Tragedy
I haven’t visited Charlottesville since my eleventh-grade tour while exploring undergraduate colleges. That was fourteen years ago. Since attending Virginia Tech, conversations about Charlottesville and UVA have become a frequent staple in my life. There is an ongoing comparison between the two schools. They both… Read More »Footsteps and Facades: A Self-Guided Architectural Tour of Charlottesville
Ten years ago, I started this blog. It’s been a decade of blogging. I wrote my first blog post just before I left to get my TEFL (teach English as a foreign language) certificate in Costa Rica. To quote my past self, “I am not… Read More »A Decade of Blogging: Reflecting on the Journey