PEGGY PEÑA
Portrait courtesy of Peggy Peña
Peggy Peña recently graduated with her Bachelor of Architecture from the New York Institute of Technology. At NYIT she served numerous leadership roles, including the NCARB liaison and the Co-Founding President of the NYIT NOMAS chapter that provided leverage to advocate for equity and inclusivity within her school, principles that she highly values. Born and raised in Harlem, Peggy was exposed early on to environmental injustices and aims to use her knowledge of architecture to help promote equitable design strategies and achieve environmental justice in several communities including her own.
NYIT is located at the heart of Manhattan, as a Latina, how did you embrace the diversity and inclusion at your school?
I’m always thankful that I was able to attend a relatively diverse school like NYIT. As an Afro-Latina woman, physically, I never felt out of place within my cohort. However, I began to notice the underrepresentation of minority groups within the curriculum as well as our resources. Considering the school’s diverse demographics, I found it so strange that I didn’t see myself in what I was being taught which often became discouraging.
As a result, in order to embrace the school’s diversity and support and enrich it, I joined the curriculum committee and advocated for a more inclusive curriculum where students could learn about architecture, design strategies and designers other than the typical Euro-centric archetypes. I proposed African, Caribbean, Asian, Pacific Islander, South American and Central American architecture and designers to be exemplified. In the meantime, with the help of the chair of the Architecture department who also happened to be my thesis professor, Giovanni Santamaria, I began to increase the resources available in our library that could support research surrounding more diverse architecture.
Final strategic plan that Peggy presented for her final thesis. - Courtesy of Peggy Peña.
Who inspired you to create a more inclusive and diverse space for everyone in the architecture field?
Most of the people that I admire in the field were learned through NOMA (National Organization of Minority Architects). It was through NOMA that I learned about an architect named Michael Ford. I learned about Michael Ford in a time of my life where I started to grow aware of how uniform the profession really was. When I learned about his Hip Hop architecture program, I felt so…seen. It’s quite admirable that he is introducing design to the youth in a way that is familiar and relatable. I would encourage everyone to check him out and his Hip Hop Architecture Camp to learn more about how he’s encouraging diversity in Architecture.
Danei Cesario is another inspiring individual, whom I don’t quite remember how we met, but I do know that she also sparked an interest in me to create more inclusive and diverse experiences and spaces. I personally believe that representation is extremely important, and I think it stems from experiencing the first two years of Architecture school without it. However, I met Danei and she was the first Black woman architect that I met; some may say it was the naivety in me, but she was the first example of representation that I had, and that was all I needed to know that I too belonged here. Through that experience I knew that I had to do my best to increase representation for those after me, so that it doesn’t take them three years of architecture school to feel that they belong on this track.
Event hosted by the NYIT NOMAS Chapter in February 2020 called “Pushing the Boundaries” comprised of a panel discussion with five professionals in the field to talk about their experience in the profession in the context of diversity and inclusion. - Courtesy of Peggy Peña.
What inspired you to co-found NOMAS at NYIT?
I was introduced to NOMA in 2017 through keynote speaker Oswaldo Ortega during an NCARB conference held in Chicago. He spoke about their project pipeline initiative and I was immediately drawn to their mission. Project pipeline is a program that introduces architecture and design to underrepresented youth. It teaches young people about the significance of architecture in their daily lives and introduces the notion that they can have an impact on their communities through design. The whole idea was brilliant to me because I knew how important it was to strengthen the “pipeline” in order to grow diversity in the field and in our communities. I wanted all parts of it! In 2018 I officially decided that I would start a NOMA student chapter at my school that could help strengthen the pipeline, I saw it practically necessary. It must have been fate because a very well-known NOMA leader, Heather Philip O’Neal, was actually my professor for Professional Practice that same semester. When I brought the idea to her attention, she was immediately on board and was so helpful in starting the chapter, providing the ultimate guidance from her vast experience with the organization. I then introduced the idea to my colleague, and together we founded the NYIT NOMAS Chapter.
Peggy teaching two of Project Pipeline’s participants on how to draw a plan and start thinking about arrangement of walls. - Courtesy of Peggy Peña.
You have been raising issues regarding diversity and inclusivity through organizations such as NOMAS. How did you integrate these values into your studio projects?
I always tried my best to address the concerns of diversity and inclusivity in most of my studio projects during school. Whether it was truly understanding the context of the site and its demographics and adjusting my design accordingly to align with the community’s values; or studying the vernacular architecture to avoid gentrification; to creating accessible outdoor spaces in projects to address the issue of environmental injustice; I always tried my best to achieve true equitable design.
For my thesis studio, I took that opportunity to dedicate my project to embrace the principles of equity and inclusion and implement them on the assigned site – Hunts Point in the Bronx. My thesis was titled: Inclusivity + Remediation: Repairing Urban Ecologies Towards Environmental Justice. The main idea of my thesis was to use the term of inclusivity and extract both the social and spatial significances of the word, within the context of Hunts Point, and address them both through spatial interventions. Essentially, the idea was to create spaces that would address the need for a better relationship between the built and natural environment, increasing accessibility to supportive and natural resources, and generating a circular economy led by community participation, all fundamental principles of environmental justice.
Peggy was assigned five kids. In the photo, they were excited to collaborate together and present their final project. - Courtesy of Peggy Peña.
As a recent graduate, how do you see yourself advocating for inclusivity in the workplace?
Although I recently graduated and am now thankfully working at Amie Gross Architects, I want to continue to extend my efforts in improving equity and inclusivity within academia and within the youth. I feel that my position in this “transition” phase of my life, from college into the field, could be beneficial in providing insight or guidance to current students. While I’m aware of the issues within the profession regarding diversity, I’m still trying to find my place in it all as a recent graduate. I’m currently an active member of the AIANY Diversity and Inclusion committee where it has been extremely helpful in keeping me cognizant of how diversity issues are manifested throughout the workforce, experiences that I might not always have knowledge of yet. We’ve recently been discussing how you can advocate for inclusivity in the workplace at different stages of your career, which has been personally very helpful. I imagine myself continuing to introduce architecture to the youth, especially those in pre-dominantly minority-driven communities like my own, Harlem. My hope is that we can encourage a more diverse crowd of future designers who can bring to the table an array of knowledge, experience, and backgrounds that will promote genuine, personal and effective inclusive design.
After Peggy’s virtual graduation, she went out to take pictures at her favorite avenue – Central Park West. She used to walk through that avenue almost every day after school just to admire the historical/majestic buildings facing Central Park. She thought it was only right to go back and take a picture in front of them. - Courtesy of Peggy Peña.
