Where the Past Meets the Possible

Dunn Warehouse, Hudson NY

This past week marked a meaningful moment in my architectural journey: I was appointed as a Commissioner on the Hudson Preservation Commission.

In a way, it feels exactly right that this is happening 25 years after I earned my M.Arch at Yale in 2000. Even then, I had a quiet instinct that it would take a full quarter-century to become the designer — and the thinker — I imagined I could be. Not in a linear way, but in that layered, architectural progression: build, test, revise, evolve.

That’s the long arc I’ve been living.

When I arrived at Yale, Bob Stern had just taken over as Dean — a choice that struck many as conservative. But his commitment to architectural history as the bedrock of practice shaped me profoundly. He taught us that you don’t earn the right to bend a rule until you understand the lineage behind it.

At the same time, studying with Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid gave me the opposite pole: boldness, experimentation, and the belief that architecture can be a cultural provocation. That duality — Stern’s grounding and Gehry/Zaha’s propulsion — has defined the tension in my work ever since.

I’ve spent the last two decades operating in that in-between: anchored in the past, reaching toward the future. It’s the lens I’ve brought to cultural projects in Abu Dhabi, to workplace reinvention across North America, and to every model, workshop, sketch, and master plan.

Which is why this new role in Hudson feels like an arrival, not a pivot.

Hudson is a city that understands how to protect its historic integrity while welcoming contemporary life. My first meeting as Commissioner made that clear. We reviewed the Dunn Warehouse — a beautifully stubborn industrial structure that holds the memory of the city’s working waterfront — and its potential designation as a local landmark. For me, it instantly echoed the Bilbao waterfront before its industrial buildings were lost. Texture matters. Memory matters. Cities need contrast in order to grow with character.

Bringing my international experience of placemaking back to my region — and to a community that treats design as part of its cultural DNA — feels deeply gratifying. It’s a reminder that meaningful work isn’t always large-scale work. Sometimes the most important contributions happen locally, building block by block.

And this civic work aligns with the broader evolution shaping my practice right now.

In December 2024, I joined Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Accelerator, which has pushed me to think bigger and translate 25 years of experience into new, technology-fueled models of cultural engagement. I’m developing several initiatives with dynamic collaborators — projects that are still confidential, but aimed at reimagining how communities connect, learn, and participate in contemporary culture.

Together, these parallel tracks — civic preservation, entrepreneurial experimentation, and design strategy — have expanded the breadth of ways I contribute: locally, culturally, organizationally, and through emerging digital platforms. It’s work that thrives at the intersection of heritage and innovation, and I’m energized by the possibilities it opens.

Twenty-five years after Yale, this feels like the natural next step in the long arc.

My drawing of the Dunn Warehouse will lead this Dispatch — a small homage to the building, the vote, and the path that brought me here.

More to come.