Are you impressed by people who nurture creativity in others? Whether it’s a football coach who trains a college athlete into a pro, or a music teacher who trains a novice into a concert pianist, there is something powerful about someone who nurtures the talent and greatness in others.
Maria Aiolova is a renowned architect who illuminates the possibilities available for young
architects committed to advancing the framework of green design. Read my interview with her below. To learn more about Maria start by listening to the audio clip below.
Read more about her organization, Terreform ONE, and its projects here.
Resident Planning Geek: You’re busy Maria! You travel around the world working on award winning projects, you’re a professor and you’re the Co-founder of Terreform. What motivates you, pushes you, to do the great work you do?
Maria Aiolova: I never stop being excited about cities. Cities are a place where humanity, art and culture converge.
My favorite quote is from Louis Kahn. “Cities are these fantastic places where a child walking on the street can see everything they want to be.”
I want to be part of this process of cities remaining these very vibrant places and I want to be a creator and facilitator of the need of cities being a place where a child walking can see what they want to be.
Resident Planning Geek: When did you know architecture was your passion?
Maria Aiolova: I decided in high school. I went to a special arts high school. One of my teachers was teaching us perspective drawing. I enjoyed creating drawings and three-dimensional spaces, combining my knowledge of art with my knowledge of geometry – my knowledge of art and science.
Resident Planning Geek: What types of interests can attract a high school or college student to architecture?
Maria Aiolova: A student can explore his or her own ability to be a designer. They should think about their own environment and things they are not happy with.
Sketch it and create a model. Create a new design of a space, a building, garden or a city that you are interested in.
Resident Planning Geek: What courses should a first year college student be looking at who is interested in Architecture?
Maria Aiolova: A lot of colleges start off with basic classes. If you are in a school of architecture you should take environmental design.
In a Liberal Arts program take ecology, the basic principles. Part of education is building awareness, looking at ecology and knowing how everything is interrelated in our environment and in our lives.
Resident Planning Geek: What makes architecture different from other disciplines that look to improve communities and the built infrastructure?
Maria Aiolova: We create the actual physical form. The major difference is that people inhabit architecture.
Good architectural design involves function, aesthetics, innovation and sustainability.
Architecture has to fulfill its function – inhabitants enter and inhabit them as they are supposed to. We strive to create buildings that are aesthetically beautiful so they appeal to inhabitants and the inhabitants of the city. We want our buildings to be beautiful. When you incorporate beauty into the building it elevates people and improves quality of life in the building.
Design has to be innovative and use new technology and materials and we want buildings to be sustainable.
Resident Planning Geek: Terreform ONE offers internships for high school and college students. What do these internships involve?
Maria Aiolova: Our mission is to promote green design in cities. We provide internships for High School to Ph.D. students. Students come for 3-6 months to research their projects and also work on a project going on in our organization.
This summer we had two High School students working on urban agriculture.
One student project was building and maintaining a hydroponic system to grow agriculture in a New York City apartment. They helped to build and maintain it.
Another student worked on our ongoing project, a rooftop farm. Their project involved working with systems, doing research and hands on experience in building and maintaining urban agriculture projects in the building.
Resident Planning Geek: What is the process for a high school student to intern with your organization?
Maria Aiolova: We have an application process. You write a short paragraph and tell us about your background. We then interview applicants to see if they are the right fit.
Resident Planning Geek: Is there something you’ve come to realize about your work that you would share with students?
Maria Aiolova: First and foremost is following your dreams. When young people first enter the profession they ask, “How do I know I’ll be good?”
When you’re first starting it’s that you’re excited about what you’re doing. If you wake up in the morning and you’re still excited, that’s the indicator that you’ve chosen well.
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Maria received her M. Arch. in Urban Design from Harvard University, B.Arch. from University of Sofia, Bulgaria and Technical University of Vienna, Austria. She is currently on the faculty of Parsons the New School for Design and is based in New York City. Maria has won numerous awards and competitions include the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity, the Build Boston Award, the AIA Scholarship and won the Izmir Post District International Competition in Turkey. As a founder and director of Compost Art Center, nonprofit artists residency program, Maria has been a visiting lecturer and critic at Harvard GSD, Columbia University, CUNY, Washington University and Rhode Island School of Design. Visit her website: MariaAiolova
© 2011 W. S. Hughes
