DAY1

And...we're off! Day 1 of my Spring at Sage project:


I visited Mr. Jefferson Choi at DNA Partnership, LLP today. I met Mr. Choi through a community service program when he came for a career presentation to talk about his job as an architect. Unfortunately I could not attend his presentation because, well, I was taking the SAT that morning. In the end I got to catch up on things today, so I guess it all evens out :)

DNA Partnership is a relatively small firm- 4 people total!- in Irvine initially founded through a partnership between Mr. Choi and his close colleague, Mr. Rocky Shen. I was most impressed by the diversity and scale of projects a 4-person office could produce. Their projects include residential, industrial, and commercial works, ranging from high-density apartment complexes in California to an entire golf resort in Bulgaria. And guess what? Mr. Choi was involved in designing the church I attend (Irvine Onnuri Church). It's a small world...

above: Some of the past projects at DNA Partnership. 

There are many more walls in the office that look just like this, 

with pinned-up images of building, site plans, renderings, idea sketches, etc.

As it was the first time I did anything like this, I was a bit nervous and overwhelmed, not to mention I had no idea what to expect. At approximately 8:30 am I came to his office, and Mr. Choi greeted me and gave me a brief introduction to his office and his coworkers. One interesting thing to note was the transition of technology in the office. Mr. Choi showed me the office library- which consisted of few bookshelves filled with books about architecture, interior design, materials, lighting, and more. He explained that even ten years ago, this area would be at least twice as large because of the amount of information that needs to be kept; however, with the development of technology, there is no longer a need to keep hard-copies of books or full size prints. "Everything's being digitalized," he said. Most of the site plans I saw around the office were also half-size prints. 

 I did have a list of questions that I brought with me, but Mr. Choi ended up answering almost all of them when he told me about his experiences in architecture. We talked about his high school years- he originally planned on becoming a plastic surgeon! Never would have guessed that. Then we went on to talk about his college years at USC, and then his experiences so far in the professional field. Of course there was the horror story about the long nights in the studio, the scary professors (who will rip up your work and break  your models), and so on... but what I took away from the conversation was his work ethic. I was moved by his diligence and willingness to take risks and go outside the box. He spoke about some college design projects that he went above and beyond in the conceptual level, and the attention to detail he would pay to his models (many of them had some sort of actually working, moving parts!). Such philosophy toward work was reflected in his approach toward his projects, how he liked to attend to each project from start to finish. That is not always the case for many architects, especially those who work in a specialized job at a larger firm or those who only specialize in design.

Above: The "meeting room". 

It sort of ended up being my room for the day, 

although I spent most of the day in either Mr. Choi's 

office or in the front area by Vely's desk.

Another big topic that came across in our conversation was the family. Believe it or not, it's possible to have a family life as an architect! Vely, the "receptionist" (one of her many, many tasks; in such a small office, every person wears many hats) was able to give me an insight into what it's like to be an architect and a mother at the same time. One astonishing achievement: Vely enrolled in USC School of Architecture after she got married. Another: She is a mother of two children, yet she has decided to continue with her job as an architect. She had been mostly a stay-at-home mother, working on smaller-scale design projects on her free time, until she came to work at Mr. Choi's firm recently. Both Mr. Choi and Vely had such inspirational stories for me, and overall the visit gave me a good look into architecture as a profession beyond my shallow understanding of the field. 

The conversations ended up taking us all the way to lunchtime, and we went to Boudin for lunch (going out to lunch is also a rare occurrence in the office. Not much different from my junior year?) with everybody in the office. I stuck around for a few more hours before I left at 3pm.

I would like to thank Mr. Choi and everyone at the office for letting me visit today. I learned a great deal even though it was a short time!