"My time at the Center for Zero Waste Design (CfZWD) was phenomenal. As the only intern on a team of three, my responsibilities were wide and varied. My role circulated within three categories: drawing architectural schematics, advising on an advocacy campaign, and preparing detailed waste forecasting calculations and floor plans for an upcoming affordable housing complex. Each category of work corresponded with a separate project, allowing representational, organizational, and technical skills to develop in tandem. In the beginning of the summer, I created schematics, plans, and sections of residential waste typologies across three different cities: NYC, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These drawings were produced for a report comparing the waste infrastructure between the three cities. My final weeks shifted to developing waste management floor plans and diagrams for two upcoming affordable housing complexes. The drawings were created using a comprehensive “waste calculator” that generated floor areas that corresponded to the recycling and composting rate of the residents. Throughout the summer, I contributed to the copy, design, and marketing plan of a NYC waste advocacy campaign that is expected to launch in fall 2021.

I joined the CfZWD following my first year in the master of architecture degree program. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in product design, a related design discipline; however, my first year in architecture was pivotal in preparing me for the projects I worked on this summer. Prior to starting my graduate program last fall, I worked primarily in design research. I found the work at CfZWD to be an exciting synthesis between research and architectural design, as I spent many hours reading sustainability reports, green building regulations, and zero-waste guidelines, and distilling my findings into recommendations for nonprofit and for-profit clients. My recommendations took the form of architectural sections, floor plans, and “waste egress” diagrams that depict how residential and commercial waste is aggregated, stored, and removed from the building. The graduate studio courses at GSAPP provided me with a comprehensive understanding of these representation styles, which allowed me to deploy them in the design development stages of CfZWD projects and marry my academic knowledge with practical experience.

This summer, though greatly rewarding, did not come without challenges. I interned remotely from my hometown in North Carolina, which is markedly different in scale, density, and management of waste. Working from a desk in a relatively rural geography without experiencing the diurnal confrontations with NYC waste sometimes felt like I was working devoid of context. To circumvent that, I scheduled various weekend trips to NYC throughout the summer and conducted “trash walks” around different boroughs to understand the visceral effects that poorly managed waste had on the pedestrian experience and air quality. A separate challenge of my internship was navigating the bureaucratic obstacles that many young, small nonprofits confront regularly. The timeline and focus of our projects were heavily reliant on the grants available to us or the clients to whom we attended. This forced our team to be resilient and flexible — qualities I am grateful to have built upon in a professional capacity.

Overall, I had the most enriching internship at the Center for Zero Waste Design this summer. I developed a more technical approach to architecture and had the ability to explore a grossly undervalued subset of building and urban design. I am able to read construction documents and MEP/FF&E drawings with greater rigor, which aptly prepare me for my upcoming semester-long studio on housing. This internship has persuaded me to pursue a career within waste management and circular economy design from an architectural perspective. My supervisor, Clare Miflin, is incredibly knowledgeable on all things waste, and an inspiration to me, as I am interested mostly in forming an architecture practice and/or nonprofit of my own after graduation. I would highly recommend the CfZWD for anyone interested in sharpening their knowledge within zero waste design disciplines."