Q&A with Sandra Chow, Architect, Business Development Manager and Project Manager at Stanton Architecture
*Published in 2016
Can you speak a bit about your current job as an architect? In what area of architecture do you specialize, and what brought you to this field?
For the last five and a half years after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), I've been working at Stanton Architecture, a small 10-person architectural firm in San Francisco. We're mainly focused on hospitality projects right now, hotels and restaurants, but have a handful of multifamily residential projects, as well. I'm a project manager on a few of our hotel projects in San Francisco– the Hotel Nikko, Hotel Mark Twain and the Villa Florence Hotel– while also being part of the management team for the firm, focusing on business development and overall project scheduling.
Growing up in New York, I've always had an interest in architectural design and the history that's inevitably connected to it, and I was able to explore that interest through my Individual Study at Chapin and my associated internship at HHPA, an architecture firm that used to be in New York.
I moved away from architecture for a number of years after Chapin. While I did take architecture classes in college, it wasn't available as a major at Wesleyan. After college, I worked in financial services for a few years until I took an introduction to architecture pre-professional program that reignited my interest and inspired me to go to grad school.
In your 1999 Chapin Individual Study, "The Realization of Conception: An Individual Study in Architectural Design and Model Building," you write: "my interest in architectural design grew from my belief that everybody should have a home. Home need not be the house one lives in, it could be one's grandparent's house or one's school, anywhere that one feels comfortable." What does this statement mean to you now? Does it still inform your work, and if so, how?
It's fun to read that now. I still feel the same way; my idea of home and family is centered on communities of love and support, which don't always fit into conventional definitions. And with the various ways that people can connect with one another now, sharing a physical space isn't as much of a prerequisite to maintaining a relationship. There is more of an opportunity to be transient, and it's something that has really defined San Francisco and the design direction of the city.
In hospitality and office design, the trend is about embracing these blurred definitions of place and creating communal living areas or lounges where people can be online or unplug completely. I think being able to customize an experience and tailor a space for what you need is how people start to feel at home in any environment.
In the same Individual Study, you write about being inspired to design your house in an open, two-winged shape after seeing a bird outside your window on New Jersey transit. What kinds of everyday things inspire you today?
I'm inspired by how people interact with one another and their environment. Architecture can be a design solution for programming, circulation and spatial connections, and I get excited when it is used to improve flow and communication, or strengthens the relationship between people and the space they inhabit.
The website for your RISD degree project, "Acceptable Density" seems to reflect your interest in urban expansion and development, particularly in New York. Can you speak more about this project, and about its influence on your current work?
Now that I've spent time away from New York, I realize what a unique experience it is to grow up in a city. For some people that density is oppressive, but I find the plenitude of people, activities and experiences energizing. Cities have defined themselves by how they've managed urban growth and for my degree project — since I wanted to focus on embracing density—it made sense to study and to site my project in New York.
I had researched a few neighborhoods throughout the city that were historically significant intersections of communities, transit, or trade, and focused on one location (Jackson Heights) for injecting programming into unused/unbuilt spaces and increase load to an already busy intersection. My project created a physical connection between the elevated train lines and the surrounding blocks around the train station as a reference to how transit allowed the community to develop over the last century.
Even though I live and work in San Francisco now, the jobs that appeal to me most are the ones that are urban infill projects. I think reusing a space that already has the infrastructure and utilities to support it is a responsible way to take advantage of the resources of a city.
How did your time at Chapin shape you?
I was afraid that going from a co-ed public middle school to a private, all-girls upper school would be limiting, but it had the opposite effect. Being at Chapin was liberating in that it provided me with a safe environment to explore my interests and helped me find people who weren't afraid to be passionate about the things that mattered to them. That may sound simple, but it's powerful to have people like that in your life to inspire you to be curious.
Chapin's school-wide theme this year is "Brave for our Earth." What do you think that we can do as city-dwellers to protect our natural environment?
I think it's slightly easier to live in a city and be mindful of the environment because it's more likely that we already share and reuse resources efficiently. But as city-dwellers, we also have better access to commodities that all have their points of origin. If we want to protect our environment, we should be more aware of how aligned that origin is with our point of consumption, whether it be construction materials or food ingredients.