Grace Kim had the honor of delivering the commencement address to WSU’s School of Architecture Class of 2021. Following is a transcript of her speech, where she discusses the benefits of working through uncertainty:
“It is with great honor that I address you today to congratulate you on earning your architectural degree from WSU’s School of Design and Construction.
Today marks the end of your formal architectural education. However, it is not the end by any measure. In fact, you are at the beginning of an exciting journey: Chapter One of your professional careers.
I remember sitting in your seat in 1993, alongside my classmates and my future spouse (who would also become my business partner). I remember the excitement of being “done” and ready to take my first step into adulthood, into my professional career, which involved packing up my belongings at a house on Maple Street and getting on a plane to Chicago.
I remember the uncertainty of where I would live, what I would be working on, but also the hopefulness of exploring a new city and new place, and eventually, learning what my purpose in life would truly be. Some of you may be feeling that today. Perhaps you’ve already taken a job in a new city, or new office that you have yet to visit. Perhaps you don’t have anything lined up but are looking forward to getting your resumes out there and doing some interviews. Or perhaps you are simply looking forward to some downtime and the potential for travel before you settle down to start your search.
While I was a goal-oriented student, looking back I would say that I wasn’t very strategic in where I had applied for jobs. I knew I was interested in moving to a big city like Chicago or New York. And like you, I was graduating during a challenging economic time. But I was fortunate that through an alumni connection and a Spring Break interview I was able to secure a position at SOM in Chicago.
At that time, I didn’t think about whether my first job would offer me the experience in affordable housing, social justice, or community-oriented projects that I ultimately knew I wanted to be involved with. Heck, I didn’t know if it would even be working in architecture! My position at SOM was in the Computer Applications Group, and I thought I was going to be producing renderings and animations to support the architectural teams. Little did I know that I was going to go work in what would today be considered the “IT department”. In fact, I was assigned to the “soft side” of computer applications – teaching the software programs (which I would have to first learn myself) to the other professional staff in the Chicago office – which grew from just under 150 architects and engineers to almost 400 during the first year and half of my tenure.
When I finally had an opportunity to move into the architecture studio, I didn’t begin with the typical, intern-level tasks of building models or photoshopping renderings. Because of the unanticipated, but good relationships that I developed while supporting teams, I was able to work on the design of major international projects. I learned how to collaborate with my fellow engineers and interior designers. And I learned about the professionalism and saw as well the politics of how a large firm operated.
During nearly five years working at SOM, I actively participated in AIA Chicago, meeting young architects in other firms and learning about their offices and their experiences. I also volunteered in a variety of mentorship programs. I taught inner-city teens about architecture through hands-on model building and virtually through SIM City. As a young architect of color, I could provide a visible connection to the field of architecture for kids who otherwise didn’t see themselves reflected in our industry.
As I progressed throughout my career, I drew upon these early experiences, relationships, and opportunities.
Working at the International Masonry Institute, I worked closely on programs and projects, with skilled tradespeople who took a level of pride in their craft equal to that of architects in our design of buildings. I saw that we were working together towards the same objective.
Later working at small practices, and mid-size firms, I gained important skills in project management, running an office, and business development – the critical art of winning projects. Looking back, it’s easy now to see the connection of how each of my job experiences filled my toolbox and prepared me to start Schemata Workshop, after just a decade of where you sit today.
Seventeen years later, it feels quite natural that my husband and I are leading a regionally recognized practice focused on community, social equity, and sustainability. In hindsight, my career trajectory makes sense. It was as if I had planned it strategically from the start, ensuring that each of my jobs and roles prepared me for where I am today. Is that fate? Or is that revisionist storytelling? Or simply plotting the dots and searching for an otherwise abstract connection?
I think it’s a little of all that.
I have found that you reap what you sow.
Put out into the world the good you want to do. The universe will answer with opportunities, connections, and sometimes just breadcrumbs to lead you there.
When interns in Washington state needed mentors, I put out a call to friends and coworkers. For years I talked about the importance of mentorship, which resulted in me pioneering the ideas of speed mentoring and laddered mentorship. These are programs that have been replicated and implemented not only in Seattle but around the globe, and not only for our profession but for other industries as well.
There will be times in your career where you will feel small, like a cog in a large machine. And you will feel that you cannot affect change; that what you do will not make a difference.
But don’t give up. Know that others have gone before you to clear the path.
It is your job to keep it clear for those behind you.
When I saw the potential for modular construction to increase the production of affordable housing, I spoke with owners, developers, manufacturers, and public funders for more than a decade. WSU’s own Ryan Smith found me in the modular space, and he is now bringing research and collaborators to help the affordable housing industry crack the nut – hopefully tipping the scales for modular construction to make a significant impact in the production of housing in our region.
The reality is the world needs you. Now. The social issues that we are facing today are enormous.
For the past six years, we have been in a state of emergency in regards to homelessness, which has exacerbated the housing crisis faced by households of all income levels around the state. Some of you in this room may have experienced this personally. I see in my advocacy work in affordable housing that we need to look beyond the typical strategies for publicly funded housing for hard-working, low-income families. We need to innovate and think outside the box.
How can we look for the resources within our communities to be the change that we want to see?
We need to remind our neighbors, our clients, our elected officials that we cannot wait for someone else to solve our problems. WE ARE the agents of change that we have been waiting for.
On an exchange program as a WSU student in London, I heard a Danish professor introduce the concept of cohousing. The idea that we can be socially connected and supported by those that live around us, recreating the social cohesion and social capital you might find in a village, neighborhood, or small college town like Pullman.
Almost 20 years later, my husband and I founded our own cohousing community in Seattle, in the very urban neighborhood of Capitol Hill. Through the collective action of nine households, we have inspired millions of people around the world.
Climate change is upon us. Wildfires have ceased to be an occasional natural disaster in Washington state, but are instead becoming the “new normal”. In my lifetime, the temperatures here have risen in the summer,with more days over 80 degrees, and dropped in the winter ,with a higher likelihood of snow in the city every year.
We know that in your lifetime the planet could have a proverbial heart attack, and we know now the changes in our behavior that could prevent that. But we must be a good patient; as a planet, we must be willing to make those changes in consumption, conservation, and reuse. As architects, we must innovate the ways we design and construct our buildings - the way we incorporate renewable energy and reduce our dependence on fossil-based fuels and non-renewable building products.
Over the past decade, the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially wider, making homeownership a difficult reality for your generation. For the first time in the history of our nation,a generation - your generation - will not be “better off” than your parents, at least not from a financial perspective. Adjusted for inflation, you will be making less money than your parents did at your age, and your cost of living will be much more expensive.
But perhaps we should evaluate our metrics for measuring success.
In my parent’s generation, the sign of success was to go to college, get married, buy a house, and have 2.5 children – all by the age of 30! But the subsequent three generations have demonstrated that paradigm to be broken and the American dream as I described it to be flawed.
What if you start defining what success means to you now, rather than letting society dictate the expectations and values by which they will measure your life. By doing so, you can determine whether you are “better off”.
For immigrant families like mine, who moved from Korea to the US in the 1970s, our sign of success was no different, but on top of all that, we were expected to assimilate into American culture, by adopting the norms of dominant white culture. Which gave way to the birth of the Model Minority Myth.
We have all seen with greater clarity this past year that the US still has a lot of work to do in order to root out White Supremacy. We saw that, despite being the model minority, people who look like me are not treated as equal, but in fact, as others. And like the Black and Indigenous communities, we cannot hide our identities, nor should we have to. We can be proud of our culture, our heritage, our sexual orientation.
You are living in a time where LGBTQ individuals can live with pride - where a child can have two mommies or two daddies, raising them under one roof. You are living in a time where we can openly talk about race and racism. You have seen the injustices of the past year, which represent the injustices of more than 400 years. You have seen our liberty and justice under attack in our nation’s capital. This is not a time to turn a blind eye and say that politics do not intersect with our profession. This is not about politics; this is about our humanity. Our work as architects can - AND SHOULD - elevate the experience and status of these diverse communities through the architecture we produce and the collaborative design processes by which we produce it.
There is much to accomplish.
And YOU have the skills.
Use your knowledge and skills to do good in the world. Get involved in your communities – mentor a youth, volunteer for a cause, serve on a board or commission, or run for public office. Be the leader that you have been prepared to become.
As you reflect on the journey ahead, know that your education has prepared you well. The problem-solving skills you’ve gained, working effectively in team situations; the friendships and personal connections you have forged. Hopefully a vision of a socially and sustainably just future that you will set your moral compass towards.
All of this will follow and grow with you throughout your life. Whether you find yourself in traditional practice, working as the client, in an allied discipline, OR in a field seemingly unrelated to the design and construction of buildings, you can be confident and assured that you will draw upon your architectural education time and time again.
Wherever your path takes you and whatever your next steps may be, it is my great pleasure to welcome you TODAY to our profession.
It is time for you to start writing the next chapters of your life. Congratulations!”