Recent grads from Cal Poly’s Architecture program describe their interests in architecture and in VDT.

The architecture department at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, is regularly ranked among Design Intelligence’s top 10 most admired undergraduate architecture programs in the nation, as well as its list of top 10 “most hired from” architecture schools. We can attest to that—in the past few years, we’ve hired six recent graduates of Cal Poly’s program. To find out more about the apparent Cal-Poly-to-VDT pipeline, we decided to have a conversation with them and ask what their experiences at Cal Poly were like, how that led to working at VDT, and who are their architectural heroes.

Q: How did your training at Cal Poly help you prepare for your role at VDT?

Ishita Gupta: Cal Poly doesn’t stop talking about its “learn by doing” approach. But it’s really true. Day one in our first studio freshman year, they gave us a project to find a video game and diagram certain aspects of it. I didn’t even know what a diagram was, but they just said, “Go do it.” The next day, they critiqued what we had done—and then gave us some more direction.

Elena Villaescusa Pineda: That was frustrating, but you learn from it. You learn how to learn. They didn’t teach us how to use modeling software either. But that helped us be more comfortable with approaching a challenge.

Karina Riis-Vestergaard: The first year was very hands on. They had you building things on a one-to-one scale. In my fourth year, I built a bench and learned how to weld, something you wouldn’t learn in a normal university setting.

Priya Bhat: It was a structured curriculum, but it also gave us room to explore and try out new things. So if we were into fabrication and product design, there were opportunities for that. You could define your path.

Alison Clark: The College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Cal Poly has a lot of interwoven opportunities across the different departments. The first year, everyone is in the same studio, and you get a look at the other majors. Although I’m happy I stayed with architecture, opening your mind to the other areas of the field influenced my education throughout the whole five-year program.

Ian Curtis: A lot of my studies were based around technology in architecture. Cal Poly offered us resources like new rendering software, including V-Ray and Lumion, and access to computer labs, 3D printers and laser cutters. Another aspect of Cal Poly was that they focus on the presenting of ideas. Having to present to professors and other students, including those from other programs within the university, built a very important skill that I was able to bring here to VDT.

Q: How did you first hear of VDT, and what made you want to apply?

Villaescusa Pineda: In our third year at Cal Poly, we went on studio trips every quarter. One of the trips I went on was to VDT’s Chicago office, along with visiting two VDT projects. And that did it for me. I thought the projects were great, and the office culture was amazing. You could see the thought they put into their projects.

Gupta: I share the same story, because I was on the same studio visit that quarter. Our professor had been an intern at VDT right out of college, 20 years earlier. Whenever he talked about it, he gave glowing reviews.

Villaescusa Pineda: He was proud that the model he had made during his internship was still displayed at the entrance to the office. He was beaming when he showed it to us.

Curtis: The first time I heard about VDT was at the Cal Poly job fair. VDT’s slogan, “Build or Die,” caught my attention. It turned out to be a company that seemed to push the work hard/play hard mentality, which I followed throughout my school career, and I liked all the different types of buildings they designed. I could tell it was a company that would allow me to pursue things I was passionate about: virtual reality, augmented reality, and rendering in general.

Bhat: What really drew me to VDT was the fact that it was a generalist firm, and that made it interesting for me, because I knew that over the course of a couple of projects, I could be doing many different things.

Clark: The variety of projects jumped out at me too. Because the firm has several offices, VDT has the abilities of a larger firm, but because the San Francisco/Palo Alto offices are a little smaller, you have the feel and personality of a smaller firm.

Riis-Vestergaard: One of my previous coworkers had interned in the Palo Alto office, and one of my good friends—Ian Curtis—accepted a job here about a year ago. So it helped to have people I enjoyed working with speak highly of the firm. Then I found out VDT also designed the new Cal Poly dormitories. Also, when I was looking at moving to the Bay Area, I focused on firms that had a strong emphasis on sustainable design, and VDT’s name kept popping up.

Q: Who is your architectural hero and why?

Riis-Vestergaard: I love Bjarke Ingles. I’m biased, because he’s Danish too. And also, for Halloween, at my very first internship, you had to dress up as an architect. I dressed up as the CEO of Henning Larsen Architects, Mette Kynne Frandsen.

Clark: I’ve always liked Renzo Piano’s work. I visited the Centre Pompidou last year. It’s an inside-out way of thinking about architecture, and it takes into account every aspect of traveling through the building and how you’re perceiving what’s around you—all the guts of it, not just the pretty finish.

Gupta: Tadao Ando. I enjoy the simplicity in everything he does, and how he manages to make the most out of the least number of components and elements. He pays a lot of attention to the little details, which is something I enjoy.

Villaescusa Pineda: Zaha Hadid. I love her buildings. I’ve been to three of them. I feel she turns architecture into art and then still makes it work. She creates amazing experiences and spaces and is very romantic in her approach to what a building can be.

Curtis: Thom Mayne, I’m a big fan of the Cooper Union Building and Bill & Melinda Gates Hall at Cornell. The firm defines itself on transcending new ideas, using new design technologies and experimenting with new workflows. Even while pushing these boundaries Morphosis—Mayne’s firm—continues to make their designs practical and functional. 

Bhat: I love Luis Barragan and Louis Kahn. Especially Barragan, for his use of color. And he plays with light in a way that I enjoy. Every time I visit any of his spaces, I feel a sense of either happiness or just calm.

Author