Building Together
Written by Chloe Borgida '25
Content
This past fall, the UMass Department of Architecture partnered with Upward Bound’s Campus Experiences program to give local high school aged kids an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the architecture world.
Upward Bound is a year-round program that works to increase the rates at which students enroll in and graduate from postsecondary institutions. Upward Bound serves high school students from low-income families and/or families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree. The College of Humanities and Fine Arts has been partnering with their Campus Experiences program for the past three years through an effort called “Saturday Scholars”, in which students from the Springfield area get to spend one Saturday each semester participating in academic immersive experiences that expose them to the humanities and fine arts.
The result has been a rich, multidisciplinary series of experiential learning: “To date, we have partnered with several departments at HFA combining Upward Bound’s Campus Experiences Program with HFA’s Saturday Scholars to visit with several language departments, the museums and contemporary art faculty, Afro-American Studies, Classics, Theater, Music, Creative Writing, and of course Architecture”, says Upward Bound Director Dr. Bridget Hynes, an instrumental contributor to the program at UMass Amherst. Kelsey Thomas, Logistics & Communications Coordinator for Upward Bound, explains how she’s “grateful to have the opportunity to mentor and model for them what a positive and financially stable adulthood can look like while in tandem assuaging their fears about higher education”. Together, they have helped build the partnership between Upward Bound and UMass Amherst. Dr. Hynes and Ms. Thomas were joined by Erika Zekos, Senior Lecturer and undergraduate program director of the UMass Department of Architecture. Zekos explained how working with Upward Bound was new to their department, but once the opportunity was presented to them, she knew that she wanted to bring some of her students along for the ride.
Anh Thy Nguyen, Hector Martinez, and Ruth Estien Garcia are all Architecture students who joined Zekos and the Upward Bound folks on their day of learning. Though only Hector and Ruth were available to chat, all three students made wonderful contributions to the experience.
Both Mr. Martinez and Ms. Garcia (both proud members of HFA’s Opportunity Scholars program) had considerable leadership experience going into the Architecture Upward Bound session. Ms. Garcia is considered a “leader in the classroom” by her professors, and Mr. Martinez serves as the president for UMass’s American Institute of Architecture Students club. Zekos was completely confident in their ability to connect with the students from Upward Bound. Ms. Garcia explained that having architecture students present “humanized” their subject area. “It makes a path like architecture more accessible; it seems like a real possibility for these younger kids”. Considering that there was only a few years between Mr. Martinez and Ms. Garcia and their high school students, it allowed the high schoolers to truly picture themselves in that role. “I hope that it’s motivating to students to know that in a short time frame it’s very possible to get to the position that I’m in now,” said Mr. Martinez. The mission of Upward Bound is exactly this!
“Upward Bound is a college-going community, where youth are asked to envision the future that is most true and right for them, and then to take the next steps to make it happen. That’s very fulfilling work, especially as you watch students come to college, graduate and start their desired careers/lives,” explains Dr. Hynes.
Their day consisted of drafting, revising, and designing a town center, full of spaces to serve their imagined community. Zekos recognized that some of the high school students attended not necessarily because they were passionate about architecture, but the UMass Architecture/Upward Bound team helped them see how architecture can serve a variety of interests. Martinez explained that many kids were passionate about sports, or music, and that “being able to connect those passions to design was really fulfilling”.
“We tried to tap into the intersection between the things that they’re interested in and the things that architects are interested in. So, our curriculum was to ask them to identify what are the buildings they would need in a city if they were in charge. We put these together to create a “‘main street’”, said Zekos.
After reviewing some design principles with Zekos, Ms. Thomas shared that the high school students were able to make their own “small-scale blueprints before using cardboard to craft a building of their choice”. In perfect alignment with the Upward Bound mission, Ms. Thomas goes on to explain that students were “given all the instructions they needed to then be creative and use the materials as they wished.”
“To me,” she says, “this is the perfect kind of collaboration — one that teaches our students something new while also letting them use their imagination and individual strengths. This kind of activity is much, much better than the lecture format our students sometimes face when they visit a college campus. At the end of the event, students even asked if they could stay behind to finish what they had started!”
Dr. Hynes says that “the day was completed by placing the buildings and sites (including a luxe hotel, a football stadium, a dance studio, a bank, etc.) side by side for a new vision of Springfield’s downtown!”
As for the Architecture students, they had the opportunity to show how design works in tandem with the natural environment around them:
“Architecture and being out in the woods is actually very intertwined. You’re surrounded by nature for the whole day, but you need to be very familiar with that layout to build and create something meaningful. I always recommend that people learn about their landscape and materials to make a successful design,” explains Ms. Garcia.
Mr. Martinez went on to say how he enjoyed watching the high school students’ design skills developing in real time. Not only did this crew build a space, but they built a community:
“The construction field is so broad. You need to get to know your workers, your people, your surroundings, why you’re doing it, who you’re doing it for; you are a translator of people's wants and needs in a space. Being able to develop that skill is a beautiful thing. It was one of the things that I loved about this: the practicality and the goal-oriented mindset. You get to come in and physically see your work progress for a long time”.
The mission of Upward Bound was personified through the adventure with UMass Architecture: “Through these experiences, they come to feel welcome and engage with the conceptual frameworks of higher education, so when they do attend, they can take advantage of the full range of what a campus has to offer,” explains Dr. Hynes.
Concurrently, UMass Architecture worked to build a diverse interest in their field. Zekos explains it best:
“Today, architecture is 60% white and male. Here in the Architecture Department, we feel like we have a responsibility to change that profile of who’s creating. I think it bears out that communities of color have been really underserved from both policy and design perspectives. We think about communities that have been economically disadvantaged, they often intersect with places where people of color live. It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that they don’t have access to many high quality spaces such as schools or medical facilities. You think about all of the things that architecture provides and the ways that public and private spaces don’t serve disadvantaged communities well. So, we have a responsibility to change that”.
Change that, they will. Both the Upward Bound program and UMass Architecture department are committed to diversifying their communities. Their collaborations serve as a wonderful model of interdisciplinary collaboration and partnership. To support Upward Bound, please consider reaching out about offering a summer workshop or collaborating on a grant, or ctakakjian [at] umass [dot] edu (contact Associate Dean Cara Takakjian) to host a Saturday Scholars session for students. UMass students looking to get involved can apply for a summer AmeriCorps role, ask about school-year internships, or reach out about a senior or grad thesis topic.
To support the UMass Architecture Department, please consider donating to the Architecture Access Fund, which provides scholarships for socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students to attend the UMass Summer Design Academy program.