Eskinder Fekade Lakew, a student at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, who hails from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, loves the density, history, and energy of New York, among other things. He has appreciated the opportunity to study here, where the entire city is like a living design lab.
When are you graduating from Columbia GSAPP? What is your degree, and which program are you in?
I am graduating this month, with a master’s degree in Advanced Architectural Design.
What was your path from Ethiopia to New York, and to pursuing graduate work at Columbia?
While I was still in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I was managing a mid-rise residential construction project, pursuing a master’s in global building information modeling management, and working as a junior architect for an architectural practice. I had started my formative years in design school about a decade ago here in New York, and then returned to Addis Ababa to finalize my undergraduate education. This enabled me to learn from both localities, and appreciate the value of diversity, density, and culture in a metropolis.
A desire to understand the impact and the agency of design to build a better future led me to appreciate the value of New York. One can learn a lot about art, cultures, politics, infrastructure, real estate, parks and recreation, history, coastal resilience, and unions in this city. My eagerness to further study the interplay of these factors, and how they shape the built environment, drew me back here.
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