IA hosted a group of very special interns this year – three curious, passionate students who became integral to our office and gained valuable, firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of a busy studio.

Yuxuan (Left) and Houzhou (Right) at the new Transbay Center

Yuxuan Gu is currently studying landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been an enormous help to the team at IA, providing critical support on our active projects. Yuxuan also came to IA with an undergraduate degree in architecture and was eager to gain experience at a multidisciplinary firm. With an interest in materiality and its effect on the physical experience of space, her favorite tasks at IA included drawing details and learning how to redline construction document sets. She believes these tasks to be  a very important aspect of the design process and was excited to gain such valuable firsthand experience. Once Yuxuan completes her MA studies at Penn in 2019, she hopes to continue to work within multidisciplinary practice, where she is able to contribute to various facets of the built environment.

Haozhou Yang also came to IA from the University of Pennsylvania, and will be receiving his masters of architecture degree in December of this year. Houzhou became an integral part of IA’s tight-knit team, lending his support to different projects of varying sizes and at different phases. Haozhou really enjoyed the diversity of the firm’s project typologies , and he was excited to be able to learn Revit in such a hands-on environment. The greatest lesson he took away from working at IA is that communication is such a critical part of the design process, at every stage of a project, which is a lesson that he will carry with him throughout his career. Haozhou cited the elegant, detailed based solutions that he helped work on with the team at IA as being the most rewarding part of his time at the firm.

Enterprise for Youth Internship Program  Intern – Gavin Li 

Gavin Li at the IA office

For the second year in a row, INTERSTICE Architects participated in the Enterprise for Youth internship program, which empowers local youth to prepare for and discover career opportunities. Through this program, youth cultivate their individual interests and potential through training, guidance, and employment experiences in supportive and diverse environments. This summer, IA had the privilege of hosting Gavin Li, a recent graduate of Lincoln High School and who is starting as a freshman at Ohlone College this fall. As an intern this summer, Gavin was an immense help and an enthusiastic addition to the IA team. Learning about architecture while a senior at Lincoln High school, he was quickly inspired by the physical and emotional resonance of the built environment. This new found interest was enhanced further by a post-graduation trip to Greece, experiencing some of humanity’s greatest artistic and architectural achievements.

During his time at IA, Gavin’s was given first-hand experience of what it means to work in architecture – from sitting in on client and consultant meetings, going on site visits, and participating in design sessions with his coworkers. He was interested to learn that the design process is fundamentally about problem solving, and was inspired by the creative solutions that were devised in response to the whole host of challenges that inevitably arise throughout the design process. He cited our 160 Folsom Street project as a personal favorite, especially because he passes it every day on his commute and has witnessed the progress of the project firsthand.