Christopher T. Muschalek Memorial Scholarship

A younger me always believed she was an architect. Whether it was folding together paper dioramas of grocery stores for her My Little Ponies to shop in, pasting custom wallpaper on cardboard-box dollhouses with mom, or spending countless hours gleefully working on a new Minecraft build, the art of space was nothing but a medium for her to ardently embrace. Despite this, I hadn't actually considered architecture by its name until a year into highschool. Growing up, the word "architect" brought images of businessmen like Ted Mosby, corporate offices, skyscrapers, and boring-looking blueprints to mind, not the colorful and nameless art I'd grown so fond of. I began to reconsider after attending a NOMA Project Pipeline program, where I'd finished the week by constructing a funky-looking cardboard model of a recreational center, accompanied with its own glue-wrinkled vision board of colorful magazine strips - I loved every moment of making it. The beauty of sharing an experience through the environment became profoundly fascinating to me. In a world in which you may never completely understand the full experiences and feelings of another person, architecture is a bridge to enclose, encompass, and connect experiences through structure. Even beyond the lives of the original people who lived in a historic apartment, others will sit by its window and share the same view they did. People carry their own memories, but timeless structure tells stories that will be reverberated throughout generations. That is what makes it so special. My appreciation of architecture has only grown with time, as its multifaceted intrigue eventually intertwined with my identity and values, building its potential for socio-economic advocacy. In sophomore year, I came across a YouTube video essay detailing how single-use zoning policy exacerbated both the housing crisis and a decline in architecture quality. The symbiotic relationship between policy and architecture immediately interested me, and I went down a rabbit-hole of research towards the greater implications of the built environment. When I began researching causes of the housing crisis, urban isolation, sprawl, and smog, I found that poor design tied a common thread between them. I could see the issues addressed in my research reflected in my own city; while San Antonio planners focused on beautifying the inner regions of the city that lured tourists with exaggerated price tags, the local residents of the outer city suffered from the demolition of important community housing and public space in exchange for extraneous stadiums, luxury condominiums, and concrete strip malls. As my interest developed, the art of “pretty buildings” soon became a method of promoting accessibility rights for my friends with disabilities, preserving the cultural history of Tejano communities, advocating transportation justice, creating affordable housing in sprawled cities, and practicing environmental consciousness. The profound implications has led me to pursue my college education diligently, so that I may one day establish an architecture firm that actively funds and advocates to address crucial needs in cities and influence change towards a more sustainable future for the people within them.

With so many things to do and endless possibilities in life, we are often tasked with summing up things among many. This challenge intensifies when considering our college majors. On top of this, we must decide which university best suits our educational needs and provides the best opportunity. Like many students, my story is the same, from selecting the right university for me and what I wanted to pursue. Early in my journey toward discovering my passion and which university to attend, I struggled to decide what to do. I talked with my parents, pastor, and friends about where to discover what I was passionate about and how to select the right school. Their answers were universally the same: they told me to "follow my heart and move how the Lord directs me." This revelation opened a new lens of sight and enabled me to identify Architecture as my major. I discovered in my youth that I always had a passion for construction and design and would often create miniature models to express this passion. I remember staying up late at night to complete these models before school in the morning and begging my mother to spend countless amounts of money to buy me supplies. I quickly learned this passion wasn't cheap, but I also uncovered why I wanted to pursue architecture. I'm pursuing architecture to primarily indulge in a space that allows me to create and implement new ideas in the built environment. My view of the built environment or infrastructure is that of a canvas that's been shared among many artists from the begging of time. Each "artist" acquires their credentials and begins to paint on this canvas how they see fit under the direction of a client. I aspire to join the likes of many great architects of our time and "paint" new wonders in the world. As I referenced earlier, I discovered that I wanted to pursue architecture came later on in life. Contrary to my early life of model making, I was indecisive in the direction that I wanted to take post-graduation. Eventually, in my junior of high school, I knew that architecture was the fit for me. From that moment forward I began to research various schools that offered architecture education and the cost of attendance. Additionally, I inquired about the student workflow and what these institutions had to offer in the new age of design. Lastly, I continued to stay informed on what I was pursuing and listened to architecture students from around the world to understand what would be expected. In conclusion, my journey in pursuing architecture was a long, yet, joyful experience that allowed me to embrace my passion. Through every step forward and every page turned, I get closer to achieving my goal of becoming an architect and shaping the new world. I encourage all who may read this essay to forge new possibilities and follow God's plans for your life to embrace your passions. We're all in this together and can achieve anything we set our minds to!