House of the Year 2023 was awarded by the specialized architecture website ArchDaily to a small home in the slums of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The ‘shack’ used the same materials that the surrounding favelas use; bricks, glass, and a small lot (two stories on 710 square feet). It boasts natural light, great ventilation, and clever use of space. Those that built the house in 2017, the Levante architecture collective, do pro-bono and low-cost work in the area. That house, the architects, and what it all represents, is exactly what I want to do with my career. Throughout high school, participation in social and environmental activism has fueled and focused me. I want to be able to ponder, discuss, and implement nuances of culture, new technologies, environmental issues, and aesthetics, all while working from my background. Working with nonprofits and pioneers in cheap and eco-friendly design is a dream I will pursue. I’m fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and English, with more languages to come, which will allow me to communicate and collaborate with a wider world. I’m going to spend my life learning, growing, and adapting exactly like the life we all live, and I know architecture can help me do that. My thoughts about the political, economic, and cultural climate of our country boil down to this: Everyone deserves a living wage (not a barely surviving wage), the freedom to pursue passions whatever they may be, and the opportunity to contribute positively. I want the way that I live to carry over to others, in the form of housing security and inspiration in our beautiful environment. My parents and extended family instilled in me a sense of responsibility to myself and others early on. I’ve put my nose to the grindstone daily for many years already to secure my future, and I want that future to be secured for everyone else too. Being a Latina woman in architecture means adding another valuable perspective. It means being the woman in the room who has experienced a place where people don’t have the luxury of adequate room, running water, or properly working electricity, and who are underpaid and overworked while their homes are swallowed by mudslides, collapsing due to poor infrastructure and an uncaring government, and flooding due to climate change. Brazil is a hard country to keep hope alive in, with corrupt leadership sinking my country further into violence, poverty, and natural disasters every day, but the people never fail to amaze me with their daily defiance. The people are kind, the food is amazing, and kids and adults dance in the streets to music full of passion and creativity. Many Brazilians (not unlike some citizens in the United States) wake up every morning not sure what they will eat, where they will work, or how they’ll make it through the week, but they push on. Being a Brazilian woman in architecture means that I am going to be part of the voice, the hands, and the support for sustainable design and human practices, focusing on low-income communities that need it the most, and I’ll be doing it for those that can’t back home.

One of my favorite questions to ask and to answer is, “Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?” I spend a lot of time thinking about my future. What it would look like, who I’d be, and how much money I could make doing something I loved. Many potential careers sparked my interest as a kid, like being a car mechanic, a photographer, a media reviewer, a therapist. My passions have since become more consistent. Sketching, painting, and photography are my favorite mediums and traditionally artistic things to do. I love to give advice and think about whole and individual human experiences. I am fascinated and awed by nature, humanity’s relationship to it, and how I can make a difference in our changing environment. I’m fine with math. Architecture felt logical because of my natural hobbies and talents, so I began exploring it seriously in my sophomore year of high school. The summer before my junior year, I took a virtual college design class. Boy oh boy, that hit the spot. Education and learning had always been something that excited me, but taking that Arch 100 class gave me a window into what my college experience could be, and solidified my ideas on what I was passionate about. The teachers were amazing, the studio-centered process was intriguing, and the material was challenging but in the way that I wanted to absorb and excel, as opposed to forcing myself to see the utility in a class to eke out productivity. Almost immediately following that course I thought to myself, “This is it.” That fall I interned at a local architecture firm, and it only fed the flames of my growing curiosity. Afternoons after class were spent honing sketching skills, brainstorming and problem-solving my own skate park project, and doing some office work that architects passed on to me. I made model lighting iterations of a recent renovation, fed old plans into a fickle scanner to turn into digital files, and finagled my way through basic photoshop. Every day felt like a new one, and it was the best semester of school I’ve ever had. I’ve kept up with architecture. I read articles, watch videos of tiny apartment renovations in big cities, and keep envisioning and planning for college and beyond. My increasing participation in social activism and environmental issues has fueled and focused me. Sustainable and innovative solutions from low-income housing to skyscrapers is something I feel I would never get bored of. I want to be able to ponder, discuss, and implement nuances of culture, new technologies, environmental impacts, and aesthetics. Working with nonprofits and pioneers in eco-friendly design is a dream I will pursue. I’m going to spend my life learning and growing and adapting and changing exactly like the world we live in, and I know architecture can help me do that. My 80-ish years on this Earth should be spent doing what I as an individual value. Architecture gives me so many options that I’m not sure yet what specific job I might take up (and I might love and investigate multiple subfields), but I also know that I want to continue to develop my skills and impact right out of school. After college I’m going to travel, learn instruments, get better and better at art, sing, read so many books, and watch movies, all in addition to a fulfilling and dynamic career in design. I hope that the way I live will carry over to my community, my country, and my planet.