May Term Abroad: Emerging Technologies - London

My name is Michael Alada. I am a first-year graduate student of Sustainable Design in Architecture at the University of Texas- Austin, and I have recently been accepted to study abroad as part of the Cockrell School of Engineering course, Emerging Technologies, taking place in London, England from May to June. Of the thirteen attendees, eleven will be engineering and two will be architecture. I will be one of two architecture students who have been selected due to successful interviews and performance. I am very grateful to have been chosen to attend this unimaginable course offered by UT. Funds will be used to cover program fees, airfare, food, local transportation, medical and insurance, and tuition.

This course offered once every two years, takes students behind-the-scenes to learn about the latest design technologies of world-class buildings including issues of complex geometry, digital analysis, sustainability, materials and state-of-the-art construction methods. We will have the privilege of visiting contemporary buildings such as the Millennium Bridge, St. Mary Axe, London City Hall, London Shard tower, Pinnacle tower, Stadiums, and more. London is home to many of the world's most innovative and influential architecture and engineering firms. On this journey we will be learning directly from architects, engineers and builders responsible for these buildings. Firms students visited in the past include the architecture offices of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, KPF, Zaha Hadid, and David Chipperfield. Engineering offices included Arup, Buro Hapold, Expedition Engineering, and WSP. We will also attend lectures, conduct research, give class presentations and write papers.

How did I get into design you ask? Well, I became interested as a result of working with the homeless in Hennepin County and the Twin Cities during the pandemic. It became one of my goals to create sustainable living for the homeless. My interest grew as I traveled to New York soon after, to live for three month the top of 2022, experiencing a city's walkability for the first time. I realized I had unconsciously been on an independent study, even researching things on my own. Grad school was not in plans necessarily, but after doing my due diligence in researching offered programs for months, I stumbled upon this research-based Sustainable Design program at U of Texas. So far in Sustainable Design I have been studying materials, building forms, building processes, and building with climate change. I have also been studying the design of new communities around the world. I would love to take everything we will be learning in this Emerging Technologies course to apply it to the rest of my studies.

More in depth program details can be found here: UT London Info. Anything helps and it is very much appreciated. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns. Thank you for your support in reading this.

Sincerely,

Michael

[I have not used A.I. in preparing this]