Student Travel Fellows Showcase

The School of Architecture’s 2025–26 Student Travel Fellows speak about their research conducted across three continents.

Student Travel Fellows Showcase
Gallery Talk & Reception
Fri, Jan 23, 12 PM
Campbell Van Lengen Lobby

Exhibition
Fri, Jan 23 – Fri, Feb 13
Campbell Corner and Dean's Galleries, Salon Walls, and Mezzanine

^{© Riley Haakon}

Seeing and Being Seen
state architectural expression — france, 2000–2019

Nix Fellowship Exhibition
Campbell Corner Gallery

How might the architecture of public art galleries reflect and respond to the politics of our time?  Les Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain (or FRACs) are French public institutions created in 1982 with ambitious dual intent—democratizing access to contemporary art and decentralizing state power. Now, six new FRAC galleries, having opened their doors between 2012 and 2019, offer the conditions of an architectural and sociopolitical experiment: a finite set of buildings, all constructed in the same period of time, all engendered with related ideological missions, but realized through radically different architectural visions. Two projects in particular—Lacaton & Vassal’s FRAC Grand Large and BIG’s FRAC MÉCA—exemplify ends of a spectrum, from architecture as an expression of the state as public to architecture as an expression of the state as state, respectively. Having yet been theorized exclusively by state-funded actors, in seeing and being seen, these projects are recontextualized in the terms of their time—notably the maturation of global, neoliberal, financialized, surveillance-based capitalism—and evaluated on the basis of their sharply juxtaposed formal and material responses.

Nix Travel Fellow Riley Haakon (MArch '26) received Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Mandarin Chinese from the University of Virginia. He spent the first decade of his career in brand identity and communications strategy, before coming to architecture by way of amateur craft. His approach to design seeks a sensitivity toward tectonic detail and the cultures it may carry, and his self-constructed work has been featured in Dwell magazine.

^{Study conditions in the Télécom Paris building (left to right: Control, View, Interior Intervention). Photo: Julie Mollica}

Biophilic Design for Stress Recovery: Comparing a Window View and Interior Interventions in Real-World Architecture

Nix Fellowship Exhibition
Campbell Dean's Gallery

This exhibition presents the design and preliminary results of an experimental study conducted at Télécom Paris in Palaiseau, France. This is the second of three field-based, multimodal studies forming a doctoral research project examining the impact of the built environment on mental health, with a focus on stress regulation. Using portable neuroimaging (electroencephalography; EEG), self-report measures, a cognitive task, and eye-tracking, this study examines affective and cognitive responses to an urban-green window view or interior biophilic interventions following induction of stress (using a virtual reality stress task).

Julie Mollica is a PhD candidate in the Constructed Environment program with a background in neuroscience (BS) and architecture (MArch). Julie’s research examines how biophilic design influences stress regulation, with the goal of informing mental health-promoting design.

^{Sketch of BIG's Superkilin Park in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen, Denmark. © Cole Rozwadowski.}

The Art of Great Public Spaces

Fleiss Travel Scholar Exhibition
Campbell Dean's Gallery

This exhibition presents a collection of hand-drawn and written musings on the nature of public space and European attitudes towards the built environment, with case studies drawn across Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. Fleiss Travel Scholar Cole Rozwadowski (BS Arch '26) and Jack Allison (BS Arch '26) seek to understand how projects across these cities negotiate complex histories while serving as speculative models for new social interactions, sustainable growth, and formal experimentation. Through observational sketching, on-site photography, and reflective writing, they consider how differing attitudes on preservation, program, and reuse shape attitudes toward public spaces and their role in promoting democratic and inclusive societies. 

Cole Rozwadowski is a fourth-year undergraduate architecture student from Culpeper, VA. The son of graphic designers, he has been drawing and making for as long as he can remember. He is interested in the intersections of the built environment, community engagement, and public service.

Jack Allison is a fourth-year undergraduate architecture student from Park City, Utah. He is drawn to old buildings, artifacts, and landscapes that feel “lived in.” His drawing background comes from his time in the Vicenza Program, where he studied the tranquility and mayhem found in established and emerging public spaces.

^{Potted trees, Viveiro Manequinho Lopes. © Ruth Shatkay}

Small Trees: Spatial and Civic Potentials in Public Tree Nursery Parks

Howland Fellowship Exhibition
Campbell Salon Walls

Small Trees explores the intersection of young plantings, productive landscapes, and recreation in two public tree nursery parks in Latin America: Viveros de Coyoacán in Mexico City, Mexico and Viveiro Maneqhuinho Lopes, within Parque Ibirapuera in São Paulo, Brazil. How can small trees in an always-changing place support diverse and delightful spatial experiences? By documenting planted form, human use, maintenance practices, site organization, tree spacing, and little moments in each park, the young tree reveals its role in enabling layered uses and rich aesthetic potentials in public spaces. 

Howland Travel Fellow Ruth Shatkay (MLA '26) holds a BS in Architecture (’19) and an MS in Environmental Science (’21) from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she studied urban streams and forest patches in the Baltimore-Washington region. Building on her travel research, her thesis explores possibilities for young plantings in growing the urban forest.

^{Plan diagram and axonometric study of Querini Stampalia, Venice, 2025. Mixed media: digital linework and pastel/watercolors overlay. © Cate Southwell}

Codes of Choice: Movement, Pause, and Discovery in the Landscapes of Scarpa

Howland Fellowship Exhibition
Campbell Salon Walls & Mezzanine

This project investigates how architect Carlo Scarpa choreographs visitor movement through layered contrasts – thresholds where material, light, sound, and texture shape experience and choice. Through maps, drawings, and diagrams of Querini Stampalia Foundation, Castelvecchio, and the Brion Cemetery, Cate documents how shifting conditions and planted forms guide circulation and heighten awareness. Each layered diagram traces moments of hesitation and anticipation where discovery unfolds through movement. Together, these studies translate Scarpa’s tactile design language into a spatial catalogue of decisions, revealing how layered cues draw attention to sensory encounters and details that invite contemplation.

Faculty Advisor: Matthew Seibert

Howland Travel Fellow Cate Southwell (MLA '26) is a Master of Landscape Architecture candidate with a Bachelor’s in Architecture from UVA. Growing up among North Carolina’s pine forests shaped her fascination with light, texture, and atmosphere. Her work explores how intangible processes such as sensory experience and memory inform spaces that foster reflection, awareness, and discovery across scales of landscape and architecture.

^{Tio Tipi and Earth Lodge exterior perspective. © Marisa Yamamoto.}

Designing the Tio Tipi

Fanzone Travel Award Exhibition
Campbell Corner Gallery

Nis’to is a Dakotah word that means “concern for others outside ourselves.” Our design philosophy is deeply rooted in this ethos. Under the supervision of Pheobe Crisman and in close collaboration with Dustina Gill, an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, we have designed an open-air pavilion that supports community events and Indigenous youth camps in Sisseton, South Dakota. The design draws inspiration from Dakotah vernacular forms, sustainable materials, and indigenous building practices. Traveling to Sisseton involved studying regional materials, engaging in thoughtful dialogue with tribal members and participating directly in the construction of the pavilion.

Marisa Yamamoto (BS Arch '26) is an architecture undergraduate passionate about sustainable design grounded in material innovation, cultural context, and place; aspiring to create spaces that intertwine environmental responsibility with human experience.

25–26 Student Travel Fellows

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Student travel fellowships are supported by endowments or awards established in honor of Carmen Fanzone, Susan Nelson Fleiss, Benjamin C. Howland, Sarah McArthur Nix, and Carlo Pelliccia.