Student Spotlight: Lola Garvie's recent externship takes her to Fairbanks, Alaska
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Through the School of Architecture's Office of Career Development and longstanding relationships built by the School of Architecture Arctic Design Group (co-directed by Associate Professors Leena Cho and Matthew Jull), Lola Garvie (BSArch '26) took advantage of a special opportunity to apply for an externship with Design Alaska, an architecture firm located in Fairbanks, the state's largest city in its interior region. She said, "This was an incredibly unique chance, and one that I knew I wasn't likely to have again, so I thought I should at the very least apply and see where it went from there!"
Garvie was offered the position with Design Alaska, a two-week experience that started in late December and gave her the chance to spend her last day of 2024, and her first of the new year, over 4,000 miles away from the University of Virginia.
Design Alaska is the largest architectural and engineering firm in Interior Alaska, and was founded in 1957 as a partnership between local architecture and engineering professionals. For Garvie, this professional experience gave her a chance to learn from the firm's described greatest strength, their multi-disciplinary experience in the arctic, subarctic and coastal regions of Alaska and their applied knowledge in the varied climatic and cultural regions of the state.
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We asked Garvie to tell us more about this exciting opportunity and her time in Alaska.
What were some of the experiences you had as an extern at Design Alaska?
During my time in the office, I accompanied the Design Alaska staff on site visits, shadowed meetings, researched for the firm, and worked on facade design. I was also able to work in software programs like Revit and Bluebeam, but I was most excited about producing renders for the exterior of one of their current projects based on designs that I had mocked up. These perspectives were then presented to the client for feedback, at a critical part of the design process.
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What else did you get to do while in Alaska?
Over the course of the two weeks, I also had the opportunity to get out around Fairbanks. I went cross-country skiing, visited the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and saw the northern lights! It was very chilly — my first week there, it got down to -34 degrees — so it was hard to do too much outside, but I had to explore the town.
My favorite day was absolutely New Year's Eve;
I was able to go watch the fireworks on the same
night that the northern lights were out in full swing!
Absolutely wonderful.
How did this externship help you towards your future career goals?
The externship was, of course, an amazing opportunity to travel, but it was also a chance to progress towards my career and develop my understanding of what I hope to get out of an office.
Design Alaska was able to fit me right into
their firm culture, and I had a wonderful time
learning about their projects and goals.
This was also an opportunity to advance my architectural knowledge. Thermal insulation, energy efficiency, and material use all work differently in climates that reach those extreme temperatures, and designers in these regions must know how to protect against that.
The variety of research and experience that I received allowed me to begin to understand the difference of design in these places, and I hope that ultimately helps me become a more well-rounded, informed design student, and eventual, professional.
It was an incredible privilege to join Design Alaska as an intern.
Special thanks from Lola Garvie to the architectural team at Design Alaska for working with and mentoring me, especially Emily Steele, Emily Winfield, and Chris Miller. Also, thank you to Lindsay Schiller and the UVA Career Development Office, and Professors Cho and Jull, for making this opportunity possible!
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More on the Arctic Design Group
The University of Virginia School of Architecture's Arctic Design Group, established in 2012 by Associate Professors Leena Cho and Matthew Jull, have conducted scholarly research and creative practice focused on the Arctic along with a diverse range of engagements on Arctic issues via design studios, seminars, lecture series, exhibitions, symposia, workshops. Annually they lead an advanced research studio to Alaska, offering UVA students the unique opportunity to address built environment issues in an extreme climate.
