Every day it seems we're inundated with news that makes us question what's happening, what it all means, and how we can help. It doesn’t seem hard to know how to react, but it is difficult to imagine how you can make a difference. If you're part of the design and construction industry in Southern California, we have a few ideas for making a difference, right here at home.
Aryana Leland
The United States’ history of displacement and abuse of Native Americans has resulted in systemic issues that continue to disenfranchise and harm tribal communities today. Violence against indigenous women has become a national crisis, and Native Americans experience substantially higher poverty rates. National Parks have been caught in the crossfire, being asked to censor historical narratives at federal sites while justifying the preservation of Native American architecture to legitimize an American identity past 250 years. Simultaneously, these sites face threats from climate change and private interests.
Aryana Leland
Andrea Carlson (b. 1979) is an indigenous artist whose work interrogates access, denial, art historical narratives, Mondo films, repetition, indigenous knowledge, and repatriation. In October 2025, the first museum survey of Carlson’s work opened at the Denver Art Museum. This exhibit brought together an incredible breadth of work spanning the last twenty years of her career, and culminating with a new work commissioned for the museum, The Constant Sky, for which the exhibit is named. I had the chance to connect with Carlson, who told me to not to quit architecture when I joked that she inspired me to become a visual artist instead. As a compromise, I asked for an interview about her work, and how to contend with museum architecture.
Aryana Leland
In the short time that Antoni Gaudí had to devote his life’s work to Sagrada Família, he undoubtedly earned himself a place in the architectural canon. Despite meeting God via public transit, Gaudí could not have predicted that a viewer’s first impression of the church might be emerging from a dark Metro station, squinting at Google Maps in front of the Passion Façade. Today, the neighborhood surrounding Basilica de la Sagrada Família is entirely obsessed with Antoni Gaudí, lined with shops like “Sweet Gaudí” and “Gaudí Shopping.” In its century-long construction phase, it seems that Sagrada Família has had two distinct lives: one under the watchful eye of Gaudí, and one with the city of Barcelona.
Aryana Leland
In October 2022, Frida Escobedo gave the first of a series of talks on “Designing Tomorrow’s Met” in New York. At the museum, her studio had recently won the commission to design the Oscar L.Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art. With a practice based in Mexico City, Escobedo’s first lecture gave patrons a glimpse into her design process. Earlier this year, Escobedo’s vision for the Tang Wing was unveiled, expertly navigating the museum’s stakeholders, a challenging set of existing conditions, and its users
