Maintaining Optimism: ARO's Kim Yao on Choices, Unexpected Opportunities, and Putting Yourself Out There

By Julia Gamolina

Kim Yao, AIA, is Principal of Architecture Research Office (ARO), a New York City firm dedicated to architecture that unites strategy and intelligence with beauty and form. ARO has earned over a hundred design awards including the 2020 National AIA Architecture Firm Award. Kim holds degrees from Columbia College: Columbia University and Princeton University.

Kim is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s GSAPP. She is on the Executive Committee and Board for AIA New York and the Center for Architecture as the 2020 President of AIA New York. In her interview with Julia, Kim reflects on the past year, describes the key decisions in her career, and advises young architects to stay open to unexpected opportunities.

JG: This year has been something nobody could have anticipated, and also the year of your AIANY Presidency. Talk to me about that - what do you take away after this term?

KY: This year has been much more intense in many ways than a typical term might have been but, in some ways also much more rewarding. There has been a real sense of need and service associated with our community of members. In that regard, it's been fantastic to realize that we could, as a membership organization, really help. People were coming out of the woodwork to volunteer - through relief efforts, programming, member-to-member support - which was amazing to see. My takeaway is that there is true service that we’re providing, and a place for convening, even though the way we’re convening has fundamentally changed. This has strengthened the core values of what the AIA does and offers its members - creating a sense of community, and providing resources and information.

This has been a year of ups and downs for people - emotionally, in every way. It’s been stressful and really difficult for firm leaders thinking about their firms, and for family leaders thinking about their families, and everyone trying to stay healthy and sane in this situation. With these ups and downs, there have been moments where things have felt overwhelming, with too many unknowns and unpredictability, but as we come to the end of the year, even though we’re spiking now, New York City is feeling healthier and opening up a little, safely, and that has made me feel really optimistic. The presidential election has helped bolster that optimism, as well as the news regarding vaccines. I do feel like I’ve emerged from being concerned about people leaving the city, and what that means for the future of cities, and I’ve shifted back to a sense of optimism about what cities offer, which is great.

Riverdale Country School, Upper Learning Building. Photography by James Ewing.

ECFS Tate Library. Photography by James Ewing.

Personally, what were your goals for this AIANY presidency, and what do you feel like you were able to bring?

There are two things that were most important to me. The first is that I took this on in part because I was already very involved through the board and the executive committee, and thought that being president would be a great way to continue that work, though in a slightly different manner. I also took it on because I think it’s really important that we have diverse voices in that role - firm leaders of different genders, ethnicities, firm sizes, focus. Sometimes by putting yourself out there, you realize that that can be helpful for other people. You don’t have to be from a certain kind of firm, or be a certain kind of architect, to be in that role, and I think that’s important for people to see.

Personally, there’s a lot to be proud of, and that’s not just my work, that’s the whole effort of the team. I’m really proud though of the project that actually launched a few weeks ago, “Visualize NYC 2021,” as part of my presidential theme. The project is a virtual exhibit based on the research we did with Sarah Williams and MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab about the future of the city. I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome as I think it situates the chapter to move into the city’s elections in 2021 and to intersect architecture and environmental issues with advocacy.

Congratulations - wonderful and important things to aim for. Now, let’s talk about you! Tell me how your interest in architecture developed.

I’m from Portland, Oregon originally - I came out to New York for college - and I always loved being in cities as a kid. But, it took going all the way through school to find out that I specifically wanted to be an architect. In college, I missed taking fine arts classes, and then I met someone who was taking an architecture studio. I asked her, “Don’t you need to be really great at math to be an architect?” And she said, “No!”

So, I decided to take my first undergraduate studio, because I did miss that creative studio environment, and immediately fell in love with the whole process - the culture of being in studio, the peer-to-peer support, and the relationship with your critic, that open dialogue. I was never comfortable as a high school student, or a younger person, with speaking in public or making presentations, and there’s so much in the training of an architect that positions you for so many different types of work. I appreciated the mixture of creative production with a rigorous thought process.

“Sometimes by putting yourself out there, you realize that that can be helpful for other people. You don’t have to be from a certain kind of firm, or be a certain kind of architect, to be in that role, and I think that’s important for people to see.”

— Kim Yao

You went straight into graduate school, is that right?

Yes, I finished college in the nineties and there weren’t a lot of jobs out there at the time. Almost everybody from my class went to graduate school. I did seven years of schooling straight through, but I did always take advantage of my summers to do internships because I wanted to get experience. Then when I graduated, I started right at ARO! I was supposed to be a two-week temporary hire [laughs].

[Laughs] Of course you were. That’s how life works.

Right, and I never left [laughs]! My partners started the office in 1993, and I joined in 1997. I certainly didn’t know I would stay here forever, it wasn’t the trajectory I saw for myself coming out of school, but I’m really happy that I did.

You essentially joined a start-up. What were those early days like?

The early days were great. The office was probably about ten or twelve people and the environment was such that I had good mentors and peers I was collaborating with, and a really open dialogue in the office about design work. It never felt like a top down office, in a way that design to production can sometimes be, and it always felt like a place that valued an appropriate whole-life balance. Adam and Stephen both have kids, and yes, we would all charette at times, and have crazy schedules at times, but there was always a sense of respect for everyone's personal time, and that felt very healthy.

Also in the early days, I got to work on different kinds of projects. I learned a lot, and one important thing to note is that I always felt like my voice was heard. That was important for me, then and now. I also just wanted to get as much experience as possible - I loved being in school, and I knew I wanted to teach, but I also really wanted to work at a firm that built and wasn’t a paper architecture firm.

DC Advocacy Day, photo courtesy of AIANY.

Kim at the Upper Learning Building construction site. Photo courtesy of Architecture Research Office.

Kim at ARO. Photography by Sean Shapiro.

You’ve now been with ARO for twenty-three years. Tell me how the firm and your role at the firm evolved, but also how you evolved - your personal skill set.

In some ways, I feel like my path has been relatively typical, for lack of a better word. As someone trained in architecture, you emerge with great design skills that you can contribute, and then you increase responsibility in building. I was lucky that I was able to start, because of timing and the projects I was involved with, working as a project manager a little bit early. I was probably in above my head at the time, but had good support, and projects where I worked in design as well as overseeing construction, which was important. That positioned me to do all kinds of things afterwards.

The office didn’t grow too much, but we did establish some hierarchy in the firm, and the role of associates, so first I became an associate, which is now our director role. Along the way too, I started teaching - I sat down with Adam and Stephen one day and told them that this is something I had really wanted to do and that I would make up the time, and they were really supportive of that. So I taught non-stop for about fifteen years before taking a break, and that balance of practice and teaching always worked, because we were all committed to the fact that doing both was a good thing.

Then becoming licensed was a great milestone - I always knew I wanted to get licensed, and that was something I was working towards. I waited until I had all my time at ARO so that it would be easy, and then I did all of my tests in one year.

That’s a short time.

I just wanted to get through it and finish it. In the process of all this, just like any architect, you gain experience, you gain responsibility, you start to lead projects, then you start to be at the interview, then you start to be the lead there, and somewhere in the process, probably when I had been at ARO for ten years, I brought up the idea of being a third partner.

I remember that because I started the conversation right before the crash of ‘08, and the conversation ended with good news several years later [laughs]. We just had to focus on the health of the office through the crisis. And again, this was all possible because I have great partners, and that’s an important moral of the story, their recognition of what I could bring to the firm, and a mutual respect about our roles. We had a lot of conversations - that’s what we do, we work at a glacial speed when it comes to decision-making sometimes, not necessarily for projects, but in terms of the “office project”. We talk to a lot of people, a lot of our peers, get advice, collect information, figure out how to do it, and then forge ahead. It’s been a fantastic tenure, and I’m only super happy and proud of the work that we do, and the fact that I made the choice to become a partner here.

“I was asking myself what I really wanted out of practice, and being an architect, and who I was supposed to be doing that with.”

— Kim Yao

What was the alternative?

Well there was definitely a period where I thought that maybe I should go off on my own. I was already teaching on my own and thought maybe I should just do my own thing, like so many of my peers have done. Eventually I realized that for me, I have the opportunity at ARO to work on all kinds of projects and be really impactful in that work. If I had started my own practice at the time, I knew I’d be doing a certain scale and type of work, and I didn’t want to be limited in that way. So that’s what really helped me direct the conversation to my now partners, about what my role could be. I don’t think I would have been able to have that conversation, had we not already created a really collaborative environment where I already anticipated that they’d be open to having that discussion.

With all this, we talked about AIANY specifically, but in general, where are you in your career today? What does this moment mean for you personally?

I feel solidly in the middle, I guess [laughs]. I just turned forty-nine, so I could say I’m almost literally in the middle. I think it’s great - I’m very happy with the accomplishments of the office, I feel really great about being AIANY’s president. I’m looking forward to having a little less going on next year. I think everyone is feeling a bit exhausted.

I’m really looking forward to how much more time there is though. I have decades ahead of me still, so thinking about next steps focuses on the scale of the practice, how we’re working, how we continue to envision the office, and the kind of projects we get to work on. I’m also certain that once I recover from the year a little bit, I’ll return to teaching and that there will be other types of service opportunities that will be of interest to me.

It sounds like a nice place to be - you’re looking forward to so much ahead, and have a great foundation of expertise you’ve already built. Looking back, obviously a pandemic is a most recent and huge challenge in many ways, but what have been some of the other challenges you’ve grappled with throughout your career?

One of the biggest challenges for me was that moment of trying to decide if I should stay with ARO or go off on my own. I was asking myself what I really wanted out of practice, and being an architect, and who I was supposed to be doing that with. That took a while for me to think through, then took a while to have the conversation, so that whole process was one of the bigger challenges. Then, I had a whole period where I worked on a number of projects in a row, none of which got built, so that was challenging too, especially since my goal was always to learn to build, and to make sure to build. It’s devastating because you want to be able to create and experience these spaces, so that was a challenging period as I felt like I was slipping and not getting the experience in my portfolio that I should have for my age.

Finally, there are moments when you question a little bit what you’re doing at large in your life. Probably a typical one for women is having kids, and figuring out how to return to work in a really productive way and strike the right balance that’s right for you personally as an individual, which is different for everybody. Growing up a little bit and realizing that every person makes different choices and figuring out how I wanted to handle that for me, was a major life moment. Not a huge challenge necessarily, but definitely a pivot. Determining what kind of mom I wanted to be, and what kind of architect I wanted to be, was significant.

Connecticut House. Photography by Elizabeth Felicella.

On the flipside, what have been some of the best moments for you?

The best moments are certainly major milestones - graduating from school, getting your architectural license, starting to teach and realizing that I could have a voice in a way that’s different from practice. All of those were really big and rewarding moments. Becoming a partner at ARO was a huge and important moment for me as well. This year, we also won the Architecture Firm Award from AIA National, so having that and the presidency simultaneously makes my head spin a little bit [laughs]. This year has felt in so many ways like a culmination of so much effort.

Of course there are personal highlights as well - having my two kids, and having children in general, is wonderful, if you choose to do that. I’m lucky though that my kids are not tiny anymore, and I really feel for my colleagues who have young kids right now, with the pandemic.

Who are you admiring right now?

I totally admire Kamala Harris! She is an inspiration for generations of people. I also have to say that I have so much respect for the deans of our schools right now. I’m thinking of multiple people running architecture programs, and the challenges of leadership in an academic environment where an entire generation is graduating into a terrible recession, while another generation starts school and their education in this context. I just have immense admiration for the huge lifts that these leaders are taking on this year. We feel overwhelmed by what’s happening around us, but for them, it’s a whole other perspective and level of undertaking.

“Often we emerge from school with an idea of what it means to be an architect, and when you have that harsh transition from being a student to showing up at an office and realizing that suddenly all these things that you’ve learned are applied in different ways in actual practice, it can be a little bit of a shock...But if you’re open minded and you realize that the experience and exposure is what’s important, being flexible and resilient in that environment will take you far.”

— Kim Yao

What is the impact you’d like to have on the world?

It certainly always comes back to the work, and a hope and a belief that architecture can be transformative for people - to make people’s lives better and help support missions, goals, individuals, families. If we can keep creating great work that does that, and is environmentally responsible, that’s the fundamental goal.

I also love to mentor and am continuing to find ways to connect with people and provide guidance, advice, and connection. As individuals in our community, we all have a lot to offer, and it’s important when people reach out to actually engage and see if there’s something you can do to make a little bit of a difference. Figuring out the ways to contribute in that regard is important for me personally outside of the bubble of practice and building, and even outside of the bubble of teaching.

Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their careers in architecture? Would your advice be any different for women?

For those starting their careers, be flexible, open-minded, and take advantage of all of the opportunities you are offered, especially ones that you might not necessarily expect. Often we emerge from school with an idea of what it means to be an architect, and when you have that harsh transition from being a student to showing up at an office and realizing that suddenly all these things that you’ve learned are applied in different ways in actual practice, it can be a little bit of a shock. Realizing that the way it happens, and the way your life in practice unfolds, may not fit the perfect image that you had in mind, or the type of firm you thought you’d be working at. But if you’re open minded and you realize that the experience and exposure is what’s important, being flexible and resilient in that environment will take you far. You will gain invaluable experiences that you wouldn’t have if you shut those doors because you didn’t think the opportunity in front of you fit the image of your future. There are a lot of great experiences to be had in all kinds of offices.

Specifically for women, it’s really important for you to find the place and the people that support your voice, opinion, and contribution. That has to do with your work environment, and how communication and collaboration happen in your work. But, it also has to do with your friends, your support network, and your partner, and making sure that there’s the right kind of support there for the kind of challenges that emerge from being a professional, and an architect, and balancing all the things that we women do. It’s absolutely essential that you have the right network and the right relationships in your life.