Berkeley and Yale's Michelle Badr on Subversive Acts, Tribe Mentality, and Expanding the Mind

By Julia Gamolina

Michelle recently completed her Master of Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. Prior to her M.Arch, Michelle studied Architecture with a focus on Environmental Design and Urbanism in Developing Countries at the University of California, Berkeley where she became an advocate for socioeconomic and cultural inclusivity in the built environment. After her undergraduate degree, Michelle worked at design firms and creative agencies in San Francisco and Paris, while remaining involved in cultural non-profit work. Her upbringing as an Afghan-American influenced her interest in the relationship between space, personal and collective identity, and social behavior. She is currently a designer at Cottage, a design-build start-up tackling affordable housing through the creation of ADU's.

JG: Why did you decide to study architecture?

MB: When the economy was booming pre-2008, my dad decided to play his hand in real estate. I remember visiting model homes with him around California and getting excited about those with the highest ceilings or brightest living rooms. When I told him I wanted to study interior design, he suggested I try architecture instead, claiming that it “expanded the mind”. I’d say he was right.

What was the favorite project you worked on in school? Favorite paper you wrote? Favorite extracurricular?

Two of the most rewarding projects I helped initiate at Yale were the design of an innovation and education center in Kabul, Afghanistan and an exhibition titled reVEIL which celebrates the subversive acts that immigrants in the U.S. must enact in order to sustain their daily lives.

Our work for Kabul was a joint effort between the government of Afghanistan, a nonprofit called the Digital Citizen Fund, and Yale University. The effort focused on the design of a new STEAM and robotics facility on the existing Kabul University Campus. My dad and many family members actually attended Kabul University before they fled Afghanistan in the ‘80s so it was a dream come true to work on a project in our homeland. For the project, we formed a team of amazing colleagues from the Yale School of Architecture which included Camille Chabrol, Deo Deiparine, Alexandra Pineda, Jerome Tryon, and myself and were led by YSoA’s associate dean Sunil Bald. We challenged ourselves to express innovation with local building knowledge and labor in mind. For this reason, we decided on a concept inspired by a vernacular fortified village (Qala) and clad the building with modular concrete panels that were easy to produce locally. Witnessing global stakeholders come together on a seemingly impossible project proved that people are very willing to dedicate their time, energy, and resources on worthy projects.

The Dreamer Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan in collaboration with Sunil Bald, Camille Chabrol, Deo Deiparine, Alexandra Pineda, and Jerome Tryon, 2019.

Dissolving Walls, a housing proposal in Mexico in collaboration with Camille Chabrol, 2019.

The idea for the exhibition, reVEIL, arose from conversations between a few friends, Alexandra Pineda, Limy F. Rocha, Brenna Thompson, and I. We were weary of the typical presentation narrative for architecture projects and wanted to highlight how people actually use and re-purpose space, especially through the lived experiences of our own foreign-born communities in the United States. For example, retail changing rooms are often used as a temporary sanctuary by Muslims for daily prayers. Similarly, marginalized communities often transform their homes for commercial uses such as dental work or selling cosmetics to secure steady income.

Our team gathered an arsenal of subversive acts and used architectural drawing conventions to narrate these uses and stories, supplementing them with building codes, first-hand quotes, and even religious texts that validate or invalidate such architectural uses. We were able to print the drawings on silk panels through generous support from institutions across campus, and hung them alongside installations that invoked specific scenarios. It was a long and tedious process but incredibly rewarding! The exhibit was well-received from Yale and non-Yale community members and prompted new understandings of how specific communities pro-actively transform architecture instead of waiting for architecture to catch up to their needs.

What are some of the initiatives you’ve focused on in school, and why?

I came to grad school with frustrations from traditional practice and no role models to look up to that were women of color. So at Yale, I spent some time with a group called Equality in Design, which advocates for female and minority voices in architectural discourse and also took part in NOMAS, the National Organization for Minority Architecture Students. While both groups are a step in the right direction, I realized there is a lot more work to be done to amplify female and BIPOC voices in the profession and hope to carry this mission with me wherever I go.

Through Thick and Thin, a proposal for commoning land and communal living in the Roman Agro, 2020.

When searching for internships and jobs, what are you looking for?

Mentorship and great colleagues. As a young professional, I believe it’s important to build a strong foundation of best practices. Personally, finding driven, thoughtful, and charismatic people to work with is more important to me than the type of projects being worked on. Lessons learned can be applied to any project until the end of a career.

What’s important to you? What inspires you?

I value honesty, transparency, and working on projects that have an element of social impact. I’ve realized that what I do matters less than who I am working with. Collaboration is inspiring.

What do you hope to do in your career?

I grew up with a tribe mentality, surrounded by a network of thirty-five family members within a ten minute radius, where each one offered unconditional support throughout life. It was amazing. I hope to design environments that facilitate a similar community for others, be it through affordable housing or cultural institutions. Above all, I’d like to apply this network mindset to furthering Afghanistan’s development— thinking about people, architecture, cities, and their economies as a connected system.

reVEIL, an exhibition at the Yale School of Architecture in collaboration with Alexandra Pineda, Limy F. Rocha, and Brenna Thompson, 2019.

reVEIL, an exhibition at the Yale School of Architecture in collaboration with Alexandra Pineda, Limy F. Rocha, and Brenna Thompson, 2019.

Who do you look up to? Both in terms of women in architecture, and in general.

I worked with a firm in New Haven called Atelier Cho Thompson and must say that I really admire the two founders, Ming Thompson and Christina Cho. Christina heads the San Francisco office while Ming moved to start the New Haven office. Ming’s way of working has been incredible to witness— she started a firm while nursing her first child, immersed herself in the NH community, quickly connected with students at YSoA, hosts and presents panels regarding professional practice, and just started a new Design Brigade initiative at Yale immediately after having a second child! On top of this, she somehow finds the time to do pro-bono work and give advice to young professionals like myself. She’s an amazing boss and mentor who shares a similarly expansive view of architecture and design as I do. It's not easy finding such great role models and I'm grateful to her for helping me envision a framework for my own career trajectory.

What advice would you give to those in high school now, choosing their field of study?

Don’t fear getting stuck on a track you’re not happy with, instead, focus on doing the things you like (i.e. do you enjoy talking to people, spending countless hours solving a problem, or researching a new subject?) If you find yourself having mixed feelings about a chosen field of study because it is “too hard” or because “you don’t fit in”, remember that you can become an advocate for changing the culture or pushing the discipline forward. Boundaries are starting to blur and overlap exponentially, so it doesn’t matter what you study, just what you do with those skills in the real world!