EMERGING PROFESSIONALS MEET THEIR MENTORS

Rosa Rogina and her mentees met in the relaxed atmosphere of AIA Sponsor, Herman Miller’s London Showroom.

For a young single person in an unfamiliar city, launching a career in architecture can be incredibly challenging. Few of us succeed without help. Like many other 20-somethings moving to London in 2014, I needed mutual support. This is where the story of Speed Networking begins.

The AIA UK was not what I initially had in mind for a community of peers. Indeed, when I joined the chapter there were only a couple of members under the age of thirty-five. What most would call a gap in age, experience, and interests looked to my young self like an insurmountable chasm.

Despite the intimidating lack of youth, I knew to appreciate the role that the AIA had to play in my future. This belief came to me from an architect I admired – the only person ever, in fact, who directly encouraged me to get licensed. The advice reflected her own experiences at a time when she was striving to gain wider respect for her work. It was a sharp foresight into my own future.

This mentor is the reason I decided to attend the earlier rendition of Speed Networking in 2015. The event was advertised as a mentorship “one-on-one.” It was a pivotal moment for me, as I was able to make my first professional connections in London. Since then, mentorship has improved my career in countless ways, and became an experience I increasingly wished to share.

Fast forward to 2022 – my first year serving on the AIA UK Board as chair of Emerging Professionals. Naturally, reviving the Speed Networking event after a 7-year hiatus was one of my first priorities for the year. I am proud to report that last Thursday, Speed Networking returned with fanfare at its original home in the London Herman Miller showroom.

Overseeing the evening was Michael Lischer, whom I met at the original 2015 event. Also attending from AIA UK were Martín Varela Vivona and social media coordinator Celia Fiallos, who streamed the evening on Instagram Live to an audience of followers.

Attendees and mentors alike were welcomed by music, food, and drinks before dispersing into small groups to begin the Speed Networking activity. Each group was given approximately 5 minutes to converse with a mentor who was seated at an assigned location throughout the showroom. These discussions had to take place rather quickly, however, since groups were required to switch mentors before the start of the next interval.

Mentors on the night. From left to right: Carlos Luis Gómez Gonzalez, Cristina Sánchez Jiménez, Armor Gutiérrez Rivas, Rosa Rogina, Andy Watts, Rachel Hoolahan, and Ricardo Sosa-Mejia.

It was a rush to keep up with the unnatural pace. Rosa Rogina (London Festival of Architecture) and Ricardo Sosa-Mejia (Heatherwick Studio) were among the mentors who warranted more time for discussion. Rosa’s curatorial range includes the Venice Biennale and Vienna Design Week, while Ricardo is design lead on a multitude of R+D projects, some in association with Google. Though it is impossible to package these experiences into five-minute time slots, both did their best to break the ice and ensure that everyone present got their share of face-to-face conversation.

One mentor prepared for the face-to-face aspect in a most fitting way: Carlos Luis Gómez Gonzalez (Foster+Partners) brought a tablet device along to the event to demonstrate the latest projects and visualization work produced by his team. The added visual element captivated his eager audience, as did the presenter himself. Carlos recently received a promotion to Partner at his firm, an achievement which I announced and congratulated at the start of the event.

On the opposite side of the room, Rachel Hoolahan (Orms), Andy Watts (Grimshaw), and Cristina Sánchez Jiménez (Lendlease) focused their discussions on the technology and sustainability aspects of design practice. Rachel – recipient of the 2021 AJ100 Sustainability Champion Award – seemed to share my appreciation for mentorship and delivered sincere and reliable advice to every group.

A few paces away, Cristina met with attendees in a private conference room. Her current role as BIM Manager at a global real estate company left everyone with a keen sense of architecture’s ongoing advances in construction and technology. These advances are likely the same reason her neighbour, Andy Watts, was overheard being enthusiastically described as a “genius.” His work spearheading the implementation of computational design, BIM, virtual and augmented reality technology, data-driven intelligence, and DfMA certainly deserves such a compliment.

Armor Gutiérrez Rivas (UEL, Atelier la Juntana) followed Andy and Cristina with his own unique background in design and creative fabrication. Having worked previously at BIG, MVRDV, and KPF, he also took on a role as BIM project architect and even achieved BREEAM Outstanding on the recently completed One Bank Street in Canary Wharf. He now works full-time at the University of East London and runs Atelier la Juntana, a modelmaking and fabrication workshop he co-founded in 2015.

Small groups encouraged individual attention. Pictured: Carlos Luis Gómez Gonzalez (left) and Ricardo Sosa-Mejia (right).

As I moved around the showroom that evening to take photos and keep time, my attention soon shifted from the mentors to the attendees. They were a diverse, energetic, and ambitious bunch who reminded me very much of myself. Some of them were friends and colleagues. Others were people I’d met briefly in previous years, and still others were new faces I had hoped to get to know better.

Unfortunately, there was not enough time for that – and even when we ran over by hour, I was already getting questions about when the next event would be. I had thought nothing could be more satisfying to an event organizer than having people show up. I was wrong – it was even more satisfying to see people taking part in earnest. I realized that Speed Networking had finally come full circle to become what I always believed it could be.

Written by Adelina Koleva, AIA