Category: Semester

Tatiana Ahmad, BMC ’23

Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: POLS 420 Praxis Fieldwork Seminar: Politics, Policy, and Power

Faculty Advisor: Marissa Golden

Field Site: Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania

Field Supervisor: Katie Blume

Praxis Poster:

Final_Tatiana_Ahmad_POLS_Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania

 

Further Context:

This semester I worked with Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania (CVPA), a political organization that works to elect environmentally responsible candidates to state and local office, hold those elected officials responsible for their environmental pledges, advocate for strong environmental policies state-wide, and strengthen laws that safeguard the health of our communities, the beauty of our state, and our economic future. My work primarily focused on writing comments for various comment periods. For example, I wrote an “action-alert intake form” for the Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter. Particulate matter is miniscule particles which are suspended in and saturate the atmosphere. It can cause severe and long term health problems if inhaled.

My job was to outline the proposed regulation to educate the public on the matter, and urge the responsible parties (the EPA/Administrator Regan in the case of particulate matter) to respond according to public and environmental interests. Once the comment is completed, it is submitted to Regulations.gov where anyone can view the submitted public comments. What makes CVPA such an important organization is its commitment to environmental justice. As any environmentalist or environmental scientist will tell you, climate change will always disproportionately impact poor communities of color. However, many environmental organizations will either ignore or plainly acknowledge environmental justice concerns. CVPA holds environmental justice as a pillar of their political strategy. For example, every comment submitted by CVPA will have a designated section of the submission dedicated to the diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) implications.

I was very fortunate to have an internship experience with an extremely supportive and communicative staff. I met with multiple staff members individually to collaborate on work and attended one full staff meeting. CVPA helped me form a deeper understanding of the local political network and the methods by which any person can participate in politics and influence decisions that are important to them and their values.

Alex Rebhun, HC ‘23

Solar Schools Toolkit: The Philadelphia Solar Energy Association

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: POLS 420 Praxis Fieldwork Seminar: Politics, Policy, and Power

Faculty Advisor: Marissa Golden

Field Site: The Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA)

Field Supervisor: Liz Robinson

Praxis Poster:

Final_Rebhun_Praxis_Poster_resized

 

Further Context:

The Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA) is a non-profit whose mission is to further solar energy education and implementation in the Philadelphia area. In the past, their work has included curriculum writing, solar-car races, educational events, and more. The PSEA is still a small, volunteer-based organization, however it has recently begun several new initiatives such as a contest for school kids and a toolkit to help schools implement photovoltaic systems.

My work at the PSEA mainly involved assisting with this new toolkit, known as the Solar Schools Toolkit. This digital document includes all the references and resources a school would need to implement solar power, including steps to follow, people to contact, sample RFPs, and more. My job was to assist with the creation of this document where possible. This included editing for accessibility and clarity, retrieving graphics and photos, and assisting with formatting. At times it was difficult to keep up, as my understanding of photovoltaic systems was not on par with the PSEA’s industry-veteran volunteers. However I found that I learned as I went, and PSEA staff was extremely friendly in making corrections.
I also assisted with the PSEA’s new “Imagine a Clean Energy Future” contest, where middle/high school students submitted written, visual, and video concepts of their interpretation of a clean energy future. My work began in the coordination stage, where I helped manage emails and contest submissions. I then assisted with the related exhibit opening, writing letters of congratulations and helping set up student works in the exhibit space. Finally I attended the opening itself, where I was proud to see the contest-winners receive their prizes.

I learned a great deal during my time with the PSEA. Aside from various writing and technicals skills (including editing, press release writing, and mail-merging) I learned to work remotely, on my on schedule. I also learned about solar grants and how funding is managed at state agencies such as the PADEP. Finally, I developed an understanding of the workings of volunteer-based nonprofits, particularly in the post-covid era.

I’d like to thank Liz Robinson and the PSEA staff for their warm welcome during my Praxis experience. I’m truly grateful for all the time they spent with me and the work we accomplished together. I’d also like to thank Marissa Golden and Tiffany Stahl for making this experience possible.

Kitty Shi, BMC ’25

Empowering Communities

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: POLS 420 Praxis Fieldwork Seminar: Politics, Policy, and Power

Faculty Advisor: Marissa Golden

Field Site: Global Philadelphia Association (GPA)

Field Supervisor: Sylta Cubranich

Praxis Poster:

Final_Kitty Shi_POLSPoster

 

Further Context:

The Global Philadelphia Association (GPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Philadelphia as a global city by connecting its residents, businesses, and institutions to the world. The organization works towards increasing Philadelphia’s global engagement through various programs, such as international networking events, educational
initiatives, and cultural exchanges.

During my internship at GPA, I managed the organization’s official Instagram account, posted events on the website, attended and assisted in setting up GPA events, and contributed to the 2023 Annual Impact Report. I also wrote several articles on topics such as sustainable development goals (SDGs), world heritage preservation, and event news.

This internship allowed me to develop vital skills, such as communication and collaboration with team members in a hybrid work environment. Additionally, I gained a deeper understanding of how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operate and how to organize NGO-led events. I also learned how to filter essential information in my writing and enhance
my networking skills by attending social events.

Olivia Kaplan, BMC ’24 & Dylan Ioffreda, HC ’24

The Drawings of Architect Jonathan Lane

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: The Lane Family & University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives

Field Supervisors: Barbara Miller Lane & Steven Lane

Praxis Poster:

Olvia Kaplan and Dylan_Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

 

Further Context:

Our Praxis project focused on the architectural drawings and career of Jonathan Lane (1931-2021). His work explored the evolving species of modernism and models of residential development in suburbs outside of Philadelphia from the late 1950’s through the 1970’s. By means of collecting drawings, cataloging, researching locations, and finding images, our goal was to organize and understand the scope of Jonathan Lane’s work.

At the start of the semester, we met with Jonathan’s wife, Barbara Miller Lane (founder of the Growth and Structure of Cities Department at Bryn Mawr College). In our discussion, we were able to learn more about his professional career; from Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in Chicago to studying at M.I.T., to settling in the Philadelphia area, where he primarily practiced in a studio behind Lane house in Wayne.

In the backyard studio/office space, hundreds of drawings, some rolled and some stored flat in drawers, recorded the breadth of Jonathan Lane’s architectural work.  We worked to catalog the more than 50 rolled sets, mostly blueprints and hand drawings. These were incredible works showing the artistic and functional process of architecture. We were also able to work with Jonathan Lane’s son, Steven Lane, as he began working through the flat drawers, providing further information to the project.

Our goal was to identify the different projects represented, noting client, date, location, and number of drawings for each. We compiled the data on the projects into spreadsheets and began the process of connecting the drawings to Steven Lane’s drawings to create a master list in order to figure out the homes that still stand today.

As we became familiar with some of Jonathan Lane’s work, we started to notice features that he favored in house designs – there was repetition of expansive horizontal layouts spanning multilevel sites, dark vertical wood siding, long decks and corner windows, and ceiling planes uninterrupted by lighting fixtures. Taking note of this, we started to explore relationships of the work with coeval published designs. While similar in process, each project had personality and a distinct nature of comfort and familiarity that truly seems to define Lane’s practice.

As the work on the collection continues, we anticipate a transfer of the cataloged and collated drawings to the University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives and the future integration of the cataloging into the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings website.

Being able to work closely with the architectural drawings and the family of the architect has been a unique and unforgettable experience, one that has thrown new light on our sense of architectural design. For both of us, we found personal favorites and interests as we dug deeper into Jonathan Lane’s drawings and career which will continue to guide our undergraduate studies and future endeavors. Having the opportunity to work with Barbara Miller Lane, Steven Lane, and be guided by Professor Cohen of the Cities department all to create a memory of Jonathan Lane’s life’s work was an unforgettable experience. It has piqued new interests and taught us lessons and histories we may have not been exposed to before. It was also a privilege to work alongside the Lane family and Bryn Mawr College with the hundreds of sheets of drawings, as well as aid the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives in the start of archiving the many works.

 

Madeline Cohen, BMC ’24

Architectural Drawings: Cataloguing Lower Merion Township’s Archive

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Lower Merion Township

Field Supervisor: Greg Prichard

Praxis Poster:

Maddie Cohen_Praxis Poster_Final

 

Further Context:

Hi, my name is Madeline Cohen, and I am a junior Growth and Structure of Cities major at Bryn Mawr College. I am interested in pursuing a career in architecture. This semester I worked at Lower Merion Township in the Building and Planning Department cataloguing their architectural drawings archive. The archive is made up of thousands of drawings from the 1920’s until today, collected for the purpose of regulating building. Historic Preservation Planner Greg Prichard is working to catalogue all these projects and I had the opportunity to help him.

Cataloguing architectural drawings is important for the preservation of documents for future generations to use and learn from. Such architectural drawing sets preserve records of the form of building at their genesis- buildings that inevitably change and often disappear over time. Cataloguing them makes these records discoverable by researchers. Researchers can locate specific projects through attributes such as location, date, architect, client, and purpose.

These records are valuable to the township’s officials. They serve as evidence of the built fabric as it has evolved over decades. Architects, engineers, and landscape architects use the records for projects they are working on near a property or on a property. Researchers use the records for tracking the constantly evolving physical history of places within the Lower Merion Township.

The drawings I was cataloguing were between 1937 and 1938. The archive is organized on shelves by project number. The database I was working in was Excel. For each project within the Excel spreadsheet, I record the project number, title, address building type, number of sheets, sheet contents, seal date, drawing date, architect, and builder. The buildings catalogued in the spreadsheet so far are primarily residential but there are some academic, commercial, and public buildings included as well. The drawings within each project typically include plans, elevations, sections, and plot plans.

This semester while working at Lower Merion Township I have learned about the history of buildings and planning in the township and how to identify development patterns within specific time periods. In addition, I had more exposure and practice to reading architectural drawings which will help me with my career goals. I improved my database management and Excel skills. I also met a lot of great people and made friends while gaining experience working in an office setting.

Kelly Peterson, BMC ‘ 23 & Deniz Gonen, HC ’23

Public Programming at Philadelphia City Hall

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation, City Hall Branch

Field Supervisor: Tomar Jackson

Praxis Poster:

Kelly Deniz Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

 

Further Context:

For the spring 2023 semester, we worked as Public Programming Interns for the City Hall branch of the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation. Our supervisor and the head of the City Hall branch, Tomar Jackson, had been looking into revamping the existing tours of City Hall. Currently, the tours take visitors around the exterior and inside. Tomar was interested in developing specialized tours that would be supplemental to the main tour. Through a lot of trial and error, we developed a walking tour that would introduce visitors to the area around City Hall, focusing on historic buildings and public art.

Our tour would proceed as follows:

    1. Start at City Hall. Visitors would learn more about the process of planning and building City Hall and how the structure disrupted the city streets and necessitated the widening of the square it is located in.
    2. South Broad Street and the Avenue of the Arts initiative: Visitors would learn about the initiatives to make the street a center of arts culture as well as become more familiar with Philadelphia’s major arts and music scenes and institutions.
    3. Corner of S. Penn Square and 15th St: Contains two major public art pieces in the area around City Hall, the Clothespin and the Triune. Here the Percent for Art ordinance would be explained, and how that has contributed to a wide variety of public art being present on Philadelphia city streets.
    4. Dilworth Park: Speak about the old Broad Street Station, which used to serve as a hub for aboveground trains, and how much of this moved underground with the creation of Penn Center and “modern” skyscraper cities.
    5. Love Park: Learning about the history of the iconic sculpture in the plaza as well as the park’s creation and its contested history as a skate park.
    6. Mole Street: a few blocks north, Mole Street is a small narrow street between North 15th and North 16th Streets. It contains a number of extremely well-preserved row houses and would serve as a spot for visitors to reflect on the architectural evolution of Center City – especially with views of Comcast Tower and other skyscrapers in the background.
    7. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA): A chance to see more public art outside the building as well as learn about its design and significance as a center of Philadelphia culture.
    8. Masonic Temple and Municipal Services Building: Discuss Masonic Temple as a structure that predates City Hall and as a building with a rich history and beautiful exterior/interior. Municipal Services Building has a plaza with two more sculptures commissioned as a part of Percent for Art, as well as a statue of Frank Rizzo that was wildly contested before its removal in 2021.
    9. End at City Hall.

Through this process, we learned a lot about Philadelphia history – both about major institutions located near City Hall and as a more “public” history through speaking to the City Hall tour guides and hearing their feedback. We also learned how complex and nuanced the process of tourmaking is, as we revised our plans numerous times due to feedback from Professor Cohen, our Praxis seminar participants, Tomar, and the other City Hall guides. While we are presenting a completed tour, we anticipate it will go through many more stages before being given to visitors. We are excited to see how our work is implemented!

Dora Montgomery, BMC ’24

Buildings in Lower Merion Township

Semester: Spring 2023

Praxis Course: Praxis II – CITY 350 Urban Projects

Faculty Advisor: Jeff Cohen

Field Site: Lower Merion Conservancy

Field Supervisor: Kathleen Abplanalp

Praxis Poster:

Dora Montgomery_Praxis Poster_Final_Resized

 

Further Context:

My project was to take photos of fire insurance surveys kept at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania archives. Fire insurance surveys are records taken of buildings by the Franklin Fire Insurance Company and the Pennsylvania Insurance Company during the nineteenth century. They recorded the dimensions and materials of new buildings in order to assess their insurance costs. Surveys often included plans of the first floors. I specifically documented buildings in Lower Merion Township. The surveys I found range in date from 1820 to 1866. I will be giving my copies of the surveys to Lower Merion Conservancy, a local organization devoted to natural and historical conservation in Lower Merion Township. The Conservancy will, in the future, enter them into a database of buildings in the township accessible by researchers and residents. The surveys, especially the plans, provide valuable information for understanding the types of buildings in the township from the time. I learned, for example, most of the buildings were barns and stables, but there were larger and more interesting homes and public buildings as well.

The first image on my poster is an atlas of Lower Merion Township. Part of my job was to locate the buildings I found in surveys on atlases of the Township. I could not actually use that atlas, as there were no high quality digital copies, but it was the nicest to look at. The next two images are a plan and drawing of Whitehall Inn, a no longer extant hotel built next to Whitehall Station, a train station in Bryn Mawr. Whitehall Inn was demolished, but Whitehall Station still exists, and was renovated into the Bryn Mawr hospital thrift shop. The images below are a snapshot of the location of Whitehall Inn & Station on an atlas from 1851 and two images of Whitehall Station, one from when it was an operating station, one from today.

The next several images are from different surveys from across the Township. They reflect the wide variety of buildings from the period. There is the residential home of John Levering, who was a prominent citizen and himself made a map of the Township. There are the plans of a tenant house, for rent, and a spring house, which was located over a natural spring of water, at Harriton Farm, a large estate in the Township. The Baptist Church, which is just down the street from Bryn Mawr, was also on Harriton Farm. Many of the surveys are not as detailed as those previously displayed, reflected by the sketch of buildings in Merion Square, several of which were owned by D.N. Egbert, but not all. Many plans included additional information about nearby roads and buildings to help situate the buildings being surveyed. The final image is of stables at Whitehall Inn, which resemble most of the surveys found. As one might expect for a agricultural community, most of the buildings surveyed were barns and stables.

Tarin Martinez, BMC ’23

Representing Spaces

Semester: Spring 2023

Faculty Advisor: Gary McDonogh

Field Site: Voith & Mactavish Architects

Field Supervisors: Daniela Voith & Isabella Bartenstein

Praxis Poster: 

Tarin Martinez_Praxis Poster_Final

 

Further Context:

For my Praxis course this semester, I continued an internship I had at Voith & Mactavish Architects. One of the firm’s founding partners, Daniela Voith, is a Bryn Mawr alumna and Architecture studio professor; I had taken her course in Fall of 2019, which is where I discovered the architecture field and found my passion in it. Voith & Mactavish Architects (VMA) is an architecture, interior design, and historical preservation firm in Center City, Philadelphia. They primarily specialize in cultural and educational spaces, such as independent high schools, churches, college dorms, and residential. Daniela once described it as “spaces where people care about the space.” This intrigues me, as it gives the opportunity (and budget) to really consider and design meaningful and purposeful spaces, and consider what goes into that design. As I had done in my previous time at VMA, this semester I continued my support in producing renderings of current and past projects. These renderings mainly consist of elevations, plans (of both buildings and campuses), and sections. The buildings I have worked on are primarily educational settings – classrooms, dorms, administrative spaces.

The process starts with the designs being drawn into a modeling or drafting software such as CAD or Revit. In my time at VMA, I have been able to pick up a working knowledge of both programs, as well as Photoshop. The drawings need to be “cleaned,” by simplifying them. The purpose of this is to most clearly convey the purpose of the drawing – some are for presentations, some are for interviews, or the website. The goal is to make the drawings easily readable to anyone, students, other design professionals, visitors to the website or our social media pages. In addition to being readable, the goal is also to make them beautiful and distinctly VMA. After the drawings are “cleaned,” for any unnecessary or distracting lines or items, the linework is put into Photoshop. Here, using brushes and standard company colors, the renderings begin to come to life. The tactics used to create the VMA look are derived from founding partner Cameron Mactavish’s hand water colors that were an important part of the company’s original designs and work – their identity, even.

My skills come in through the cleaning, and then the reading of the drawings, working to figure out what each line represents in the real site, and what is important to convey the vision for the space to the viewer, as well as what is visually appealing. I work with the project architects to do this, they tell me what they want the rendering to convey or focus on, and what’s what in the drawing. I add in wall poche, coloring in the walls and adding in weight. After that comes programming, for plans. Programming is the delineation of spaces by function. To convey this artistically in a rendering, we use different standard colors to signify the usage of those spaces clearly (blue for a bathroom, or orange for a study, for instance). In renovations or additions, I also often usually am asked to depict the difference between existing and new walls. If I am doing a larger site plan, I may investigate the surrounding area via Google Earth to be able to produce a more comprehensive picture. The final touches are adding in trees and other relevant landscaping, as well as artistic fades and highlights. Depending on the “cleanup,” time and clarity of the original drawing linework, a rendering can take anywhere from a few days to a week or more. Part of this time is spent reviewing the work I have done with the project architect or my supervisor, Isabella Bartenstein, who taught me the company standards and tricks of the trade. Their feedback comes in the form of “redmarks,” their red markings on the drawing being instruction on how to tweak the renderings.

My experience at VMA has given me an incredibly valuable insight into the industry. What is it like to work in this type of environment? A smaller firm, a creative environment, a woman-owned business. I’ve been able to observe the day to day life of interior design professionals, architects, and the business administration of a firm like this, and consider what I want my life to look like. While I had hoped to have found a clearer vision of what exactly I would like to do as a career, this experience, like my experience at Bryn Mawr, has taught me that there are more paths than I could have ever imagined existed. I have also found that even after several years of immersion in architecture education and the industry, I still find that practically anything architecture related interests me. My work rendering, and past work drafting in the studio at Bryn Mawr and at VMA, is something I can become pleasantly highly engaged with and lose track of time doing. Beyond just observations, I have also made an effort to talk to my coworkers about their experiences. I feel this has provided me a real inside-look at the architecture and design industry that many don’t get the chance to experience until after they graduate. Besides the technical skills that VMA has imparted me with, my time with them has enhanced my professional and communication skills within an office. I am very pleased to not only have learned about the industry, but also about myself and my work style. I enjoy project based work, with a balance of logical creativity. I hope to continue my relationship with VMA, improve my hard and soft skills, and find a way to be as valuable as possible to the company!

Palmer Jones, BMC, ’24

Healing Futures

Semester: Spring 2023

Faculty Advisor: Darlyne Bailey & Gwenn Prinbeck

Field Site: Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP)

Field Supervisor: Felix Rosado

Praxis Poster:

Palmer Jones_Praxis Poster_Final

 

Further Context:

After being placed with Healing Futures in a praxis class a previous semester, I wanted to continue my involvement and co-created an Independent Study. Healing Futures is Philadelphia’s first youth-focused pre-charge diversion program, tackling youth incarceration. Through Healing Futures, I gained more trust and confidence in myself by facilitating Restorative Community Conferences, which are the last step in a restorative justice process when a young person causes harm to someone else in the community. Following the Circle Process, derived from indigenous practice, the person harmed, responsible youth, and invested community members gather together to address the harm caused. Together, we create a Restorative Plan for the responsible youth that aims to resolve the harm to the best of their ability whilst instilling confidence in the community’ ability to resolve conflict without problematic interference. My role also consisted of running weekly workshops in preparation for the conference as well as skill development in my administrative abilities including, note-taking and record keeping.

My experience working with the organization, community, and youth has helped shape me into a more informed and motivated individual. I found that my engagement with the program encouraged me to better myself so that I could continue being supportive despite the harsh realities I witnessed. In relation to my major, I believe we cannot have environmental justice without having individuals who want to see such justice be carried out. “Empowered people empower people” is a phrase I found myself repeating often. By empowering youth to take accountability for the harm they cause (rather than villainizing and punishing them), they build trust in themselves and others and become reacquainted with what it means to be in a community, and are thus better positioned to be mindful of how they interact with the environment.

Trying youth as adults and their resulting displacement from their communities due to the corrupt juvenile court system can be metaphorically compared to seeds trying to grow in bad soil. When a seed is not sprouting, it is more likely that the soil in which it is trying to root is not sufficient, rather than being a faulty seed. Just as the polluted soil can stunt the growth and development of seeds, the injustice system can hinder their growth and development. This can result in long-term negative consequences, including the perpetuation of poverty, crime, and social inequality. To address this issue, we must work to remove the toxins from the soil and provide the necessary resources and support for youth to grow and flourish. This involves addressing the root causes of systemic racism and disempowerment in society, investing in community-based programs and services, and reforming the juvenile justice system to ensure that it provides a rehabilitative and restorative approach to justice for all youth.