Sierra Espinoza from Howard University Shares Her Master’s Thesis

We kicked off 2026 with a conversation that stayed with us long after the room cleared.

Earlier this month, we welcomed Sierra Espinoza, a 5th Year Graduate student at Howard University, with whom we connected through the NOMA HBCU Professional Development Program in 2024. Sierra shared her in-progress thesis, an ambitious and socially engaged examination of NYCHA housing across New York City, rooted in her own childhood memories of spending time with family at Boulevard Houses.

Her work sparked thoughtful discussion around how city policy, building management, societal judgment, and architecture shape the lived experience of affordable housing. With housing at the core of ESKW/A’s practice, and decades of experience working in NYC and with NYCHA, the conversation felt both deeply familiar and newly invigorating. We were struck by Sierra’s clarity, care, and conviction, and by how her ideas kept us talking well after the presentation ended.

We shared a few pieces of feedback that we consider in our own work:

• A key next step will be deciding whether the work leans toward policy analysis or toward architecture and building and allowing that choice to sharpen the project’s focus.

• Focusing on interior spaces will be crucial to the development of the design, thinking of “home” as a narrative or sequence from arrival to inhabitation.

• Strategies like biophilic design and larger windows can humanize space but must be balanced alongside energy use and performance.

• Not every barrier has a clear-cut solution. The most effective responses often exist along a gradient rather than as binary answers.
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@sie.espi

Learn more about Sierra at archinect.com/people/cover/150517159/sierra-espinoza .