Phase 0: Alec Hathaway

(EXAMPLE) INTRODUCTION

I’m an architect and adjunct professor of Architecture at IIT where I teach in the 2nd year Design Studio.

I studied Architecture as an undergraduate, getting a 4-year degree (B.S. in Architecture) and then went to graduate school in a 3-year program for my B.Arch. It’s been a while since I thought about why I chose to study architecture and to be honest I’m not sure I had any idea what the discipline or the profession were like when I first applied to the architecture program as an undergraduate. What I do continue to find engaging about architecture (and design more generally) is the impact it has on our daily experiences and, more broadly, how our decisions about what, where, and how to build reflect and affect society as a whole.

Before and after graduate school I lived and worked in New York, but most of my professional experience has been in San Francisco. I moved to Chicago a couple of years ago when my wife took a job here and currently split my time between teaching, working on small projects on my own, and trying to carve out some time to take care of our 2 kids.

I really enjoy craft: developing the skills of making and an understanding of the significance of things of all sorts. This is often a part of my professional projects and teaching, but also in hobbies I enjoy. Most of my free time ends up being spent with my family, but as my kids get older some of their interest are starting to overlap with mine and we’re currently working on baking the perfect loaf of bread and finding ways to preserve and use the various types of fruit we like to pick in the summer.