Iman Fayyad

What is your career story? How did you get where you are today?

I started at MIT thinking I’d pursue Course 2 (Mechanical Engineering), and during my freshman year, I did UROPs in Course 2. I was on the underwater robotics team and even went to San Diego. But then I took an architecture studio because my friends recommended it, and I ended up loving it. It felt like it scratched an itch on so many levels: the absoluteness of scientific thinking, analytical problem-solving, and the mathematical and scientific approach—but also incorporating history, philosophy, theory, and art.

I ended up studying Course 4 (Architecture) as an undergrad, though I didn’t know much about the discipline at the time. After graduating, I pursued my Master in Architecture degree, which took another four years. During that time, I realized I wanted to stay in academia. I did a MISTI France internship and worked at a Boston firm during the summer. I enjoyed practice but found I preferred academia more.

After my Master’s, I took a teaching and research fellowship at Harvard and taught a studio at MIT (4.022). I worked in practice for a couple of years at SOM in New York, where I pursued licensure. During that time, I taught part-time, knowing I wanted to keep one foot in school.

After two years, I decided to return to academia full-time. I’ve been teaching for  seven years now, and have started my own independent design research practice. I do both theoretical and speculative work as well as writing and building. . Academia allows me to fuse research and practice, satisfying my passions for teaching and defining new ways of practicing design.

Could you talk more about your decision to move from practice to academia full-time?

At MIT, I was taught to think outside the box—to approach problems in unconventional ways. This mindset encouraged me to be deeply curious about the world and to look beyond traditional methods of solving problems. Architecture transcends many aspects of how we move through the world, but it also exists in a challenging gray zone between art and service. As architects, we want to express ourselves as artists, but we aren’t engineers. We carry a tremendous responsibility to address societal needs, but defining what that responsibility entails can be complex.

Is architecture simply the design and construction of buildings? Or is it writing about spatial matters? Perhaps it’s making people aware of the political constructs embedded in spaces. It’s hard to know what you want to be as an architect. At MIT, we were taught to be independent thinkers, to write our own briefs. But when you enter practice, you quickly realize there are countless external forces and powers—economic, social, political—that shape your work. Some of these forces can be incredibly inspiring, while others can feel limiting.

For instance, designs often cost a lot of money to execute, and as a designer, you’re often working on behalf of a client with significant resources but whose goals might not align with the public’s best interests. Designs take years to materialize, and along the way, things get lost or altered in translation as you collaborate with engineers, contractors, and other stakeholders. While constraints can be frustrating, they can also teach you valuable lessons. Constraints can push you to think creatively within boundaries and ultimately benefit the design process. However, your values and vision as a designer might not always align with those of your clients or builders, and navigating those misalignments as the architect is part of the challenge.

Practice is essential for helping you realize where and how you can insert your voice—especially as someone who cares deeply about the built environment, the community, and the importance of creating spaces that people enjoy.. It’s also a way to reflect on where the efforts of our labor go and how to streamline the relationship between design and construction. When we hand off ideas to structural engineers or contractors, we often start with big dreams that may not be possible due to constraints like cost or material limitations.

One clear takeaway from practice is the importance of being sensitive to how we interact with other trades and skills. For instance, understanding the relationship between architectural geometry and material behaviors can help streamline processes from design to construction, minimizing material waste. How can we leverage this understanding to make architecture more accessible—cheaper to build, faster to execute, and more participatory for audiences who might not typically afford such spaces?

To address these questions effectively, you need time, space, and resources to explore without the pressures of industry—free from market forces, client demands, or others’ schedules. This freedom is critical for pushing boundaries, finding solutions, and discovering new ways to align design intent with real-world constraints.

What were the biggest skills/mindsets/approaches you took away from your architecture education?

Architectural education teaches you to be a problem solver, combining analytical and creative thinking. It’s a unique skill to articulate and argue for your ideas—whether to classmates, family, or professors—and to verbally define your thought process while learning to communicate through someone else’s language.

You also gain technical skills, like software and physical modeling, understanding of material behavior, and the ability to mediate between your mind and your hands. I think these skills are noble and versatile. Design education is incredibly valuable and has evolved significantly from being a vocational trade to an intellectual discipline in universities.

Architecture straddles so many domains—engineering, liberal arts, and design—which is both its challenge and its strength. I love seeing “design” used in non-traditional contexts, whether it’s public spaces, furniture, or products. Redefining what design means and expanding its influence is essential.

What do you wish you had learned in your architecture education?

I wish I’d been exposed to more conscious conversations about what it means to be a designer. At MIT, we didn’t always ask the “why” Why do we practice the way we do? I think it’s good to not always ask the “why”. It’s good to just “do”! If you’re interested in something, you should pursue it without knowing what the importance of it is at first. But, at the same time, asking these questions opens up discussions about responsibilities, equity, and sustainability.

From a technical perspective, I wish I’d taken computation courses and learned more engineering skills. Architecture students benefit from learning trades outside their discipline—whether it’s coding (JavaScript or C#) or other industries. Architects translate language into spatial and physical ideas, and learning to listen and translate effectively is really important.

What’s something you hated learning about that you now love?

The fast-paced turnaround of deliverables in architecture school didn’t align with how I work best. I’m someone who prefers to combine drawing, digital work, and writing, and I didn’t see the value in making five models for one project.

Now, I see the importance of being encouraged to work quickly and explore relentlessly. It forces you to experiment without feeling constrained, which is a privilege I’ve come to value. The pace also teaches you the importance of exploring ideas while balancing efficiency and wastefulness.

I think I also didn’t particularly enjoy learning about materials and the meticulous process of building a building. I care a lot about this now and think it’s very important for students to pay attention to things that may not seem immediately interesting or conceptually provocative.

Knowing what you know now, would you do undergrad/grad differently?

I probably would have majored in something other than architecture for undergrad and then pursued architecture in grad school. I would have still taken architecture courses, I think. But sometimes I think about whether I should have done math, or engineering, or philosophy, or something. Gaining knowledge and experience outside of architecture is incredibly valuable, as it broadens your perspective and enriches your approach to design. It’s all related to design in the end.

What advice do you have for students starting out in design?

Don’t be afraid to fail. Learn as much as you can—not just about architecture but about the world around you. Volunteer, talk to people, read, and learn about history, policy, philosophy, and urban space. Architecture is very time-consuming, and it’s important to zoom out and understand other disciplines.

Define yourself as an architect through your experiences outside of architecture. As unrelated as they might seem, they’ll somehow make their way back into your thinking without you knowing it. I wish someone had told me that when I was a student.