Forging new pathways in Architecture with Melodie Yashar

At this edition of Disrupt, we bring you Architects and Non-Architects together on stage to help you imagine the future of architecture by bringing into play unconventional career paths. In collaboration with Disrupt, OOA will host a symposium to celebrate the myriad number of ways that Architects make an impact in the world and explore other reliable opportunities outside of architecture. Out of Architecture (OOA) was born out of a need to help architects realise design as the inception of numerous pathways for our careers. At the event, we celebrate people joining and leaving architecture who display unconventional trajectories beyond architecture.

Melodie Yashar, space architect, technologist, and researcher, is the VP of Building Design & Performance at ICON. She works at the intersection of earth and space and oversees the architectural direction of ICON’s built work as well as the performance of ICON’s building systems. Melodie also teaches undergraduate and graduate design studios at the Art Center College of Design.?

Much like many of us, Melodie started off with a traditional architectural background and worked in New York as an architect right after school. After 7 years, the archaic nature of the work deterred her interest in the field and she soon realised she wanted to work at the intersection of design and technology. She says “I decided that for the rest of my career if something does not fit in the Venn diagram of Design and Technology, then it's not for me and doesn’t align with what I was aspiring towards shortly.”

While she was practising architecture, along with her colleagues from Columbia University, they worked overnights and weekends to submit to the NASA 3D Printed Habitat challenge. Though it was in the early stages, NASA was only interested in architectural and virtual designs for 3D-printed Martian habitats. Melodie and her team won the challenge beating Foster and Partners and the European Space Agency.

“A competition project is like working on a design project in and of itself,” says Melodie. Their submission, Mars Ice House won first prize among the judges unanimously. The principle of the project at the time was that it was intended to advance to develop internally at Nasa and multiple NASA centres. The judges felt that the team’s advance in technology development for the design and approach was too progressive and forward-thinking and didn’t align with current research trajectories in-house at NASA. Melodie adds “It was clear that they had an idea of what the result would yield and our submission did not line up with that.”?

The project was highly intentional, used unconventional building construction materials, was on the edges of research and was highly aspirational in terms of architecture. When the competition was reinstated the second time, NASA specifically forbid the use of water ice as a building construction material, the use of which would fetch participants zero points for their submission.

As tenacious designers, Melodie and her team submitted to the competition again with the new rules in phases two and three. Having secured first place in the competition yet again, they effectively won both of NASA's solicitations for architectural designs from Mars habitats.?

Shortly after that, the team continued along the line of work. Over time, good responses led to people showing interest in their business and helped them grow into a consultancy practice called Search Plus where the team collaborated with multiple, NASA centres, Aerospace Partners and commercial partners.

As they shared the same NASA customer at Marshall Space Flight Centre, for work that had emerged as a result of the Centennial Challenge, Melodie was introduced to Jason Ballard the CEO of ICON. Jason made an offer to Melodie allowing her to establish an architecture department at ICON. She then resigned from Search Plus and today leads a team of 16 Architects and designers at ICON. Her work covers a broad spectrum of ideas from space to terrestrial construction. “My future was in aerospace. It was very clear that was my new trajectory” says Melodie.?

The range of projects they deliver is vast. Her team manages architectural project delivery for broad spectrum portfolios ranging from affordable housing to DOD to mass market housing. They also do prototyping and R&D and ICON’s Multiple Wall Systems, as well as developing science and building performance analysis, which is some of their prior work. They also support space projects and off-world additive manufacturing development.?

They do in-house structural engineering and in-house architecture for a number of projects and all of it is intended to optimize and create new design vernaculars that are better suited to 3D printing construction. They are not restricted or constrained by the same kind of, design approaches that are traditional in steel or cast-in-place concrete. The company also explores the potential of additive manufacturing and working with other emerging Construction Technologies. By and large, they support the development of new details for interfaces, and standards relative to additive construction aiding their acceptance in the Industry. “The regulatory environment of 3D printing is extremely interesting right now. It's still very nascent and early on but we're hoping to develop standards and guidelines to lead the way in that respect,” says Melodie.

Although she’s working in construction and architecture somewhat traditionally, it comes from a different perspective she says. At ICON, the engagement they provide in the services as a design-builder is an entirely different paradigm from how architects traditionally worked for owners. It is a complete shift from the architect-contractor-owner triad model contractually and empowers architects and builders in a way that has not been publicized and socialised as of yet in the industry.?

ICON is a developer of Construction Technologies supporting large-scale additive manufacturing. They develop proprietary robotics materials, software and architecture, deliver projects as a design-builder and provide robotics as a service. They are a unique service in the landscape of 3D printing and carry out all of the technology development themselves. Building performance sustainability and the architectural values that they bring to the table are important to them and therefore they are vertically integrated giving them a level of control and ownership over their final product - homes and buildings.?

For Melodie, having gone that far into space and coming back to a grounded terrestrial focus of buildings still seem more traditional and displays a Boomerang pattern of a cycle repeating when one is able to come back to AEC collecting a new set of experiences and bringing it back into the profession.

What is she most excited about in her job? Melodie says “I remember being in a position where I felt, like many others, that I needed to find a job with the right job title and it didn't exist. Instead of being discouraged by that, I would really encourage everybody out there to realize that your work can speak for itself and the power of your work and putting your work out there is not something you should underestimate. Believing in what you're doing and enabling synergies to emerge from that has been the most valuable thing for me in terms of how I've gotten to where I've gotten.”

She continues “I think in today's world, you can start your own practice, forge your own field in your own niche in architecture and in design just by doing what you think is most interesting. It's been the case for me most certainly. I never really saw this trajectory being possible, especially being able to merge both the terrestrial and the space applications, but here we are and we've been tremendously successful. So I can't say that it's not possible because it certainly is!”?

Melodie is a Keynote at this upcoming edition of the Disrupt Symposium, taking place in 3 days. Disrupt x OOA is an exciting, two-day virtual event bringing together architects and individuals from diverse backgrounds who have taken their training in architecture and applied it in innovative and non-traditional ways. Our fantastic lineup of speakers includes industry leaders and trailblazers from various fields including fashion, product design, technology, and more. They will share their unique stories, best practices, and provide valuable insights on how to successfully disrupt the norm and build a fulfilling career.

Get your tickets here: https://www.disruptsymposium.com/ooa