Reflecting on Summer at RODE: Celebrating Our Intern, Hailyn Garcia
As summer winds down, we’re reflecting on the impactful work of our summer intern, Hailyn Garcia. Before heading to college this fall to pursue architecture, Hailyn presented his summer journey to the RODE team, showcasing his impressive drawings, physical models, and key project contributions.
During his time with us, Hailyn expanded his technical skillset, gained confidence presenting his ideas, and solidified his passion for architecture as an academic path.
We are incredibly grateful to have provided a supportive environment for Hailyn's growth, and we can’t wait to see the mark he makes on the future of design. Thank you, Hailyn!
Photos courtesy of BSA/Architecture in Common, Boston Private Industry Council (PIC). and RODE Architects.
In Hailyn's Words:
Hi! My name is Hailyn Pimentel Garcia. I'm 18 years old and I recently graduated from ACC (Another Course to College) and I was presented the opportunity to work as an intern at RODE this summer! My experience at RODE Architects was incredible. Everybody was very welcoming, kind and open to helping or giving advice when I was stuck or needed it. It felt very like a small community being able to work in the environment and getting to know the people in the office and the history of RODE seeing all the work that has been done over the years and the current work that's being done, whether that was through pictures or site visits that I’d be invited to and it gave me a lot of insight as to how working in an architecture firm would be. I have many memorable moments from engaging with the firm but my most memorable one is when they gave me time to work on a presentation about myself and wanted me to present it to the entire office. It was memorable because I had been worrying about it the week prior thinking about how I’d present it, I was never very confident in my public speaking at all but when I did go up and present myself and things about me the stress went away knowing that everyone was listening and interested in what I had to say about me and only then I realized that I was overthinking and stressing over nothing. So I think being here has really encouraged public speaking for me especially with the Crit Thursdays where I’d pin up some work I’d been doing for the week and present it to a few people, it just got easier to speak out loud over time. I’ve never felt like I learned so much in such little time and it felt like time flew by. I wish I had more time here.
Learning orthographic projection when I was told about orthographic projection they told me it was something used very often in architecture and it was important to understand it so I was determined to learn it. They gave me some information on it and let me have a go and it was great, I had learned how to draw and read paths and sections and gave me a new way to think not only about architecture but my own art as well, I had also worked on an axonometric drawing and that was a struggle at first it was like my own human perspective working against the facts but once we reviewed and I gave it another go it became clearer to me and that pushed me in a way I hadn’t been pushed before, I felt like overall I had learned new skills that I can apply in other parts of my life as well.
I was always interested in architecture but I wasn’t sure it was something I would like to do for my life I had always had other interests if I didn’t really enjoy doing architecture but in my short time here it really has helped me explore my interest in architecture and in my mind gave me the green light telling me this is something I would like to do for life, I will enjoy this and be happy doing it which was really important to me. I will be pursuing architecture later this year in the fall at Merrimack so I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity at RODE this summer before going off to college!
