#a19 #aiacon19 AIA Conference 2019: "day 3.1: Interview with Meghana Joshi, Assoc. AIA"

July 24, 2019

#a19 #aiacon19 AIA Conference 2019: "day 3.1: Interview with Meghana Joshi, Assoc. AIA"

LEAVING LAS VEGAS...

Final Keynote:
with AIA National President William J. Bates, FAIA

drones are bringing medical supplies to Africa

Ryan with Ryan

Ryan Coogler talking about making movies

Now, there were some people who have blogged about how it can be overwhelming and if they go to these things, they feel like they aren't part of a group, they feel like they are lost in the crowd, they feel like what is going on just doesn't relate to what they are doing in the profession, be it high-end custom residential, affordable housing, new housing typology, research, school, institutional, hospitals, airports, international practice, software adn hardware, product reps, study materials, etc, etc....

what i am trying to say is

1) There's a place for you in the AIA and at the Conference

2) I feel the same way at times...

These Conferences are business but like our lives, we have a work/life balance and that balance included me bringing my "kids" who are now 18, soon to be 19, just turned 21 and soon to be in a few days, 25.... when did they grow up? It seems like it was just the other day that there was one in a stroller, the other one trying to slide down the escalator handrail and the other standing there looking bored as we stood waiting for their dad to get done with his sessions at the AIA Convention Los Angeles, because...

there was child care available for $25/kid and we had not registered, children under 16 were not allowed on the Expo floor so my husband and I tag teamed it with the kids while I skipped sessions as the stay-at-home mom/architect who had given up her membership for budgetary reasons after she was licensed, sound familiar to anyone else? And as I stood there waiting for the man, two of our professors came down the escalator, looked at the kids and me and said,

"well, you it looks like you have been busy" and "it certainly looks like you have your hands full...."

Well, I didn't get there by myself....

And as I saw one of the other #archimoms running around after her kids on the Expo floor in Vegas, I was happy to see that things had changed and I said, "Back in the day, they wouldn't let the kids into the Expo and she said, "Well, now they let strollers on, before they didn't"

I still don't understand some of the rules that are in place...

BUT I am hoping that next year at the conference, we can do better this time, and we would be more than happy to be letting our needs known and maybe even have our kids watch the other kids or we could have licensed child care providers on the premises, maybe even in a corner of the Expo floor sponsored by one of the product reps, you know you never can tell what these #archimoms will be planning for next year!!!

So this year, the adult kids wanted to go with me to VEGAS, they had never been and I figured that after our lives the last two years have been kindof hectic, that we deserved to take a break and we did!

Sometimes I just need to take a break and I need to take advantage of the fact that I am in a city that I have visited before but it was a long time ago or I have never been there before.

Anyways....

I had my kids with me and we all make sure when we are travelling that we take time to do at least one thing that each person wants to do. I mean, I already have mine, the conference, but there is always something that I do that is outside of the conference. One of the kids wanted to go to the PAWN store and try and sell these Walt Disney figures that I have that seem to be worth more than I thought and though I really don't want to "give them up", when I found out that they might be worth more than $1000, I was reconsidering it, but I guess you need to make an appointment ahead of time. So we went to a record store that he wanted to go to instead named "Wax Tracks", nothing to look at as far as the building or the architecture and he walked up to the door off the back of a little house and came walking back soon after.

It was closed.

So, I walked up and said,

"Are there any other record stores that you would recommend and he said,

"welllll..... there's Zia a couple miles away" and I looked at an album that he was holding I said,

"oh, Van Halen..."

And he said, "is this for him or for you?"

And I said, "well i guess that album is for me"

And he handed it to me

I guess I still have it going on for the 60-80 year old crowd even if they are my parents age....

Van Halen II, thank you!!!!

Later that night we went to the Party!!! which I have to say I didn't go last year but this year with the kids and Brooklyn Bowl AND Run DMC (or parts of them) playing them, it was a good time and it didn't seem like that many people were bowling (it also didn't seem like there were that many people dancing but you know, they were a bunch of architects :)

Or as my one kid said, "these guys do a pretty good cover of this..."

A Rose Among Thorns:
Lora Teagarden, Evelyn Lee, Mandy Freeland, Mark LePage,
Me, Meghana Joshi, and Clair Marie Wholean

So, one of the people who I finally met and considering that I have been blogging with her in #ArchiTalks for about four years now, I have done presentations for two events that she planned AND we only live two hours away from each other, it is hard to believe that Meghana Joshi and I met for the first time at one of the Saturday sessions and I did an interview after the conference. Meghana and her life and business partner, Rajesh Joshi have developed a Life Safety and Security software and gave a session on this new technology during a time that I needed to attend a CRAN session as I am the CRAN Chair for AIA San Diego and Palomar.

An Associate at WHA Inc, Meghana Joshi specializes in senior and affordable housing solutions. Her projects have been honored with multiple SAGE Gold, PCBC Gold Nugget, SoCal, Argentum, & NAHB awards. She received 2018 AIA California’s “Associate” award and “Presidential Citation” honoring her commitment to the profession. At AIA Orange County, she is the Founder/ Chair of Women in Architecture Committee, and Director of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion. Under “Project Amplify” that she founded, she amplifies and celebrates voices and works of minority architects throughout the world with diverse projects. Furthering her passion for life/ safety in architecture, Meghana has invented an artificial intelligence powered smart device. She spoke at 2019 AECNext/ SPAR 3D Conference & A’19 Conference on “Enhancing Life & Safety through Artificial Intelligence”. Meghana’s professional contributions were honored at “Say it Loud” exhibit at A’19 Conference, and she is one of the “Inspiring Moms of 2019” for OC Register.

rPATH Corp. (the Life and Safety app that Meghana and Rajesh Joshi developed

Interview with Meghana Joshi, Click here to listen

Meghana's Three Classic Buildings:

The Salk Institute: Photo Credit: The Salk Institute

http://www.talkativeman.com/ibrahim-rauza-bijapur/
Ibrahim Rauza Bijapur (inspiration for Taj Majal)

So, a couple of the requests from my kids when we went to Vegas was The Lou Ventor Brain Institute by Frank Gehry which I failed at getting the tickets for the tour, but we also didn't want to try and fool ourselves into thinking that we would be able to get there by 7am for the tour and I think that the 9am tour on Friday was full or the App wasn't showing me the tour because I had a conflict of schedule and it wouldn't show it to me,

anyways, if anyone knows how to get us in to the Brain Institute the next time, I would greatly appreciate it

The second request was to go see the Vegas Neon Museum

The Neon Museum

Now when we went on Saturday afternoon,

La Concha by Paul Williams, Architect

All of the La Concha photos,
courtesy of Cormac Phalen

All photos of our family
Courtesy of Kara,
our docent at The Neon Museum

And the third request or not even a request, just something that we all needed especially my daughter who doesn't do dairy... A Vegan Restaurant and so

Veggie Nation: yes, there is healthy food in Vegas, you just need to get off the strip and here it was, this sweet little hipster veg place that had a DJ who rivaled Run DMC from the night before

VEGENATION Las Vegas

So there were several docents at the Neon Museum and I asked a couple questions of one of them and we got around to talkinng about why I was in Vegas and that I was an architect and that the docent Kara was an art major at the college there and she said that she had really enjoyed learning about architecture in her art history classes and had thought about architecture but hadn't been encouraged to go to school for it. and I asked her if it was ok if I posted pics of the museum on my blog and she asked what blog it was and I told her that it was called,

"I've never met a woman architect before..."

and why it was called that and she said, "Well, I never met a woman architect before I met you today"

And that is one of the reasons why I write this blog...

Thanks Kara and thanks for answering my questions and thanks for taking our family photo and if you ever want to go to architecture school, let me know!

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