Being a person with a graphic design background and a strong interest in architecture, I was especially excited to see Jennifer Siegal’s lecture. It might have been her portfolio of work or the title of her lecture, but for me, it was her portrait. Symmetrical: her arms fallen comfortably to her sides with her hands meeting in front as she holds a pair of red wings firmly… held high enough as if she is offering it to you, the viewer. The gift of mobility.

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Her work is clean, sophisticated, well thought out, and representative of our times. It has everything you need in a structure… and nothing you don’t need. It is an expression of our values of today combined with our needs of tomorrow. (Tomorrow is the key word.) She said, “When you’re not pushed to perform, there’s a reluctance to see beyond what’s already here.” Siegal has overcome this.

Using reclaimed and high-performance materials, she designs modular pieces, prefabricated, then assembled on site to what will become… a home. “These buildings have no borders,” she said.

After the lecture, the young aspiring architect beside me said, “She’s everything I thought she would be: strong, intelligent, and confident.” He forgot to add “brilliant.”