Sameena Sitabkhan
Undergraduate Assistant Director
Academy of Art University
How has your work as a mentor evolved?
What I love most about teaching is working together with the next generation of architects. Through my work as licensing advisor, AIAS advisor and helping students start the NOMASAAU chapter along with teaching, I’ve learned that mentorship is a collaborative process. Our students at ArtU come from many different backgrounds, ages and experience levels and so mentoring them is an amazing learning experience that constantly expands my frame of reference in great ways. This constant questioning and challenging that I hope allows me to be a better mentor to others.
What has been your most rewarding experience with the work you do?
Working with other faculty, collaborators and students to get our community based design program off the ground. I love to see students going out into the community to meet real people, and know their stories. This process of co-creating and designing with them allows students to understand the actual needs of real clients and the challenges of building. Helping students find their political capital and seeing the pride they have in bringing built work to folks in the hope of improving their daily lives is very rewarding.
What do you hope to see change, or stay the same, in the next couple of years?
I hope to see current advocacy movements in the profession and beyond continue to develop. As a first generation Indian woman in the profession, I don’t always see many others like me, but I see change. I believe that once the profession begins to represent the communities around us, the design profession will be a stronger vehicle for transformation.
Sameena Sitabkhan is a California licensed architect deeply committed to empowering the next generation of architects through an emphasis on spatial justice. As the assistant undergraduate director at the Academy of Art SF, he has served in the roles of Licensing Advisor, AIAS faculty advisor, and NOMAS faculty advisor. Since 2018, she has been directing B.Lab, the undergraduate department’s community-based design initiative. The student-designed and constructed projects have won numerous awards in recognition of the creative and empathetic ways of meeting the needs of underserved communities in the Bay Area through a robust participatory model with neighbors, local youth, city agencies, and nonprofits. In her own practice, she has designed and managed projects spanning a range of public serving building typologies from schools and affordable housing to urban/art installations throughout the Bay Area since the early 2000s. She was previously an Associate at David Baker Architects, focused on housing for the formerly homeless and has completed ground-up charter and public school buildings throughout California. She co-founded studiosideproject.com in 2020, with two like-minded collaborators, to create at the intersection of narrative, design, and advocacy in the built environment.
Sameena Sitabkhan is an honoree of the 2023 Community Alliance Awards // Sandra I. Vivanco Education Award which recognizes an organization or individual who upholds the values to inspire students, peers and the community that extends beyond the boundaries of the pedagogy into practice.