We are proud to celebrate the accomplishments of our team across their professional and academic pursuits. This spotlight features Pouya, whose Master’s Thesis, titled: The Unfinished Tribute, was recently named 2025 Student Project of the Year by the Buffalo / Western New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Pouya first joined Lothrop Associates Architects as a summer intern in 2022, where he had the opportunity to continue his architectural education while gaining hands-on professional experience in the field. Balancing academic study with real-world practice helped shape his design approach and contributed to the thoughtful development of his award-winning thesis.
Can you tell us what “The Unfinished Tribute” is about in your own words?
The Unfinished Tribute comes from both a personal and collective grief. As an Iranian immigrant myself, I have experienced the lack of “third spaces” dedicated to the Iranian diaspora and sensed the lack of knowledge about our people. This project imagines a memorial space to the Iranian uprisings alongside the vacant former Iranian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and redefines memorial architecture as a living act of remembrance, using architecture as a tool to teach, mourn, and move forward.
How did it feel to receive student project recognitions from AIA Buffalo/WNY? Did you have a certain approach to your design projects?
I am definitely humbled and honored to be recognized by the AIA chapter once again, especially in an architecturally significant city like Buffalo. For both the Refugee Housing project of last year and my Master’s Thesis project of this year, the big, conceptual “aha” moment was followed by scaling back down from designer to a singular user, to imagine myself live through the spaces and play out different scenarios. I think that is a really good way to balance an innovative idea/ narrative with the human-centered end-goal of any project.
What did you carry with you from your internship at Lothrop into your education at University at Buffalo?
We are all aware of the gap between academia and the professional field. I was fortunate to get the opportunity to intern at Lothrop in Summer of 2022 and continue my education and internship side by side. Gaining professional experience while in school helped take every studio project to the next level, and similarly being part of the creative environment at UB allowed me to contribute to ongoing Lothrop projects from very early on. Now having finished school, I’m excited to join back on those projects and more!
What kind of projects do you hope to work on in the future?
Well, I am just starting out and there are lots of typologies I have yet to experience. But as you can guess, I find particular interest in Memorial Architecture for its ability to emotionally impact generations and carry the personal but voice the collective stories across any social and cultural barriers. Every tribute is a different story or at least comes from a different storyteller. I think down the line it would be an honor to progress my Thesis project into reality! We’ll see what happens.
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