JOANNE MA
The Goodman Corporation
SAY IT LOUD - TEXAS Exhibitor
Texas Based Designer
Who or what inspires you professionally?
My parents -- personally, inspiration always comes from a place of love, empathy and respect. My parents immigrated to the U.S. with only the will to survive. I am -- because of my parents.
JOANNE MA
Bio:
The great designer, Joanne Ma, Assoc. AIA, NOMA, is a first-generation architectural graduate with roots in one of the most ethnically diverse metropolitan areas in the U.S. She helps communities imagine new urban realities related to mobility and infrastructure at The Goodman Corporation, a Houston-based firm driven to connect capital to communities through holistic performance-based planning, intelligent engineering, innovative funding, and a robust knowledge in public policy and intergovernmental coordination.
How did you first learn about architecture and when did you decide that built environment profession was an area of interest for you?
Environmental advocacy and appreciation for the arts and craft -- long-standing commitments merged, and the rest is history.
What do you do?
I advocate for joy on a daily basis and commit to every life experience encountered and earned. I follow the questions. I respond to the present. I help connect capital to communities near and far.
What excites you in the work you do?
Everything -- from the people I work with to the places we - as a team - investigate, the things we brainstorm, the solutions we implement, and the everyday moments in between.
Who or what inspires you professionally?
My parents -- personally, inspiration always comes from a place of love, empathy and respect. My parents immigrated to the U.S. with only the will to survive. I am -- because of my parents.
What is your proudest professional accomplishment or achievement?
Realizing my work can and should be a joyful expression of who I am -- no matter where I am or what I do.
Featured Project Name:
Exposing the isolated + synchronous
Featured Project Location:
Chandigarh, India
Featured Project Completion Date:
Unbuilt
Role in Featured Project:
Student
Featured Project Description:
Although Sector 17 was designed to be a “Pedestrians’ Paradise” - a city sanctuary + refuge - what was conceived as the exception became another repetitive mark within Chandigarh’s logic of division. However, although the sector's visual forms of legibility appear unchanged, an emerging autonomy has taken shape. Designed as a point of departure along the SE entrance, a banquet hall aims to collect, reveal + resignify existing detached parts + leverage how we think about + use isolated space.
Photography Credit:
Joanne Ma
Featured Project Name:
Addressing {wasted} space
Featured Project Location:
Bogotá, Colombia
Featured Project Completion Date:
Unbuilt
Role in Featured Project:
Student
Featured Project Description:
Modern buildings along Carrera Septima are a manifestation of rules+absolutes, pushing through Bogotá + fabricating a hierarchy of disproportion+order. Although an ordered space is a space governed by rules, rules are “such by virtue of their ability to prohibit+exclude, + therefore potentially produce waste." The landscape of waste – in terms of residual space, lost narratives + literal trash – is evident. The way we approach, recognize + rearrange this waste will be a determining step forward.
