Angie Lee

“Each project fortunately has a plethora of constraints and context that consistently presents a kind of unsolved puzzle to be assembled.”

WomenWhoBuild, Meet Angie Lee, AIA, IIDA, 

Angie is a Partner and Design Director of Interiors at award-winning New York-based architecture firm FXCollaborative. At FXCollaborative, Angie provides vision and oversight for projects of all scales and typologies. She is currently the President-Elect of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) as well as a recipient of the 2019 Interior Design Magazine HiP Award for design leadership in the workplace category. Angie began her study of architecture in Ecoles d’Art Americaines in Paris and went on to receive her Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining FXCollaborative in 2015, Angie worked on a variety of projects worldwide. 

Angie sat down with us  (virtually, of course) to discuss her professional journey, and how she got here. We talked about how Angie’s childhood, under the influence of science and music, impacted her career choices later on in life, and about how she is navigating her life in the current environment. She also shared with us some great advice, which is applicable regardless of where you are in your career.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in Architecture?  

I found my way into architecture by dodging careers that my parents had set in front of me to pursue. A lot of Korean American parents encouraged their kids to go into medicine or law when I was growing up. As a sci-fi nerd who was more into Tolkien and Stephen King, I was not cut out for blood and guts or torts. I didn’t realize that I was resisting the model minority template at the time, but I was a chronic day dreamer with my head in the clouds. I flirted with the notion of being a writer or artist, but my folks needed to back a field they understood and architecture was something that resembled a respectably stable field from afar.

What was your first introduction to the field? 

Right out of school I got a job at a very small firm in Pittsburgh. I was thrown into practice and was granted access to nearly every aspect of design, documentation, and construction. The fact that there was no one else to share the grunt work with and eventually a surprising amount of responsibility turned out to be a tremendously efficient way to learn a lot in a short amount of time. I was usually the only woman in the room who wasn’t an admin. It was disconcerting, but I had learned to be one of the guys during university which came in handy even though it’s something I’m unlearning to this day.

You grew up in a household dominated by science and music. How did this influence your decision to make the Architecture field your chosen career? 

I played the violin and piano, as a concert master and soloist, and was exposed to a highly competitive world of ambition and discipline that is the world of classical music. I was passably proficient at music, and was also enrolled in accelerated math and science courses, summer school, and requisite academic prep activities to position me for a launch towards a medical career. All of this practicing and studying forged in me a immigrant work ethic that I used to find my own path forward into the most artistic version of myself that my parents could accept.

What did you like the most about Architecture school? What did you like the least?  

Architecture school was completely outside of the precepts that had formed my world leading up to university. I had no idea what I was doing, but liked the feeling of learning how to create something tangible and lasting. The one thing that always made me cringe and maybe laugh a little bit, was how there was a sort of made up architect speak where most everyone tried to communicate with overly formal and esoteric language that only architects understood. It represented a symptom of the profession that is problematically patriarchal as I understand it today. 

You are a Partner and Design Director of Interiors at FXCollaborative. How do you approach each project you work on? 

The story of a project is something I try to help the design teams find. Discovering the purpose of a space is often challenging because the industry has evolved into a sort of commoditized service that relies on assumptions and short hand in lieu of deeper observation and access to the people ultimately using the space. 

What has been the most interesting project you have worked on so far?

I don’t think I know how to answer a question like that. Most of the projects I’ve worked on at FXC could qualify as the most interesting so far. We are creating spaces for Amtrak’s first class lounge in the new Moynihan station in Manhattan which involves also the baggage handling aspects ticketing, offices, training center all within a web of historic conditions that prohibit many of the moves one would normally try to make, I’m working with BBC Studios on their new renovation in midtown and trying to conjure a backdrop for global story tellers who have a wicked sense of humor and endless capacity for experimentation, and weaving multiple design typologies of hospitality, workplace, and home into amenity spaces for a multitude of multi-family residential properties has turned into an never ending exercise in balancing the fantasy of New York living with the reality of it at the same time. 

Where do you generally draw inspiration for each project? 

Each project fortunately has a plethora of constraints and context that consistently presents a kind of unsolved puzzle to be assembled. We aggregate information from the neighborhood, the plurality of potential personas who will use the space, and an aspirational vision of a better future. 

What does a typical day for you look like? 

A typical day is hard to pin down. Every day is different right now; some are fraught with outside news events encroaching into my professional consciousness, others are overly productive and I forget to stand up from my desk as zoom meetings blur into one another. My kids are curious about what their mom sounds like when they hear my apparently unfamiliar work voice in meetings, and they’ll sort of waggle their tails in my peripheral vision to see if they can break my concentration. I’ve stopped pretending that they aren’t sometimes bothering me to distraction and that has actually helped with the stress of making sense of working inside of multiple pandemics of covid-19, systemic racism, and the looming climate crisis. I can say that more and more of my days are spent analyzing where we’ve been, and then mapping out how not to perpetuate bad habits going forward. In limbo, I’ve found that I’m reading voraciously about anti-racism, and designing for the invisible by looking for the data that has been missing or was missed in the past. I try to balance worrying with moments of joy and small victories that can happen throughout even the most trying of days.

What is one piece of advice you have for women entering the field?

Question advice for women in this field. Ask yourself if any recommendation is a tax or an extra burden versus a truly equalizing piece of guidance. Keep and open mind, but don’t forget to trust your gut. You have both for a reason.