Danei Cesario
“Being conscious of the way that people work best and utilize that so you are able to reach your goal is so important .”
#WomenWhoBuild, Meet Danei Cesario
Danei Cesario is the 333rd Black woman to earn her architectural license in American history. She is a Project Manager at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where she oversees a range of dynamic mixed-use, healthcare, and wellness projects. Danei has served as co-chair of the AIANY Diversity & Inclusion Committee and is currently on the board of directors of the AIA New York State. She contributes to a number of organizations whose missions align with her values, including the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Parlour, the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, and the nycobaNOMA Executive Board. Danei is dedicated to fostering mentorship, sponsorship and leadership within the design community and founded WALLEN + daub, a resource for building intellectual infrastructure in design, STEM and creative industries, to expand on these principles.
ArchNative sat down with Danei (virtually of course) to discuss her journey in Architecture, what her day to day as a project manager looks like, what inspired her to start WALLEN + daub, and her advice for women entering in the field.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in Architecture? What was your first introduction to the field?
I have always wanted to be an Architect, even from a really young age. One of my first introductions to architecture was in realizing the sheer scale of New York City. I moved to NYC from England between Kindergarten and the first grade, so understanding the difference in scale from my hometown in Manchester to the scale of the New York City skyline peaked my interest. Around that time, there was also a church from when I lived in London that really peaked my inquisitiveness. I would say that overall, my introduction to Architecture originated out of childhood curiosity and developed through diving more into that curiosity to understand more. Additionally, understanding that different spaces always meant different things to different people always intrigued me. For example, how a home, or a street, or a shop is experienced, can incite a unique memory or experience for every single person. I have lived in lots of places, so observing + understanding the marriage between the emotive quality and the spatial experience of our environments sparked my interest when I was little. Everything after that just played into my curiosity and made me try to create spaces that resonated with people.
How do you approach each project that you are working on? What is your process throughout it?
As a project manager, I am usually part of a project from the very beginning—sometimes even when it is just a preliminary seed of a proposal in the mind of a client. It’s a strategic maneuvering to balance the back-of-house infrastructure that most people never see while being client-facing and present throughout the project’s lifespan to create an ultimately visible, tangible, beautiful outcome in the form of architecture. I always approach a project by making sure that the groundwork and the infrastructure is laid out in the very beginning so that the project itself has the optimal ability to be successful and reflect what the client really wants. For me, the groundwork is a deep understanding of our team, time, scope + deliverables. I also try to ensure that the communication is strong and honest from the onset. Amongst my team, I think it’s important to be mindful of areas of concern, and try to understand what is most important to that particular client. Once you have that understanding, it allows you to be forward-thinking throughout the whole process. If you hit a wall and there is a misalignment in communication, it's a lot easier to get realign as a project team when you are able to communicate well with the client and internally as well.
What does your day to day look like?
A mystery!
Particularly now with working and learning from home, I couldn’t tell you what the typical day-to-day looks like because I am usually managing a bunch of projects at the same time and having to pivot to meet their needs. I think overall, my day-to-day is interwoven with my family life, my work, my passions. In the olden days (ha!), we would wake up in the morning, get the kids ready for school, I get ready for work- there is that side and then there is the professional side. There used to be a more solid line of demarcation.
It's currently the first week back at school and I am navigating what that means with everything being virtual. It's been a challenge. I have been really pensive about how to balance it all. I have said many times, I don’t think there is an answer. It is really about being agile and trying to really understand what is most important within yourself and with the people that are around you and depending on you. Being able to be mentally agile and accepting that you are doing your best and the people around you are doing their best as well is vital. Align with what your most important or most demanding responsibility is in that moment. I think planning ahead is also extremely important.
Taking that learned skill of managing a home and bringing it to the table in terms of managing a project has been useful to me. I learn + borrow skills from the various spheres of my life. I try to be efficient. Which people on my team are the most essential to be at any given meeting? Is it necessary for all 8 of us to attend the same meeting when we could be doing work at the same time as getting info from a client in a face to face or, rather Zoom to Zoom discussion? Understanding that there is no true balance has been helpful. You have certain basic things that people are expecting of you. Be flexible about what is needed of you in that particular point in time and being respectful of the other people you are working with or living with. It's a lot of coordinating and communicating with the people around you. Being conscious of the way that people work best and utilize that so you are able to reach your goal is so important .
I am not going to lie to you, sometimes it is really challenging because you want to do your best in every single arena all the time and knock the ball out of the park in every single category, but we need to realize that we are human and that there are only 24 hours in the day. It’s just accepting that there is no typical day, especially now. As a mom, and a wife, and a professional at a large firm, you're really there to serve the people you work with and for, in every capacity, so if you are serving others through your leadership, it's a challenge to envision what a typical day looks like from your own single perspective. If you don’t take that stance, you can wind yourself up in a ball of anxiety, which is not productive to anyone.
How did you approach working from home, and being a full time mom during the pandemic?
My husband is an entrepreneur, so his businesses have been open the whole time since the beginning of quarantine. Adjusting to doing my job virtually, while taking care of the kids and keeping them entertained, all of the responsibilities just compounded upon themselves. Our daughters are 3 and 6, and just trying to navigate this grand landscape of everything that was previously in its separate sphere suddenly being around your kitchen table became really daunting. So I had to get smarter about how I was approaching this. It was a very different situation. We as women need to be more forgiving of ourselves, and of others, to not get ourselves stressed out by putting these unrealistic expectations on ourselves. Sometimes you will meet your deadline at 4pm, sometimes you are working at 1am on Monday. Sometimes dinner will be a well-curated platter of nutrients created and plated by you, sometimes it’s from Uber Eats on paper plates. Sometimes coffee, sometimes tea. Be agile, be kind — to yourself and others.
What is the most challenging aspect of your role ? What is the most rewarding?
I think the most challenging is the most rewarding. It’s leading a team to create projects they are proud of and our clients are excited about. How you get there is the challenge.
“I rather think having that experience has allowed me to contribute in a meaningful way to empathize with lots of different people and allows me insight on where people are coming from. ”
To me, almost everything that is worth having is worth fighting for. There hasn’t been anything that has challenged me and pushed me that hasn’t been worth it. Looking at a person holistically, there is what you see of them professionally, and then there is a whole backstory. I think one of the most challenging things professionally is being doubted because of what my external packaging is- because I register as female, and am a black women, and am from a different country, and all of those things have played in to me being treated or regarded in a certain way.
I am not a person who sees this as any type of limitation. I rather think having that experience has allowed me to contribute in a meaningful way to empathize with lots of different people and allows me insight on where people are coming from. So I don’t see it as a limitation, however, I think sometimes it’s made people create limitations for me, like being shuffled out of a team because of someone's fragile ego, or having to stand up for myself because as a professional, I wasn’t willing to be demeaned. At this point in my career, I am no longer an intern so there are certain levels of mutual and professional respect, which I give to others and which I expect of my peers. Even if you are an intern, you should respectfully demand respect. Sometimes it’s a question of if a person speaks to you in a certain way, are you going to correct them or are you going to let it roll? I think it’s important to always think about tonality and what you have to say and the reason behind why you are saying it, and I think it’s also always important to be respectful and respected.
I think as a woman, you get to a point, where you can no longer allow for levels of disrespect. You have to decide what to use in your toolbox and when. I would say the most challenging things are when someone is questioning your character, or achievements, or your reason for even being in a room. How do you deal with that with grace? It’s also been the most rewarding, because I think gracefully standing up for yourself, and respectfully telling them that the way they treat you is not right and you’re not going to stand for it, is a challenging thing to do that ultimately might not be something someone wants to hear, however, they will respect you more as a professional for it.
You are the visionary behind WALLEN + daub, can you tell us a little bit about that?
When I was in college, I realized that there was really nothing to help prepare for what to expect in Architecture school + eventually in your career, beyond your TAs gently warning you . I think in studio, you all had each other, you’re all going through this very trying experience all at the same time and I think most architects who went to architecture school can remember crying on the shoulder of a friend. They can talk about having the sort of support system in University. Then I realized that when you get into the professional world it's not really the same. It’s not the same level of camaraderie as you all push to pay your dues and establish yourselves.
I started WALLEN + daub as a way of supporting people in STEM and creative fields by creating events and content to illuminate industry news and showcase the diverse talent is m contributing to their profession. Our whole approach is rooted in education, empowerment and engagement. This is the approach to get people to stay, to invest, because when you get to about 10 years in the profession you realize that there are so many people that were talented, that maybe you went to school with, but they’ve left the profession of architecture + you ask yourself why is that?
WALLEN + daub show’s people what’s out there and helps to equip and support them. It’s about education; on our website and on Instagram, we create think- pieces on current events through our #NINENodes series, highlights people through our NAPKINsketch interview series and we host and organize different topical events. It’s about exposure. I do a lot of speaking engagements which lends itself to that. I spent five years on Diversity and Inclusion committee for AIA New York and currently serve on the New York State Board, so equity is at the core of all I do. We have an annual ERNA grant which provides over a thousand dollars to recipients for personal and professional development, and this year we will be able to do multiple because of our continued collaboration with other organizations and their generosity. WALLEN + daub is a vehicle to help others through an ongoing conversation on the topics they care about.
What is one piece of advice you have for women entering the field?
Learn as much as you can and remember why you wanted to start. Those help you when you have to persevere. It’s been the compass, helping me in every setting.