Darina Zlateva

“Architecture makes invisible threads, thoughts, dreams, and aspirations visible.”

#WomenWhoBuild meet Darina Zlateva,

Darina is a Director at KPF and one of the leading figures on the team that had brought One Vanderbilt to life. In her eight year tenure with KPF, Darina has seen the project from concept to completion. In addition to her work with KPF, Darina is also the Creative Director of Aershop, an agency for Architecture, Environment, and Research, which she started with Takuma Ono, her longtime creative partner and now husband. She is also a former Adjunct Professor at both RISD and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

ArchNative sat down with Darina (virtually of course) to discuss what led her to make a career shift from software design to Architecture, what her day to day looks like as a Director at KPF, her time working on One Vanderbilt, and of course her advice for women entering the field.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey in Architecture. What was your first introduction to the field?

I come from a science family – medicine, engineering, computer science – and was implicitly pushed in that direction. I always excelled in math, and was drawn particularly to geometry and logic. In college I took my first computer science class and it was equally enjoyable. It felt like I was solving fun puzzles all day long. After graduating with a dual computer science & math degree from Dartmouth, I went into software design for Gemstar TV Guide (the guide button on your old remote control). During my 2 years there I became more and more interested in the end user – how is someone interacting with the GUI, is it intuitive, are the graphics helping, what new features would make it a better experience. This was in 2002, 5 years before the first iPhone came out, and so the conversation of experience was very much nascent. I began to research visual cognition and perception, and eventually that led me to…architecture.

I took the Career Discovery program at Harvard and it all clicked: the geometry and logic, now layered with human experience and cognition, and made aesthetic for delight.

What inspired you to pursue it as a career path?

As altruistic as software design might be, I always struggled with how opaque it is. I wanted to have conversations about my work, to share it, to make it visible. Architecture makes invisible threads, thoughts, dreams, aspirations visible. It is also intimately tied to people and their environment. To me, there is a fundamental desire in architecture to do good and I’m drawn to that.

What was your transition like from an academic life to your career? What skills did you obtain in school that you still utilize today?

I graduated during the 2008-2009 recession. There is a saying a colleague of mine told me “don’t let a good recession go to waste”, by which he meant there is a lot of creativity that can come out during uncertain times. There weren’t steady jobs so you had to be flexible and really chase a lot of opportunities concurrently. I entered design competitions with my partner, now husband, under the name Aershop (most notably cityLAB’s WPA 2.0 on reimaging infrastructure). I worked short stints at design firms (ARO, Diller Scofidio Renfro, Stan Allen). And I also taught part time as a lecturer at the GSD, RISD and the Boston Architectural Center. During grad school I had been an intern at both Morphosis and KPF. In 2011 I was able to go back to Morphosis and work on the Phare Tower in Paris. But the recession caught up with the French economy in 2012 and our project was put on hold. I had loved my time at KPF London and found out they were looking for people in their New York office. In the spring of 2012 I joined the office and have been here ever since.

The GSD was a wonderful learning experience, the strength of the program are in harnessing critical thinking for the betterment of society, something Dean Mohsen Mostafavi called “grounded visionaries”. There was also a heavy focus on presentation – drawings, renderings, graphic design, physical models, and also narrative. Timothy Hyde was my thesis advisor and a big influence on how I approach architecture. In our discussions, words mattered as did your ability to form an argument. These skills are invaluable to me to this day when presenting my design ideas to anyone from my team, to clients, and government officials.

Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to your current position of Director at KPF?

KPF is an incredibly productive and equitable firm that has allowed me to explore many facets of being an architect. The projects are large and require a robust team structure that can take a loose idea into something buildable. The majority of my time has been on One Vanderbilt where I started as a junior designer, then filled the role of senior designer. Our team, led by Gene Kohn and Jamie von Klemperer, has become incredibly close. When it comes to mentorship, certainly Jamie and Gene have expanded what I think of as being possible in architecture. But when you work with the same people over so many years, everyone becomes your mentor – be they junior or partner. Jeff Kenoff always on message; Andrew Cleary how to build almost anything; Rachel Villalta my second set of eyes; Steven Smolyn sourcing anything; and many more.

Curtain Wall VMU with SL Green, June 2017 - Permasteelisa Factory, Windsor CT

Now that we are in construction, I’ve transitioned to being a senior designer for 3-4 projects simultaneously instead of 1. I’m working with Marianne Kwok (of Hudson Yards fame!) and she has given me so much confidence to trust my instinct and just go for it. Her support and her general limitless curiosity has made the last 2 years my busiest in terms of new creative efforts.

What does your day to day look like?

I’m jumping around quite a bit, dedicating an hour to check in with each team, plan what we’re getting done, and of course all the typical housekeeping items everyone deals with (zoom calls, email, etc). My big discovery last year was to dedicate 2-3 hours of my day to actually sitting down on one project and producing something – whether it’s a rendering, a diagram, modeling something in Rhino. This lets me be connected to the project and the team, but more importantly, to have a creative outlet.

Bronze Art Shop Visit with Jamie von Klemperer, Jeff Kenoff, Rebecca Kent, November 2019 - UAP Foundry, Rock Tavern NY

How do you generally approach a project? What is your process?

I take each project on its own terms. Location, program, client, marketing strategy all play a role in the design process. On One Vanderbilt I was closest to the design of the massing and the facade so that is what I tend to gravitate towards. I tend to geek out over the materiality of a wall (terra cotta, brick, glass), the color palette, and the way it comes together to accentuate a massing.

What has been your favorite project thus far and why?

One Vanderbilt has been foundational for me. Seeing it come to life over the past 8 years is really hard to beat. But some of the newer projects are really exciting! There is a mass timber building in Vancouver, a brick clad hotel in the Garment District that plays with color & pattern, and a billowing GFRC residential tower in Hong Kong.

What is the most challenging part of your role and what is the most rewarding?

Most challenging is that architecture is not conducted in a vacuum. There are many aspects to a design that are not design-proper, per se. Some of these non-architecty things include: the economy, financing, government processes, land use, engineering best practices, construction technologies, marketing & PR, etc.

Being able to synthesize these various threads and keep true to the design intent is by far the most challenging and the most rewarding.

“Choose a firm that values who you are, that helps you set and achieve your ambitions, and that is proud of having you on their team.”

You are the Creative Director of Aershop, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Aershop stands for Architecture Environment and Research Workshop. It’s a catalog of ideas by me and Takuma Ono (my longtime creative partner and now husband). We began collaborating together in 2009 for the WPA 2.0 competition (by UCLA’s cityLAB), and have since evolved the practice into a scrapbook of ideas on urbanism, climate change, landscape typologies, brand marketing, and image making.

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

One thing I’ve learned over my career – and this includes both academic and professional experiences – is that the top leadership sets the tone for how you will be treated and your ability to succeed. Choose a firm that values who you are, that helps you set and achieve your ambitions, and that is proud of having you on their team (front & center, not in the background!).

Elizabeth Harrison Kubany

Margaret Sullivan