Master of Architecture student takes Wooster research skills abroad

Pyae Thein ’19 is a Master of Architecture student at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, where he has drawn on the research skills that he developed at The College of Wooster in his classes, study abroad opportunity in Japan, and master’s thesis.

Thein, who is originally from Mandalay, Myanmar, majored in studio art at Wooster, due to his interest in drawing, and followed the pre-architecture track. “I wanted to major in art, but I had an interest in architecture because it also has a lot to do with designing,” he said. “It was also one of the reasons I decided to choose a liberal arts college. I wanted to have that flexibility of being able to explore before really committing. Wooster gave me the chance to do that.”

When he studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark during his junior year at the College, Thein took an architectural foundation studio class. He brought back the skills he learned to complete his junior Independent Study project, for which he created new designs for a dilapidated park in downtown Wooster.

After graduating, he applied to Tyler based on the recommendation of his former Wooster professor Sharon Koelblinger, adjunct professor of art and art history, who received an MFA in photography from the program.

Thein’s favorite part of graduate school so far has been his study abroad experience at the Temple University Japan Campus. “That semester was the best out of my entire almost three years at this point,” he said. “I really, really enjoy traveling and absorbing and learning as I go. I had a really good time when I was in Copenhagen and when I was in Japan.”

While in Japan, Thein had the chance to intern with Open House, an architecture firm that designs customizable, affordable housing for middle-income small families, couples, and young people. He was part of the design team, where he worked on research projects. “I.S. really helped me prepare for grad school and also for my internship because I did a lot of research-related work there,” Thein said. “Wooster prepared me greatly for that.”

Thein is currently working on his master’s thesis, for which he is redesigning the interiors of row homes—the narrow urban houses that share neighboring walls and are common in his current home of Philadelphia—to be more compatible with the changes people experienced from the pandemic. “In order to be able to adapt to these kinds of changes in our living habits, like the remote work that some people do these days, my thesis is proposing a new typology of a row home,” Thein said. “My focus is essentially to transform the interior into becoming something that is more flexible and malleable and adaptable to changes that are needed.”

While in Japan, Thein learned about certain types of row homes in Japan that all have small courtyards filled with plants, a model he is also drawing on for inspiration in his thesis. “Having access to nature gives a lot of benefits to mental health and is one of the things that many people didn’t have when they were stuck at home,” he said. “That kind of element is something that can be introduced into these row home typologies here.”

Thein will graduate from Temple next August and is then planning to apply to jobs at architecture firms, primarily related to residential design. “That’s what my thesis is related to and that’s where I can show my strong suit,” he said.

Posted in Alumni on January 2, 2024.