Curiosity and collaboration: Aki Ishida’s first year at the Sam Fox School

Students and faculty are shoulder to shoulder, scribbling answers to these questions on bookmark-size ribbons. It’s one of the last days of summer in St. Louis — the humidity has broken and evening sunlight channels through Jordan Plaza, glinting off the white, silver, and gold ribbons that hang on Ginkgo trees. They’re participating in an all-college activity that Aki Ishida calls Vision Trees. She sees the activity as an opportunity to collectively envision how we confront complex questions around our built environment, and what we may need to do so. The moment of pause, imagination, and togetherness sets the tone for Ishida’s role as Director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. A little over a year into her new position at WashU, and newly installed as the Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor, Ishida shares her broad vision for the school, one built on a solid groundwork of excellent student work, engaged faculty, and a strong sense of community.

Ishida didn’t set out to study architecture as an undergraduate student. “But when I looked through the course listing one day, the required courses for architecture majors had the combination of art, humanities, and science that immediately drew me in,” she said. “Once I found architecture, I never looked back.”

In the 2025-26 academic year, more than 350 students are enrolled in the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design. “Architectural education is great for bringing together different disciplines and developing critical thinking skills,” Ishida said. It asks students to consider alternative ways of doing things, to work iteratively. “Learning to work this way is valuable, whether you go into architecture, user experience design, or entrepreneurship,” she said.

In her first year in St. Louis, Ishida has noticed a few things that stand out about WashU students. She notes that they learn how to think through making, are committed to designs that are ethical and beautiful, and have both humility and discernment, all of which she appreciates. “What I really admire about WashU students is that they hold themselves to high standards while supporting each other,” she said.

At the same time, Ishida has been impressed by the collegiality and dedication of faculty. “The faculty are incredibly committed to the students, they put extraordinary effort into teaching, advising — along with developing their own body of work — and they share their curiosity with students,” she said. As director, she sees creating an environment where there is open discussion about student and faculty work as an important responsibility. She also enjoys helping students cultivate their specific interests and realize how they participate in discussions around architecture, ranging from history and theory to ethics of practice.

That discussion includes shifting tides around architecture’s tradition of valuing long, intense stretches of work in the studio. “In design, there’s always another drawing, another model to make,” Ishida said. “As educators, it’s our responsibility to reinforce that more hours do not always equal better work; there’s a balance to be found.” She believes that encouraging ongoing conversation and regular critique with faculty and peers can help students discern when to push and when to stop— a vital skill for a sustainable career in the field.

Ishida implements a culture of curiosity and useful feedback in her own scholarly and administrative work, looking to faculty peers as an informal advisory board. “Our faculty are great at pointing things out that they think could be done differently and are also quick to give positive feedback when something is going well,” she said.

Architects are trained to see their environment and represent it visually and spatially, a key part of why faculty research collaborations that include architects are important to Ishida. In her own experience working on a healthcare design project at Virginia Tech, she noted how medical staff who worked in the same conditions every day had never before seen how they used the space around them, how their body positions created hierarchical conditions with patients — until they saw themselves sketched in architectural contexts.

Given such experience, Ishida has been excited to see all the collaborative work faculty are doing across WashU, from Constance Vale’s work on autonomous vehicles with partners in the McKelvey School of Engineering, to Wyly Brown’s work on the material culture of bamboo with faculty in East Asian Languages and Cultures. “Research can be a big part of why students choose WashU, and many want to work with specific faculty,” she said. “I’m excited that we have such a wide and rich offering, from soil and river studies with Seth Denizen or Derek Hoeferlin to spatial justice with Patty Heyda or Linda Samuels.”

One of Ishida’s own ongoing research interests is the Japanese American diaspora — she was part of the 2023 Sam Fox School symposium Moonscape of the Mind: Japanese Design After Internment. “We have such an incredible collection in St. Louis of midcentury buildings designed by Japanese Americans, because WashU was one of few schools that would accept them during World War II,” she said. When she gives tours to prospective students or guests, Ishida likes to talk about the six buildings that make up the Sam Fox School, three of which were designed by Pritzker Prize-wining architect Fumihiko Maki, who served on WashU’s faculty from 1956-62. “That an architect who impacted the discipline of architecture globally began his career at WashU and designed our buildings is unique to our school. On a personal level, that WashU has these longstanding connections to Japan is remarkable and gives me a sense of belonging,” she said.

Ishida shares that she is interested in “the life of the building, how it ages and adapts in relation to evolving societal values and natural forces, along with the lives that take place within it.” She has particularly explored these themes in relation to Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, completed in 1972 in Tokyo, where Ishida was born and raised. The tower’s collection of 108-square-foot capsules were built for businessmen who would spend their nights nearer to work, while their families resided in suburban homes. Kurokawa’s design called for capsules to be replaced every 25-35 years — exemplifying the Metabolist principles of continual renewal. But in 2022, the building was demolished, with none of the capsules having ever been replaced. Ishida, who stayed in one of the capsules in 2014, has published several pieces on the tower that explores masculinity, obsolescence, preservation activism, and more.

Glass is another longstanding research focus for Ishida, one that began when she worked at the studio of James Carpenter, an artist and MacArthur Fellow, in New York. “I learned not only how to achieve effects through reflection and refraction, but also how a research-based design practice operates, how innovative design becomes possible when engineers, artists, and fabricators collaborate from the outset,” she said.

Ishida’s book “Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture” examines six glass buildings that challenge assumptions about glass and explore cultural meanings associated with the material. More recently, she has questioned how and why glass has become popularized and elevated to a position of prestige by corporations like Apple and by luxury towers on Billionaire’s Row in Manhattan.

To answer these questions, Ishida has been working on a new project she calls the opacity of glass, referring to the opaque, mysterious nature of glass production. “Consumers generally know that lumber comes from a forest, bricks are made by firing clay, but they often do not think of sand when they see glass walls,” she said. Where the sand for glass production comes from is often not known and rarely local. “I question whether this lack of awareness — or opacity — contributes to over-consumption of glass, which is unsustainable,” she said. She recently introduced this inquiry in an article in The Conversation.

Ishida’s work also includes a local lens. “This area of Missouri is a source of 99.44% pure silica sand from St. Peter sandstone,” she said, “which is used for highly prized low-iron, crystal clear glass.” Her interests have extended to nearby Crystal City, once home to the largest plate glass factory in the world, and Klondike Park, a former sand mine for glass production turned public recreation space.

One thing Ishida wants to communicate to people — including prospective students and faculty across campus — about architecture is that it is much more than form-making or styles. It is not only historically significant landmarks, but also something that surrounds us daily. “We are concerned with how buildings are shaped by social norms, where the materials for buildings come from and where they go after demolition, and how buildings affect our wellbeing,” she said. “I think architects can do better to educate the public, so that people understand how architecture impacts their daily lives and how the public can participate in the shaping of our buildings, landscapes, and cities.”

Ishida will participate in a panel called “The Glass Mosque” with MacArthur Fellow artist Shahzia Sikander at Bard College this winter and is in discussion with the Museum of Modern Art about additional programming surrounding the exhibition “The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower.”