Every second Monday we will be featuring a current student/staff at Cornell AAP NYC to get a bit of insight into the people that make the program. These are meant to be fun and casual and by no means are they supposed to be “too” serious.
LC: Give us a bit of background on you. If you were to have to write your Tinder profile right now what would it say?
OD: Coffee addict and Croc wearer. OG Canadian, apologetic by nature with an irrational love for snow, currently not understanding why it’s summer here in NYC. [Sightings of Olivier usually comes with whiffs of hazelnut coffee, a grin, and an ensuing dad joke.] {claps}
LC: Architecture or Architorture; How do you balance your life-work here in NYC?
OD: As a wise friend once told me… Healthy self, healthy work. Understanding where to stop and let go has become a key part in navigating through architecture graduate school, especially here in New York City. Cooking became my happy spot where I make time for myself.
LC: Best NYC moment (i.e. a subway rat stole my lunch…)?
OD: That moment you end up designing a New York penitentiary as your first job assignment here… Haha, there is such a contrast from where I grew up [Hometown: Kingsey Falls, Quebec; look it up they probably made your paper, but unlikely to be the ones you use on the loo.]. Studying/working and living in New York has been nothing but great, always discovering new food with new and old friends. I probably don’t have a particular moment but the whole experience is really out of this world. Showing my parents around when they visited was one of those highlights.
LC: Finally, if you were to write a script of the next three to five years of your life what would that look like?
Settling in New York while getting licensed and adopting a Siamese cat named Devine. [Not pronounced divine, means guess in French. “What’s the name of your cat? Guess…” get it?]