Summer 2019, I enriched my study of place identity living and working in Attica, Greece, as Specialist in Architecture on the Kotroni Archaeological Survey at Kapandriti. I acquired countless new skills, like how to identify finds, how to pace with a team walking transects, how to calculate ambient conditions including sun and the previous night’s weather and adjust your eyes accordingly, and how to avoid vipers‒ strategies include finger snapping and loud group songs. More broadly, I gained a firsthand understanding of the geographic and climatic conditions that shaped Greece’s unique historical arc, and encountered a brand new system for organizing space and palette of natural materials.
When our project director discovered a glitch in our data collection system that forced us to manage and reprocess our findings manually so they could be analyzed, my teammate and I were able to rapidly amass an operational knowledge of GIS. Being out of my usual element of architecture prompted me to build skills in new areas that I can now apply to my design practice and to exercise my flexibility.
