Fellow Profile

Esther Yang

“There is no room for arrogance or egos in this line of work. I am looking to be humbled, to learn, and design under my heart's convictions. These convictions are to serve and love — requisites that are rare within conventional architectural practice.”

— Esther Yang

Fellowship Host:
Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation
Bronx, N.Y.

Esther enters her final year in her Rose Fellowship with an array of complex design and performance initiatives. She will work to synthesize 2-years of lessons and achievements from her various projects and experiments into a set of resources for Fordham Bedford as they full-heartedly embrace the management and construction of high-performance affordable housing. These initiatives are targeted to increase the performance and longevity of Fordham Bedford's entire portfolio of buildings, with an additional focus on tenant/community stewardship partnerships and programs.

Community involvement is particularly important to Esther. As she explains, "The market is focused on the products towards sustainable, high-performance development, but Fordham Bedford and I are equally invested in the process in which will get us to that point. We cannot overlook the significance and influence of those who live and work within these structures and how they play a critical role in how our buildings operate. Fordham Bedford's commitment to the Bronx community goes beyond the construction and management of buildings. It is from this passion that I draw the strength to push ideas that may be unconventional to housing development and management practices.”

Esther Yang has brought to her Rose Fellowship a broad spectrum of hands-on experience with large and small-scale architectural practices in Maryland, Virginia and Arkansas. Her academic credits include teaching in the design and technology courses, as well as upper-level design seminars at the University of Arkansas, School of Architecture. She received her master’s in architecture from the University of Virginia and is a designer, educator and advocate for social and positive change.

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