International Student Amir Heydarpour Selected For Charlotte’s Advanced Design Award
When Amir Heydarpour completed his undergraduate architecture degree in his native Iran, he looked abroad for graduate programs, considering universities in Germany and the United States. Accepted to schools such as Virginia Tech, Rhode Island School of Design, and Savannah College of Art & Design, he chose UNC Charlotte in large part because of the Graduate Assistant Support Program (GASP).
“It’s a really good scholarship,” he says. “I talked to a couple of students here and looked at the faculty and found the people I would like to work with.”
Amir entered the Master of Architecture program in January of 2023 and will graduate on December 13. As an international student, the first semester was challenging.
“It was a culture shock, trying to be yourself in a different language,” he says. “Sometimes you feel like you’re walking in a dream.”
Although he had studied English from childhood – and speaks it well – he found it nerve wracking in studio to talk about his projects. “I was shaking!”
Amir says that the beauty of the campus and the quality of the faculty have made his time at UNC Charlotte a success.
“Rachel Dickey, she’s amazing! She made me really interested in computation, in using computation to create art – something I wouldn’t have imagined doing.”
Last spring, Amir took Dickey’s “Sound, Body, and Space” class, co-taught with clarinet professor Jessica Lindsey. He has continued to work with Dickey through an independent study this fall, for which he developed a live-feed video project that connected the Storrs architecture building with Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts. During the recent installation, music students playing instruments in a practice room were simultaneously projected onto a wall in the Storrs lobby. The music students could see the shadows of people who stopped to watch and listen, and the audience’s comments were projected as text in both locations.
“I saw in Rowe and Robinson Hall, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on that we don’t really see. There are these barriers we have on campus. I wanted to create this interaction between two spaces. It’s really effective to see other arts majors.”
Professor of Architecture Chris Jarrett, former director of the School of Architecture, was another inspiration.
“He gave us a book, and we had to choose a chapter and design based on that chapter. It was one of the most creative projects I’ve ever done.”
The book addressed the relationships between nature and human culture in Japan, and Amir’s chapter prompted him to consider the condition of isolation in Japanese culture and to design the “Happiness Machine,” a pleasure tower where people “can have access to a virtual world that is perfect.”
Last summer, Amir interned at an international architecture firm in New York City, Byarke Ingels Group – or BIG, as it is commonly known. “It was a great experience,” he says. “They do a lot of interesting projects.”
The large office, which has more than 2000 people working there, provided him with opportunities to join multiple projects over the two and a half months he was there. “I did model making, concept design, solar analysis, and worked on a landscape project, which was really great.”
This fall, Amir and fellow graduate student Aidan Martinez received an Advanced Design Student Award from AIA Charlotte for their project “Behind the Curtain.” The project was an adaptive reuse initiative that focused on preserving an existing building while introducing a pathway and nodes, which provided a way to engage people with the activities happening inside the building—processes that are typically hidden, such food preparation in retail settings. It was his second such award: In 2023, his design for an elementary school in Africa that used recycled plastic bottles as construction materials was also recognized by AIA Charlotte.
As he graduates this month, Amir is applying for “optional practical training,” a visa status available for up to three years for people in STEM fields. He hopes to work in a firm in the United States and is applying to jobs in several large cities.
“I’m excited! You never know where you are going to end up.”