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Yanel de Angel
Managing Director, Perkins & Will Boston studio
Age: 47
Industry experience: 21 years
After organizing hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, Yanel de Angel brings a problem-solving approach to Massachusetts’ resiliency and housing crises in her new position leading architects Perkins & Will’s Boston studio. The San Juan native led the formation of resilientSEE-PR, a partnership which provides pro bono resiliency planning and designs for some of the island’s most vulnerable communities. After 13 years at Perkins & Will, de Angel succeeds Robert Brown, who continues in his role as corporate and commercial practice leader. De Angel also co-leads the firm’s global residential practices and manages large mixed-use projects.
Q: What are the top goals for the leadership transition and future of the Boston studio?
A: Coming out of this COVID era, it’s our clients and the communities that we serve that’s our priority number one. We’ve done a very good job but in a transition, there’s always a moment of hesitation because there’s change. We just want to reiterate our commitment because it’s a very smooth and well-planned transition.
Other important areas of focus for me going forward: there is a lot of need for talent in our industry. We are maxing out. It’s really hard to find talent and it is in part because through the pandemic, many firms laid off people and those people found other jobs that were perhaps not even in the industry. So, now we have a talent gap.
How can we work differently: allow people to work remote, and think differently about how we put teams together? We have proven we can do it and we have done it globally. We have traditionally been very flexible. Even before COVID, we had people working remotely. We have a critical mass of people who are consistently in person, but we might have a few who are remote and bring a lot of value.
Q: How did the resiliency project in Puerto Rico originate?
A: After Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the island [in 2017], we reached out to our CEO [Phil Harrison] who said he will only support a long-term sustained commitment, not a band-aid. With that opening, we began thinking about what could happen. The governor of the island at the time was an MIT graduate [Ricardo Rosselló] and he was flown to MIT for a conference about the impacts. At the conference, I reconnected with my professors from [the University of] Puerto Rico who also came with the governor, and the MIT Urban Risk Lab. The conversations were the foundation for ResilientSEE.
We made a commitment to do something in a coordinated fashion and that quickly developed into a partnership with nonprofits and the private sector. We have about 12 projects, nine of them completed. The most impactful ones were the very first ones. One of the most affected municipalities was 50 percent flooded. We met the mayor and nonprofits that were established and began talking about how we could help. Three principles that came out of that which require retreat, leaving lowlands and keeping civic and residential buildings out of harm’s way.
The second project has to do with the recent earthquakes. We’re securing a FEMA grant and a site has been identified to serve Guanica and two adjacent communities. The shelter will be for 1,500 people, but it will act as a community center year-round to build capacity, because resilience is built over time, not just in an emergency. Those projects are impactful but also replicable.
Q: What new approaches are you studying to address the housing crisis in Boston?
A: In Boston we have many higher education institutions and what we are constantly hearing is higher ed took a big hit during COVID. Now that students are back, communities around the colleges and universities are saying, “Enough. We need you to provide housing for your students.” And construction in our city is expensive. How can you make affordable housing for students? We see a great opportunity for a town-gown relationship that could benefit from each other.
In any higher ed institution, housing is the revenue stream. But we think it’s critical to have a mixed-use approach. So, you’re building housing, but it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’re packing up that building with elements such as dining, makerspaces, innovation centers and learning commons.
When we think about student housing, there’s a natural progression. When you’re a freshman, you’re in a traditional residence hall, and then you move into an apartment which will emulate your life in the real world. There are models that can make apartments affordable: hybrid models that would allow students to share kitchens and bathrooms. This new generation of digital natives are much more into sharing than perhaps our generation was. They are happy with a small room as long as they have a super cool kitchen and common spaces and a game room where they can come together as a community.
Yanel’s Five Favorite Pastimes:
- Family time at the beach
- Community service for under-represented communities
- Exercising for a clear mind
- Using watercolors to capture spatial moments instead of photography
- Cooking Italian food to reminisce on my many years spent in Italy
