We’ve gotten this question a lot over the last 5 years. “Why Architecture? You know in most countries people use the A for Art right?”

I am a co-founder and President of this organization, I hold a degree in Architecture and I am a practitioner and an ardent follower of The Arts myself. When Grenadian STEAM was conceived back in 2016, I was in the middle of my 5-year Bachelor’s program at Illinois Tech. I was learning and discovering things about architecture that I didn’t know before - things that were not being discussed in Grenada. I was beginning to understand that good design did not materialize out of thin air in one’s mind and draw itself onto a sheet of trace paper. I was learning that architecture could create an experience within a community and influence the way people interact with one another. I was starting to see how history has created different types of architecture - both native and imported - across the world in ways that bind us together as surely as the food we eat and the customs we practice. I was experiencing first-hand that art, engineering, science, history, math, literature, psychology, sociology, technology, and LIFE itself are all inextricably intertwined into the fabric of what makes architecture… Architecture. All this while being at a Tech school surrounded by talk about STEM degrees, STEM careers and STEM education which all left Architecture out of the discussion. 

Turning our focus towards Architecture was in no way intended to be a snub to the arts, neither did it solely come from a selfish need to ‘show up’ my own field or profession. With any new endeavour, if there’s no focus and structure, there’s no progress. Choosing to push STEM, while also pushing Business, the Arts and Design along with every other career you can think of would equate to pushing for nothing at all. So in that hatchling period, GrenSTEAM chose to bring fully into the fold a discipline that was already known in our island, but whose story had not yet been told. While there existed proponents of dance, of theatre, of literature and other Arts, what Grenada seemed to need was someone to put forward an explanation of what Architecture is, what it can do, and the change it can make in our country. Hundreds of Grenadians seek loans to design and build their homes each year. Hundreds more are involved directly in construction. But how many of those hundreds truly see the value of design or understand the entire process from conceptualization of a design through to management of the construction phase? Do you? Would you like to?

I truly hope that one day we can find a way to fully implement all of the arts, and to have them each shine beside each other with the respect they deserve, but for now, our A is for Architecture.