"Embrace your becoming. Be curious, be disciplined – and cultivate the ability to work across social, ecological, and cultural scales.”
Isla Francis
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Design in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urbanism
- Grad year: 2022
- Program:
With an exceptional interest in the natural world, stemming from her upbringing on a remote coastal island in B.C., Isla holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences as well as an Honours undergraduate degree in Environmental Design (now called the Bachelor of Design) from UBC. During her time at UBC, she served as the Co-President and VP Finance of the Environmental Sciences Students’ Association and as the Chair of the Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science Undergraduate Council. Additionally, Isla has worked as a UBC Sustainability Ambassador, Research assistant, Field assistant, and Teaching assistant. Her specific interests lie at the intersection of environmental planning, landscape ecology, biogeography, and design – especially in the context of climate change. She is particularly interested in design that integrates large-scale natural systems and non-human entities with increasingly human-dominated environments.
What has made your time at UBC memorable?
I spent nearly two years as a research assistant and field assistant with the WildCo lab, a group on campus that researches human-wildlife coexistence across multiple scales. The work I was primarily involved with investigated how human activity impacts wildlife through space and over time, in protected areas across B.C. The research group was welcoming and inclusive, and although I was an undergraduate student, I was closely mentored and supported by several graduate and post-doctoral students.
My work included learning to better identify B.C.’s wildlife and process large amounts of ecological data, to being exposed to new and exciting research, to helping run fieldwork in some of B.C.’s most remarkable landscapes, to helping train new research assistants in the field, and ultimately as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course in wildlife ecology, to synthesizing on what I had learned, in order to teach others. This work gave me a tremendous appreciation for ecological research and an understanding of how environmental planning and management decisions are made. My research during this time continues to ground, inform, and inspire my environmental design work today.
What advice would you give a student entering your degree program?
Be curious, be disciplined – and cultivate an expansive understanding of social, ecological, and cultural systems.
Design is strengthened through collaborative, interdisciplinary work. The broader experiences you can gain, the better your design practice becomes. My advice to students entering undergraduate design is to sample a wide range of disciplines before and during your time at UBC. Nurture academic and extracurricular interests beyond design – especially early in your degree – and consider how these interests relate back into your design work in the studio. For me, this meant learning about ecology and environmental science and integrating knowledge and ideas from these disciplines into my design projects.
My final advice would be to pace yourself. Design school is very rewarding, but also very intense. Finding a balance between your academics and your physical and mental well-being should always be your main priority.
