Yacademy Podcast: How It All Starts - The Idea of Our Students Serena and Leah
Yacademy has launched a new project based on the initiative of two of our former students: Serena L'Assainato from the Architecture for Landscape course and Leah Hoepelman from the Architecture for Common Spaces course.
The first episodes of our podcast are now available on Spotify. Here is how everything came to life!
The Podcast in Serena and Leah's own words
Have you ever felt inspired by someone and wondered, “How did they get there?”, or even, in moments of doubt, caught yourself thinking, “I’ll never reach that level”? For many young architects, the profession often feels like an arena - competitive, demanding, and relentless. Finding a place where one’s creativity is not only welcomed but sustained can become an overwhelming - and sometimes disheartening - pursuit.
We look up to emerging talents who seem to rise effortlessly, as if they have already secured their place in the architectural world. But the questions linger: How did they truly get where they are? Is it a matter of talent, discipline, or is there something deeper at play—a mindset, a chain of choices, a hidden narrative we rarely see from the outside?
How Common Feelings Became a Podcast
The idea began between classes at Yacademy. Serena and Leah, two young architects from different backgrounds, found themselves in a profound conversation where they realized that, even with distinct paths, ambitions, and dreams, they were both struck by a shared feeling: the overwhelming doubt and fear that so often looms over a creative career.
As they shared their own frustrations, an important realization emerged. While the students at Yacademy spent their days learning from extraordinary architects around the world - celebrating their iconic works and the trajectories that led them there - something was missing, something essential felt absent. They admired the projects, the achievements, the global recognition. But they also wondered: Where was the human story?
The Process: Designing a Space for Honesty
Like any architectural project, the podcast began with a clear concept. Its goal: to offer architecture enthusiasts something too rarely discussed - hope, honesty, and personal insights into universal themes such as insecurity, fear of failure, and the pressure to measure up.
The intention wasn’t simply to create another form of media content, but to actually create a space where the architects visiting Yacademy could be seen beyond their portfolios. Serena and Leah wanted to ask the questions that almost never make it onto lecture slides:
How do you actually get there? What doubts did you face along the way? What challenges shaped you—not as an architect, but as a person?
This duo recognized the value in learning from renowned firms, from award-winning projects, and from decades of experience. Yet they also sensed that students - including themselves, craved something more vulnerable and, most of all, relatable. The true insights into the internal processes, struggles, and moments of uncertainty that define a creative life.
The Execution: Bringing the Project to Life
At the heart of the podcast lies a simple ambition: to make the guests of these conversations feel approachable. Young architects across the world know the major names and the iconic firms, yet often find it nearly impossible to relate to them. They study their buildings, but rarely meet the person behind them. That distance creates the illusion that success is linear, effortless, or predetermined—an illusion both Serena and Leah had also been victims of.
To bridge that gap, the podcast intentionally invited guests closer to their own stage in the journey—architects who might not have thirty years of experience, but who had already carved a meaningful path in the field. Architects who were still close enough to remember the struggle, the uncertainty, and the hunger to grow. It aligned seamlessly with the spirit of YACademy: a place where young creatives are encouraged to experiment, challenge conventions, and shape their own identity within the discipline.
The Result: Giving Meaning
Far more than a podcast, this project represents an open door—a softer, and more human way of learning architecture. It brings to the forefront the overlooked fact that behind impactful design, there are individuals who have navigated fear, ambition, insecurity, failure, and reinvention.
Great architecture is indeed built by great people. But those people are not untouchable. They are not distant. They are often just like us.
The diversity of voices and personalities featured in the episodes offers rare insight into the multitude of paths within the profession. These conversations bring forward themes of collaboration, boldness, experimentation, and the transformative power of networking.
One thing is clear though, these conversations are not meant to provide a blueprint for success. Instead, these stories provide something just as valuable: the feeling of
being seen, understood, and accompanied in a field where doubt is often silent yet universal. And aligning with YACademy’s commitment to networking and knowledge-sharing, the podcast becomes a platform where students and young professionals can engage in meaningful dialogue—amplifying a shared belief that, with the right connections and vision, anything is possible.
The Collective Vision Beyond
In the end, this was never meant to belong solely to Serena and Leah. The podcast was created by YACademy students and for YACademy students. Which is why, their wish is that future cohorts will continue the project, shaping it with their own questions, conversations, and evolving perspectives. Each generation brings new doubts, new ambitions, new challenges—and with them, new stories worth telling.
This is not be seen as a finished project, but a living one: a collective archive of voices, viewpoints, and experiences that grows with each group that passes. It is an invitation for others to take the microphone and widen the conversation with the mission to continue revealing that human side of architecture.
It was never meant to be just by us, but by all of us—because the journey is shared, the questions are shared, and the humanity behind architecture also deserves a place at the table.
01. The bold approach, from studying to practice | A conversation with Andrea Bulloni (LAND)
02. The overlooked topic of collaboration | A conversation with Monica Gaspar Bonilla (Herzog & de Meuron)
03. Between Legacy and Intuition | A conversation with Roberto Cremascoli and Camilla Donantoni (COR arquitectos) (Translation below)
04. Architecture in extreme environments | A conversation with Francesco Axel Romio (Yacademy alumnus)
05. Beyond sustainability, where design meets purpose | A conversation with Martina Maier (Snøhetta)