Welcome to Circular Architect
I first encountered the concept of the circular economy in college, at the dawn of the Nike Space Hippie, The Sustainable City in Dubai, and Pela phone cases. It was like uncovering a profound truth I had always known but never articulated. The principle of creating and perfecting oneness in our physical world captivated me, and I’ve been fixated on it ever since.
At its heart, the circular economy is about realigning with nature, and returning to where we’ve always belonged. In nature, there is no waste; everything is a resource, and everything belongs within an organically orchestrated system with codified purpose and utility. And here’s the fundamental truth we often forget: we are not separate from nature. We are nature.
For us as humans to embrace circularity is to complete a journey, returning full circle with the wisdom gained post-industrialization to correctly harmonize the ingenuity of humanity with the timeless rhythms of the natural world. It is the ouroboros: the serpent eating its own tail, regeneration and renewal, a cosmic symbol of universal oneness. The Hindu Advaita Vedanta; Plotinus’s The One. Self-contained sufficiency and completeness. We as humans, on this planet, in this cosmos, all a part of one, whole system. The perfect circle.
In college, I also discovered my favorite poem: Terrance Hayes’s “How to Draw a Perfect Circle.” My connection to Hayes began earlier, when I first heard him speak at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2015. I was sixteen, attending Walnut Hill School for the Arts as a Creative Writing, Film & Media Arts major. At the time, my poetry seminar was immersed in Afrofuturism; I was reading a lot of Tracy K. Smith and Tracie Morris when I found Hayes's work. It was serendipitous that he would be in Boston during our seminar, and our class took a field trip to hear him.
His books followed me to my first-year dorm at Columbia University, serving as a bridge between the creative world I’d leave behind and the new one I was building in the study of political science. And in another twist of fate, Hayes visited Columbia’s Heyman Center in 2017. It was here that I heard “How to Draw a Perfect Circle” for the first time. The poem is a meditation on precision and imperfection, human effort and mastery, the divine, and the interconnectedness of it all. The perfect circle—an impossible ideal and a reflection of life’s beautiful complexity.
While Hayes spoke the words of a poem that would soon become my touchstone, I was enrolled in a rite of passage of Columbia’s Core Curriculum: Frontiers of Science. In this course, I came to learn that fundamental physical laws favor spherical forms across various scales in the cosmos. Gravity and surface tension naturally mold objects into spheres because this shape minimizes surface area for a given volume, leading to structural efficiency. For instance, gravity shapes celestial bodies like stars and planets into spheres by pulling matter uniformly toward a central point.
This cosmic propensity for spheres informed my evolving understanding of circularity. If the universe itself inherently seeks efficiency, balance, and completeness in its forms, then the circular economy feels not only logical but profoundly aligned with the natural order. It suggests that our efforts to design systems that mimic this universal principle—closed loops of creation, consumption, and regeneration—are not just acts of environmental stewardship but expressions of our innate belonging to this grand, interconnected whole. The perfect circle is both a poetic ideal and a scientific reality, reminding us that our aspirations for a harmonious, sustainable world are not out of reach; they are written in the fabric of the cosmos.
These aha moments—from finding my favorite poem to collecting Space Hippies—were slowly forming a personal thesis. The circular economy is the application of this thesis. It comes to life in the spaces we inhabit, the materials we choose, and the systems we design. But for me, this philosophy extends far beyond green concrete and mycelium fibers. Circularity is not just a framework for sustainability; it’s a guiding philosophy for how we live, create, and connect. Ultimately, the solutions we build reflect the values we hold. Our challenge is to design systems—and relationships—with care, intentionality, and alignment between form and meaning.
This is where I intend to spend my life’s work, and this newsletter is a piece of the puzzle. Here, I’ll explore ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping the way we live and build. From next-gen materials to regenerative systems, from the philosophy of design to the practicalities of sustainable construction, this is a space to examine what it means to build thoughtfully.
Some posts will be personal reflections; others will feature insights from scientists, founders, VCs, and policymakers at the forefront of the circular economy.
If you’re interested in the future of design, the built environment, or how we can reimagine our world, I hope you’ll join me on this journey.