Bartlett PhD Alumni: Dr Regner Ramos

"My PhD cohort at the School of Architecture were (and are) an incredibly gifted, engaged and proactive group of thinkers, designers, artists and researchers. Being surrounded by that kind of energy, and the support we all gave each other, helped shape me professionally and personally."

What project are you currently working on?

I like to keep myself busy, so I’ve got a few projects in the works. I lead an experimental design and research studio at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture called Bloc 04. Following the destruction caused by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in September 2017, our landscape was completely destroyed, compromising our biodiversity, especially species in danger of extinction.

Similarly, the way the US handled the crisis and relief efforts brought to the foreground the complexities of our colonial status. This had been a longstanding conversation, but the crisis truly let the cracks show, evidencing the fact that no matter how politicians would like to put it, Puerto Rico is an ‘Other’ to the United States – a lesser territory, a lesser people.

Keeping these things in mind, and given my interest in Cyberfeminist theory, with Bloc 04 we’re looking at how the island’s flora and fauna – non-human Others, which although members of our built environment, are often disregarded in architectural design – have historically shaped a sense of national and cultural identity.

By studying different organisms in our island (from HIV to the mythical chupacabra), understanding their unique differences and the role they’ve played at a cultural level, we want to draw a series of arguments which will then serve as tools to analyse and critique our own condition of Otherhood. We’re exploring it through drawing, model-making and design, so it’s very diverse and speculative.

I’ve also just won the FIPI research grant to conduct research into the relationship between digital technologies and queer spaces/practices in Puerto Rico. There’s an enormous gap in architectural and urban inquiry in relation to the island’s gay and queer histories, so my main goal with my project is to create a cultural reading and spatial record of these queer practices in different spaces (both physical and digital) so as to include them within architectural discourse.

I’m also interested in taking Puerto Rico as my own starting-point but fanning out to include other countries and cities by reaching out to researchers, performers and artists working with queerness, spaces and technologies. I think there are immense possibilities in collaborations – such as developing a series of online lectures or seminars between researchers – and really interesting work might emerge to enable non-heteronormative identities to make spaces and places for themselves within societies. These topics are resonating in European and North American research, but I’d like to create a network that is also nurtured by Latin American researchers’ work.

I’m also involved in several publications: I’m an Editor at Glass, a fashion/culture magazine, and I’m Creative Director and Editor-in-Chief of LOBBY, which is the architecture magazine I started while studying at The Bartlett School of Architecture. In the UPR, I’m taking its existing professional magazine, inForma, and reconceptualising it as a peer-reviewed academic journal. There are no architectural academic journals in the island, and very few in the Caribbean, so it’s an exciting project.

What working achievement are you most proud of?

It’s hard to single out one in particular, as I feel one achievement has often led to another. I’m very proud of the work I’ve done with LOBBY, for instance, but I would have never got involved with the magazine if I’d not been offered a place at The Bartlett. That’s been one of the highlights of my life; it’s the place where I’ve changed, grown and learned the most.

When my colleagues and I started LOBBY, we didn’t know what to expect, so in a sense it was a bit of an experiment. LOBBY, both a noun and a verb, was meant to be a small magazine where students at The Bartlett could ‘come together’, so to speak, in this metaphorical space – a space that, at the time, the School’s building, the former Wates House, lacked.

Issue #1 is the most Bartlett-focused of the anthology, but as the magazine acquired momentum as well as an international following, we soon saw that LOBBY should address wider architectural conversations, not necessarily related to an institution. The issues that followed, readers will find, make fewer and fewer references to The Bartlett School of Architecture, because LOBBY became a work in its own right.

Just this past year, we put a lot of TLC onto our website – releasing a new feature almost every week. At the same time, we developed an event series that would allow us to engage with more creatives internationally.  not just through our launch parties, but also by partnering with the Architecture Film Festival London, as well as through our ‘Amphibious Habitats’ design competition and conference. Organising events, leading a team and editing a magazine while being 4,000 miles away is challenging, but it also gives me an excuse to travel to London, which after all, has become my home away from home.

Also, I should say, during my studies in London I really tried to maximise my time and seize as many professional opportunities as I could to build up my CV. London is the place to do this. I was dreading finishing the PhD and finding myself unemployed, because it’s no secret that full time, tenure-track academic posts are very competitive, especially for someone just coming out of their doctoral studies. Having now been offered a tenure-track post at the UPR is wonderful, and it’s an achievement I’m still celebrating. Puerto Rico is still an island in recession, so there is a huge wave of migration towards the US. Like I mentioned earlier, this past September we were hit by two category 5 hurricanes, so the island is still in terrible shape. Unfortunately, this has only caused an increase in migration, most of which are young professionals. So at a time where so many talented, qualified professionals are leaving the island to pursue their careers, I find myself in a rare, privileged position.

And, of course, having successfully completed doctoral research fills me with immense pride as well. The day I passed my Viva – well, there’s no feeling like it. I’ve only had my title for about a year and a half, so using the ‘Dr’ prefix still feels new (and slightly awkward). I feel like I’ve still got a lot to prove. I’m looking forward to growing into it.

How do you feel about being nominated as a role model?

Listen, the morning I got your email inviting me to be interviewed as a role model, I was in my bed, covered head to toe in wet paper towels, with a small, battery-powered fan next to me – my attempt at coping with the 30-degree heat and the lack of electricity in post-hurricane Puerto Rico. I’m someone who tries to see the humour in everything, so the irony of that whole scene is not lost on me.

All jokes aside though, that The Bartlett thinks of my projects, endeavours and accomplishments as noteworthy makes me feel very happy, very honoured. I studied with some truly remarkable people, so I’m humbled that I’m given this opportunity to talk about my work and career. More than anything, I hope that maybe in reading this interview, it might serve as encouragement for minorities – whether it’s because of their ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender. As a gay man coming from a small island in the Caribbean that tends to reject anything different, I was often made to feel my ideas and perspective didn’t belong. Moving to London changed that.

The sheer variety of research projects, research methods and cultural backgrounds in our PhD programme’s cohort attested to the fact that the field of architecture is expansive and inclusive, and rather than silencing its students, the School helps them find their voice and encourages them to pursue their interests. And just as importantly, it gives students platforms to have their voices heard. In that sense, I feel that during my time in London I developed confidence in my work and in myself – and when you’re a minority, that’s extremely valuable. 

What motivated you to complete a PhD at the Bartlett?

I think my teenage years were very influential in my current research interests and the research I undertook at The Bartlett. When I was around 15, the Internet arrived in our house. It was definitely a tool that I used to create my own sense of identity through experimentation. I was also always very aware of its spatial qualities, and it very much acted as a substitute for physical spaces because Puerto Rico has an extremely poor culture in regard to urban life.

I grew up in the countryside, and my school friends were all about 30 minutes away by car. As such, I depended on my parents to take me to spend time with them at their houses, go to the mall or to the cinema – and that’s about as much as you can do as a teenager.

But when the Internet arrived, I was suddenly connected to every friend who also had a modem. We could have fun, talk about school, play games, gossip and even study together from our individual homes. More importantly, I was connected to a global audience of users.

The presence of religion is very strong in Puerto Rico, and a heterosexist culture is dominant, but with the Internet I no longer felt like I was the only gay kid in the world, especially being a student in a Baptist school, where any other kid who was gay was also closeted for fear of risking eternal damnation. The Internet was my way of finding others who were different like me. And that was life-changing.

Digital spaces such as ICQ, MSN Messenger and Myspace were hubs for making new friends, for expressing yourself and even for flirting. Being able to customise your profiles with different typefaces, colours, music and themes became a way to tell others who you were without them having to read your About Me section, and it also created new, more immediate ways to connect with others.

For instance, if someone had a cool song playing on their Myspace page, you were maybe more likely to want to add them as a friend. It was striking to see how different personalities could shine through the software, as well as how the variety of people on the screen seemed to make the world more diverse, more inclusive. The world became more interesting to me, and this was something that continued all the way through my years as a university student.

One time, during my undergraduate years, one of my friends told me, “You don’t dress in real life like you do on your online pictures.” That was where it hit me – I had constructed an online persona that I was not yet comfortable bringing into my day-to-day life in the physical world. The Regner I was portraying online was the Regner that I truly wanted to be. So that’s what I did throughout my early twenties.

I’m still fascinated by this whole topic, and it’s why even today my research has to do with the relationship between technology, queer bodies and space. Queer and gay identities have historically been placeless, always left to appropriate the peripheries and spaces no one else wants. So it’s no wonder the Internet has become such an important space for experimentation and subjective performance for our community.

Because both London and the Bartlett School of Architecture are so inclusive, this seemed like the ideal setting for carrying out my research. The School’s diverse staff and research interests would allow me to study queerness, subjective difference and technology within a spatial, architectural scope. 

How did studying at the Bartlett help to shape your career?

There are a few things I’d say about this. Firstly, I have to give merit to the people in my programme. My PhD cohort at the School of Architecture were (and are) an incredibly gifted, engaged and proactive group of thinkers, designers, artists and researchers. Being surrounded by that kind of energy, and the support we all gave each other, helped shape me professionally and personally. I learned as much from them as I did from the School staff. Their ambition was contagious, as was their genuine kindness, and it played an enormous part in the projects I undertook (such as LOBBY), the conversations I engaged in and the jobs I applied to.

Secondly, I come from a very Modernist-influenced way of thinking. The UPR School of Architecture is still very, very traditional, and The Bartlett School of Architecture is pretty much the opposite. Walking into it was mind-blowingly stimulating. What architecture ‘is’ suddenly became a lot more diverse, inclusive and experimental.

I had colleagues doing films and games, others who were using 3D-scanning technology, others who were studying London Fashion Week and street art; and so the idea of what was architectural became much more open, less rigid, less defined. There’s also a sense of play that’s extremely palpable, and I realised that architectural research could be fun. It may sound silly, but it was a valuable lesson I learned that continues to inform my current project briefs, course proposals and research methods.

The Bartlett helped me to realise what my interests were and to include them within rigorous spatial enquiry. In doing so, it became easier to say ‘no’ to the things I wasn’t interested in, which is also very important.

What advice would you give to current Bartlett PhD students?

Apply to everything you’re interested in, don’t take rejection personally and don’t let it discourage you. Surround yourself with supportive people and look out for each other’s best interests; some of the teaching opportunities I was offered came from colleagues’ recommendations. Also, in a competitive city like London, collaboration and teamwork are important, so be creative and work on projects, conferences, papers or course proposals with friends and colleagues.

Build a healthy relationship with your advisors because you’ll want to keep in contact with them in the future and maybe even collaborate at some point – not to mention the fact that their advice post-thesis is invaluable. And lastly, London is an amazing city, but especially if you’re not a UK or EU citizen, it comes with a time-stamp. Maximise your time in London so that if/when the time to leave comes, your CV is strong, making you an attractive contender for the jobs you want to apply for – wherever that may be.