What is your name, current location, and current occupation?
I’m Matthew Bunza, Principal @ Metaamo. Currently based in Portland, Oregon, USA
What was your affiliation with MIT?
Student - MArch ADV (2013), Urban Design Cert (2013),
Faculty - Lecturer in Architecture - Option Studio (2013),
Faculty - Visiting Lecturer in Architecture - Core II Studio (2021)
What was your thesis title, if you completed one?
Tohoku Topo-Urbanism - Oblique Community Form in Post-Tsunami Japan (Advisor, Jim Wescoat) Interestingly, after several years, we’re beginning to put some of the ideas into practice around the Pacific in Japan and Micronesia.
What are you doing today?
85% Practicing architecture and urbanism @ Metaamo (w/ MIT alum Kyle Altman). 15% Teaching (MIT, U Oregon) and Research. All the while being a dad and husband. I seek partnerships w/ like minded folks to help bring meaningful spatial solutions to challenging problems, especially to those with less access to design expertise. We are designing everything from private houses all over the world, to AI micro-retail prototypes in Silicon Valley (w/ MIT alum Tyler Crain), to design hotels in China that repurpose 350 year-old rammed earth fortresses, to resilient urbanism in the Pacific Atolls (w/ MIT alum Shoko Takemoto), to museums, cultural centers, and transitional housing with NW Coast Native American groups in WA state, to 'Āina-based resilience hubs in Hawai'i.
How did your time at MIT affect your career path?
I had an amazing experience at MIT. My office Metaamo was literally conceived in Phil Freelon’s pro-prac class, and a classmate introduced me to my wife, so I’d say it had a profound effect. Even if you omit the institution, academics, and profs, just being in an environment with so many brilliant folks from all corners of the world, is a humbling and empowering experience. MIT helped me to challenge and contextualize what I do, reinforce my skills, and through its networks, connected my passion to real world problems and projects that we continue today. It’s a truly special place.
What are you excited about in your career field today?
The realignment of architectural education and practice towards a more meaningful, diverse, and inclusive one.
The larger societal realization that design matters, and that the three-dimensional thinking we have is applicable to so many of the world’s major issues today, be it in politics, the built environment
What is advice you would give to a new alum coming out of MIT?
Network, especially beyond your own profession.
Move your feet.
Collaborate over compete.
Empathy is your superpower.
Write what you want to do, where you wish to work, who with, and what kinds of end goals you hope to achieve. Let that be your North Star in the years and decades ahead. If you aren’t able to immediately find your dream project — start laying the foundations on your own to create it.
What are you trying to learn right now?
Mandarin, Construction Law, Planting Design, Botany.
How can fellow alums reach you if they want to speak further?
Web: www.metaamo.com
Instagram: @metaamo
Email: info@metaamo.com