Meet Our YDC Co-Chairs

The Young Designers Core (YDC) is a group within PAYETTE that promotes the growth of emerging professionals, supports their progress toward licensure and supplements our daily project work with educational opportunities. The YDC aims to provide a holistic professional development network through the core values of Knowledge Sharing, Licensure, Culture and Mentorship. It flourishes today, providing emerging designers with leadership roles, promoting mentorship and building community across the firm.

The YDC strives to create a balance between professional development and fun. Since 2018, PAYETTE has been recognized as an AIA New England Emerging Professional Friendly Firm  – an award that the YDC is proud to uphold.

The YDC is led by two co-chairs, with alternating two-year term periods to ensure an easy transition between leadership. Meet Max Frank, our newest co-chair, and Jess Hoctor, who is continuing her second year of leadership.

Max Frank

What drew you to become a YDC co-chair?

I was excited to get more involved in PAYETTE – particularly at a time when so many young people like myself are joining the firm. I hope YDC can be a great way for us to get oriented professionally and hit the ground running – especially in the wake of COVID-19 and the uncertainty that so many of us began our careers in the midst of.

What is one of your favorite YDC events?

I love the site tours! We share so much in-process work within the office so it is great to be able to visit the final outcome all together and have a conversation about it in real time. Last year YDC hosted a great tour of the MGH Assembly Row Imaging Suite where we learned about some of the very unique challenges the project team faced – and see the solutions they developed. We are already working on this year’s tour lineup – stay tuned!

How do you think the young designers are so important to the firm?

One thing I don’t think gets talked about often enough is how much young designers can bridge between academia and professional practice. We are able to bring ideas and techniques from school and translate them to a professional context, while learning the conventions of the field. That is an exciting process!

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I love looking to poetry for inspiration. Poets think about landscapes in really different ways than designers do – I think there is so much we can learn from one another. Ross Gay, Monica Youn, and Ocean Vuong all come to mind as poets who are very critically invested in landscapes and how we live in them.

The sky is the limit: what is a structure or system that you would redesign?

There are big stretches of Mass Ave. in Cambridge that I would love to see redesigned. It is an important infrastructure within the city – I think there are a lot of opportunities for the streetscape to facilitate vibrant public life that are not currently taken advantage of.

What do you do in your free time?

I love to get outside as much as possible, but especially during the winter I love going to the movies – it is always a better experience than watching something at home (for me at least!) I catch a lot of shows at The Brattle in Harvard Square. They screen small indie films that won’t get played at larger theatres, and a lot of older movies as well.

Jessica Hoctor

What drew you to become a YDC co-chair?

I believe the YDC helps strengthen the community within our office and supports our emerging professionals. I wanted to become a YDC co-chair because I wanted to help mentor emerging professionals and continue to build upon the culture, knowledge-sharing and support YDC offers to everyone in our office.

What is one of your favorite YDC events?

It is hard to pick just one event. I think “Life Before PAYETTE” is a great recurring event that lets us learn more about one another and our lives outside the office. I also enjoy the construction tours. Not only is it a wonderful opportunity for emerging professionals to learn more about construction but it also lets everyone see what other projects are doing within the office.

How do you think the young designers are so important to the firm?

What sets our profession apart from others is that everyone comes to the table with a different perspective and contributes to the design. At PAYETTE, the collaboration of our project teams enhances our designs. Young designers come with new ideas and ways of developing and thinking about design. Not only are they important to the company, they are critical to our success.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Every project brings new unique design challenges, and finding inspiration for each of those comes in different forms. Sometimes it is through conversations with clients and users of our buildings, understanding their needs and how they function, that inspire how I design a space. Other times I am inspired by the environment around me.

The sky is the limit: what is a structure or system that you would redesign?

I would redesign LAX Airport. It feels like a missed opportunity architecturally and would benefit from studying defining spaces within the airport, pedestrian circulation and wayfinding.

What do you do in your free time?

In my free time, I’m usually enjoying the outdoors: mountain biking, skiing or hiking with my dogs.