Introducing: Marvel’s 2025 Class of Summer Interns
Introducing: Marvel’s 2025 Class of Summer Interns
We at Marvel are lucky to have had the opportunity to work with nine up-and-coming designers this summer through our annual internship program– Flaurent Jean-Baptiste, Ain Jun, Dana Ladd, Musa Matiwane, Jesus Mayen, Simon Moneo, Katerina Napoli, Adrian Vargas, and Vicky Yan.
These creative individuals were uniquely equipped for their distinct design roles at Marvel over the summer. Whether they’re participating on client calls, conducting walkthroughs with engineers, constructing true to life architectural models, or presenting fresh ideas to fellow designers, they have all certainly made their mark. Every year we make sure to look toward our intern class for new design approaches to enrich our practice, and we are thankful for the contributions these young designers have made in their short time with us.
Read on to learn a little bit about our 2025 class of summer interns!
Flaurent Jean-Baptiste
I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to be onsite at 1 Java as much as I was during my internship and gain so much insight from one of the architects who had been a part of the project throughout the summer. No amount of words could ever truly describe how difficult coordination actually is, but I was lucky to have people, specifically Manche and Jeremy, who knew when to guide me and when to let me figure things out myself, leaving me to be independent during my tasks for the summer. Throughout these 3 months, I found the information I was exposed to from both Marvel’s architecture lens and Consigli’s construction lens to be priceless, along with the connections formed. It is not an understatement to say that I thoroughly enjoyed and valued my time here at Marvel this summer.
Ain Jun
The most challenging model that I worked on this summer was the Lower East Side Ecology Center site model. It was the first model that I was tasked to manage and complete myself, which was both excited but challenging. Becoming comfortable with the workflow was the most difficult, but rewarding part of the process as I had to learn to take CD drawings and Rhino files from the team and translate them into working documents to send to fabrication machines, to then craft by hand. Through this effort, my skills with AutoCAD and handcrafting improved greatly, and most of all I gained a deeper understanding of efficiency between digital and physical fabrication workflows and how best to switch between the two to create a beautiful and informative model.
Dana Ladd
My relationship to the Puerto Rican diaspora has always been complicated. “Diaspora” is when people live away from their homeland but still maintain deep connections—emotional, cultural, political, or familial—to that place. Growing up in New York, I often felt caught in-between—never quite “Puerto Rican” enough to speak on these complexities. But when I began to take control of that narrative through academic research—first studying ecotourism and Hurricane Maria, and later asking how identity can be celebrated in public space through design—I found a way to engage. Until this summer, however, I had never experienced the things I read, researched, and carried with my family in New York and New Jersey directly on the island as an adult.
Being here—working at Marvel, walking neighborhoods, talking with people, and learning from the natural environment—made that distance feel closer. I became more aware of the contrasts between New York and Puerto Rico’s layered human and non-human ecologies, and it was so exciting to see the different ways identity and empowerment show up in the built environment between the two places.
For me, spatial design has become a way to bridge memory and place, dislocation and belonging, while imagining resilient futures that connect communities both here and abroad.
So, thank you for the connections made and the lessons learned and igniting a love for a place that I have only known through memory and stories and books. I will be back for sure.
Musa Matiwane
This is my second summer with Marvel Landscape. This summer I have had the opportunity to see several new projects at various phases of development. I’m feeling very fortunate to learn from this team again and develop my skills through real world experience.
Marvel New York 2025 Summer Interns, Left to Right of the second image: Flaurent Jean-Baptiste, Katerina Napoli, Jesus Mayen, Musa Matiwane, Ain Jun, Simon Moneo.
Jesus Mayen
My summer at Marvel was defined by the opportunity to move fluidly between a competition, design proposals, client conversations, design explorations, and a community engagement session, each offering a different perspective on the role and operations of architecture today. A central focus of my internship was curating Marvel in Process, an exhibition at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts that revealed the often-hidden layers of practice. Working with sketches, models, renderings, diagrams, and material samples from seven different projects, I pieced together a narrative that traced how ideas evolve from concept to construction, while also learning how different teams and typologies shape their own distinct processes. Having the chance to design, plan, and then travel to install the exhibition, and seeing it come to life with the public deepened my understanding of design as both process and storytelling. The experience was unforgettable, not only for the creative and organizational skills I developed, but also for the way it showed me how collaboration and transparency can create meaningful work. This summer will continue to shape how I approach my future projects, grounding design as both a civic responsibility and a collective act.
Simon Moneo
My summer at Marvel has been tremendous in developing my understanding of architecture as a key step in the development of a city. Specifically, being on client facing meetings, as well as coordination meetings with engineers, landscape architects and countless other experts, has really shaped the internship into a holistic experience. I spent most of the summer on the same project, a huge multiunit housing project in NYC. Inevitably, this project affects the whole neighborhood, and being part of a design team that was truly committed to making a useful and valued building for its community gave me a lot of confidence and purpose. I improved my skills in diagrammatic sketching, 3D modelling, rendering and presentation, and also learned to use new tools and techniques. Overall, this has been a great experience, especially because I was able to participate in a NYC project. Being focused on the city you live in every day gives you a stronger sense of perception and appreciation for good architecture. I am grateful to the Marvel team for taking me in this summer, thank you!
Katerina Napoli
Throughout my internship here at Marvel, I was exposed to a wide range of projects and design approaches, which opened my eyes to a different and more creative side of architecture than I had previously experienced. Coming from more technical internship backgrounds, Marvel offered a refreshing contrast, it broadened my perspective and deepened my appreciation for the conceptual and human-centered aspects of design. Working alongside such talented and diverse architects and designers not only inspired me but also helped me rethink how architecture can engage with the world around it and how much of an impact us designers truly have. This experience has genuinely shifted my interests and will strongly influence how I approach my thesis year at RPI.
Adrian Vargas Galloza
After having the opportunity to work as an intern at Marvel, I can confidently say that my perception of architecture in Puerto Rico changed significantly. During this experience, I was able to explore different areas within the profession that helped me expand my understanding of what it truly means to be an architect. From site visits and office work to model-making, I learned the importance of each of these tasks in the process of communicating ideas. Whether it was representing projects in a clear and comprehensible way or building strong relationships with clients and colleagues in the construction industry, I came to understand that all of these aspects are fundamental to the profession.
I am convinced that this experience greatly contributed to my development as a future architect and brought me one step closer to achieving my goals. Coming from the southwestern region of Puerto Rico, adapting to this new environment presented certain challenges at the beginning of my internship, as it was initially difficult for me to adapt. However, this motivated me to work even harder to integrate myself into the office’s workflow. Thanks to that effort, I was able to grow professionally and develop skills to a level I never thought I could reach.
I am deeply grateful to Marvel Designs for the opportunity they gave me, and equally thankful to the people I had the pleasure of working with. More than just colleagues, they became friends, and I learned something valuable from every conversation I shared with them.
To architecture students, I strongly encourage you to seek the opportunity to take on an internship during your academic years, as it is an experience that will enrich your life both personally and professionally.
I hope this is only the beginning of my professional career, and I look forward to crossing paths with all of you again soon. Thank you very much for everything.
Vicky Yan
Vicky Yan interned at Marvel’s office in Richmond, Virginia this summer, working directly under partner and landscape architect Tyler Silvestro, as well as associate and landscape architect Chieh Huang. She had the valuable opportunity to work alongside them on the Belle Isle Vision plan, an amazing effort to make the James River waterfront more accessible to frequent visitors of Belle Isle, a beloved island in downtown Richmond. She contributed to project diagrams for the concept design of the Shed, an existing nail shed in the gateway of Belle Isle that will be adaptively reused into a public flex space.
