Ma Ry Kim, principal and design director at Group 70 International, was dreaming big by the age of six. As a first-grader at Enchanted Lakes Elementary School in Kailua, she witnessed a classmateʻs father build a small model. She learned the word, “architecture” and says, “From that day I wanted to be an architect and I never wavered from that.
“Later, my grandad, being a very Korean man, asked, ʻWhat is it in architecture that you do?ʻ I said, ʻGrandpa, I’m going to build buildings.ʻ His response was, ʻGosh, it’s too bad you’re not a boy’ –because this is a male profession… I grew up in the shadow of that type of tradition.”