A public square can be a living room for a city or a blank patch of concrete people rush across. We sit down with Lucas Zhu, a high school student with a sharp eye for how design shapes behaviour, safety, and belonging, to unpack what happens when civic space stops working and what it could become instead.

Lucas shares the moment architecture clicked for him while travelling and shadowing an architecture professor in China, where sketches and field research revealed buildings as part of human culture, not just “columns and concrete”. From there, we talk about Architecture Week 2025 and why the American Institute of Architects and Architecture for Kids want K-12 students to feel welcomed into architecture, design thinking, and the creative industries. Lucas explains what it means to present work publicly, learn alongside other young designers, and start building a real pathway into the profession.

The heart of the conversation is Lucas’s proposal to reimagine San Francisco’s UN Plaza as a multi-layered civic space: easier to use every day, safer and more inclusive, and better able to handle rallies and major events without blocking ordinary city life. He walks us through an elevated garden level inspired by the Salesforce Transit Center, a market level influenced by Hidalgo Market in Mexico, and a modular arch system drawn from places like the Doge’s Palace and the Juilliard School. We also touch on Fallingwater as a must-study reference for any student interested in materials, landscape, and user experience, and Lucas closes with a strong argument for architecture as a high school elective.

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