Mahesh Daas

I am delighted to share that internationally acclaimed landscape architect and urbanist Mario Schjetnan, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, Mexico City, and recipient of the 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, will deliver the keynote address at the Boston Architectural College’s 2026 Commencement next week and receive the honorary doctorate. Mario’s work has demonstrated, over decades, that landscape architecture is not decorative to civic life but fundamental to it. He has brought together ecology, infrastructure, culture, and civic life in ways that have reshaped how we think about cities and the public realm.

We will also honor Lee Pelton with an honorary doctorate for Public Service and Leadership. As President and CEO of The Boston Foundation, Lee has built a distinguished record of civic and institutional leadership grounded in equity, public purpose, and the humanities. His work has helped shape conversations around access, racial wealth gaps, education, and opportunity in Greater Boston and beyond.

Taniya Nayak, MSIA’03, will receive an honorary doctorate for Alumni Excellence. Taniya has built an extraordinary career across residential, hospitality, and commercial design while also becoming one of the most recognizable public voices in design through her work in television and media. As Principal of Taniya Nayak Design, and through her long presence on HGTV and other national lifestyle platforms, along with featured design work on Food Network, she has shown that design can be rigorous, entrepreneurial, accessible, and culturally resonant all at once.

Judy Nitsch will also be honored for Service to the College. Judy’s leadership and steadfast commitment to the BAC have helped strengthen the institution in important ways, especially through her service as Chair of the Board of Trustees from 2021 to 2025. As founding principal of Nitsch Engineering, she built a firm of broad impact spanning civil, structural, and transportation engineering, planning, resilience, and green infrastructure across 21 states and five countries.

What do Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and BAC have in common? More than you suspect.

A year after the cameras rolled, I can finally say it: the Boston Architectural College makes its Hollywood debut in “The Drama,” A24’s latest feature film written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli and starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.

Our Newbury Street home, that unmistakable béton brut landmark, is part of the film. We have been sitting on this news for more than a year, so it is especially satisfying to finally share it.

Today, I also had the chance to talk about the movie on Boston’s NPR station GBH’s The Culture Show, hosted by Jared Bowen.

In that conversation, I discussed how architecture plays a key role in the film, and why the BAC’s library became Emma’s workplace in the story. That is one reason I was so drawn to the spatial dimension of the film. What struck me very quickly is that the spaces in The Drama are not passive backdrops. They are part of the emotional machinery of the film. The interiors are doing psychological work.

That is also why the BAC footage mattered to me. The appearance is strategic. My feeling is that it offers one of the few outward moments in a film that otherwise feels remarkably sealed and inward. Much of the movie takes place in spaces that feel controlled, airless, and emotionally pressurized. So when the city appears, even quickly, that glimpse outward has weight. It is not just that Boston is a setting. It is that the film uses Boston selectively. And the BAC, particularly because of its vantage and its relationship to the city, becomes part of that logic of reveal.

And, on a lighter note, this photo of me in our library, wearing the special T-shirt gifted by the film crew, was taken at the very shelf now being informally called the “Zendaya shelf.” Students, faculty, and staff are already lining up to be photographed there. Only at the BAC.

Watch the segment on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/Z3ySaJZW8xk?start=13351&end=14335