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Some paths announce themselves early. Others reveal themselves only when you step away from them. For Joudy Kayyal, a graduating architecture student completing her bachelor’s thesis at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, the clearest confirmation that architecture was her calling came not from a project she designed or a studio she worked in, but from two years she spent studying something else entirely.
Joudy had enrolled in business. She was capable, she was committed, and she was quietly miserable in the way that only comes from being in the right room for the wrong reasons. What she missed was the creative thinking. The sense of purpose. The feeling that what she was working toward actually mattered in a physical, tangible, human way. When she made the decision to change her major, it was not impulsive. It was the result of honest self-examination, and it took courage.
Looking back, she sees that detour not as a mistake but as a gift. Sometimes, she reflects, you only truly understand what you are meant to do when you step away from it. Architecture, it turned out, had been waiting for her all along.
Curiosity as a design method
Joudy describes her approach to work as being driven by curiosity and passion, and the order of those words matters. Curiosity comes first because it is what keeps a project alive beyond its first answer. It is the thing that makes you question an idea you were already satisfied with, push a solution you thought was finished, and keep looking for the version that is better than the one you have.
For her, doing architecture well means being willing to keep questioning your own ideas. It means resisting the temptation to stop at the first good answer and instead exploring different possibilities, refining them over time and arriving somewhere more considered and more honest than where you began. Passion, she has learned, is not a cliché. It is the fuel that makes all of that questioning sustainable. After spending time in a field that was not right for her, she understands more clearly than most how much of a designer’s motivation comes from simply loving what they do.
More than an image
The shift Joudy thinks about most in the industry today is the growing role of artificial intelligence in design. Like many architects of her generation, she is watching a landscape change in real time, navigating questions that were not part of any curriculum when her studies began.
Her perspective is measured and perceptive. She does not believe AI will replace architects, but she recognises that it is already changing how people perceive design. Anyone can now generate a compelling image from a simple prompt. And that ease, she observes thoughtfully, can make design look simpler than it actually is.
What interests Joudy is the distinction between creating an image and creating architecture. Architecture, as she understands it, requires something that no prompt can replace: a genuine understanding of people, context, construction and the countless decisions that accumulate across a project’s life. The visual is only ever the surface of a much deeper body of thinking. She sees AI as a tool rather than a threat, one that can help explore ideas and improve efficiency, but only in the hands of someone who already understands what the work is really about.
Architecture is about people
If there is one thing Joudy wishes she had understood earlier, it is both simple and profound. Architecture, she has come to realise, is fundamentally about people. Not buildings. Not design in the abstract. People.
Before she began studying it, she imagined the profession as primarily concerned with structures, aesthetics and space. What she discovered, over years of learning and working alongside professionals in practice, is that the most important question an architect can ask is not what does this look like but what does this feel like to the person inside it. A good project, as she now understands it, begins with imagining yourself in the space you are creating. Understanding what people need. Designing an experience that responds to those needs with honesty and care.
That human dimension of architecture, she says, is the thing she values most about the profession today. And it is the thing she wishes someone had placed at the centre of the conversation from the very beginning.
A definition of success built on movement
Joudy’s understanding of success right now is not built around titles or projects or recognition. It is built around growth. Around the willingness to keep challenging herself and stepping into the uncomfortable.
Her journey to this point has not been straightforward. She changed majors. She worked while studying. And in her final semester, she made the significant decision to leave Oman and move to Germany to complete her bachelor’s thesis at RWTH Aachen University, one of Europe’s most respected technical universities. Coming to a new country without fluency in the language, stepping into a completely new academic environment at the most important stage of her studies, was not easy. She did it anyway.
For Joudy, growth has consistently come from exactly those moments. The ones where the situation is unfamiliar, the outcome is uncertain and the only way through is forward. That willingness to put herself in difficult positions and trust that something valuable will come from them is perhaps the most telling thing about who she is as a designer and as a person.
Looking ahead, she hopes to complete her bachelor’s degree and continue on to a master’s programme. She wants to work within a large architectural practice, involved in projects across the full arc from design through construction. Having spent time working alongside professionals during her studies, she has discovered that what excites her is not just the design process in isolation but the collaboration and coordination that bring a project to life. Architecture, she has learned, is never a solitary act. It is a collective one.
The people who believed first
Joudy closes with gratitude that is genuine and specific. She credits Professor Frank Eittorf, Professor Ercan Agirbas and Engineer Mohammed Al Salmi for their guidance and support throughout her studies. These were not simply teachers. They were people who believed in her, gave her room to grow and consistently encouraged her to develop both academically and professionally. That kind of mentorship, she knows, is not something everyone receives. She does not take it lightly.
She also thanks her parents, who have supported every significant decision she has made, from the courage it took to change her field of study to the leap it took to pursue opportunities abroad. They gave her freedom to explore, to learn and to take risks, while making sure she always knew they were behind her. Their trust and encouragement, she says, have played a fundamental role in shaping the person she is today.
Behind every architect who builds something meaningful, there are people who believed in them before they fully believed in themselves. Joudy knows exactly who those people are. And she says so without hesitation.
Joudy Kayyal is an architecture graduate completing her bachelor’s thesis at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. This piece is part of The Minds Behind the Build, PAGES’ ongoing series celebrating the founders and leaders shaping the built environment.
