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Evelyn Lee

Practice of Architecture: Aidan Turner, The Garment Architect

Published about 2 months ago • 1 min read

2026

Hello Reader,

It's graduation season, and there's a question we keep asking architecture students. What firm are you going to? It gets asked at receptions, at dinner tables, and in final crits, and it isn't the wrong question. It's just no longer broad enough.

The broader question, what they are going to build with what architecture trained them to see, is one almost no one teaches them to answer. But they are finding their own way, in spite of it all.

This week's guest is one of the rare ones who answered it early. Aidan Turner is a year out of Syracuse School of Architecture and the founder of The Garment Architect, an apparel design and manufacturing studio that runs every collection through phases an architect would recognize: blueprint, design, sourcing, testing, production, and finishing. He calls a tech pack a blueprint for a garment. He trademarked the framework.

He was running a clothing brand before his first day of studio, and he left his firm in December to go all in on the company. His argument, and the one I think more of us need to hear, is that architectural training is a way of seeing, and the building is only one of the things you can do with it.

🎧 Episode 236: The Blueprint of Apparel: Applying Architectural Thinking to Fashion​

A big thank you to Pirros for supporting Practice Disrupted on this episode.

Where in your career have you confused architecture with the place you practice it?

Keep learning and growing,

Evelyn M Lee, FAIA | NOMA

Founder, Practice of Architecture

Host, Practice Disrupted & Fractional COO

/// PoA Podcast - Practice Disrupted ///

The Blueprint of Apparel: Applying Architectural Thinking to Fashion

In this episode of Practice Disrupted, Evelyn Lee sits down with Aidan Turner, the founder of The Garment Architect. Aidan, who graduated from the Syracuse School of Architecture just one year ago, is challenging the standard “fast fashion” model by treating apparel design with the same technical precision and systemic discipline typically reserved for buildings.

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Evelyn Lee

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