Ariana Smith
Architectural designer working on first-of-a-kind energy infrastructure. Based in Reston, Virginia.
I came to nuclear by way of craft. My undergraduate studios at Miami University started with a mallet shaped by hand and a timber joint that held without glue, and worked up from there to whole buildings. Graduate school at Virginia Tech sharpened that into a habit of asking how a thing gets built before asking how it looks, and my thesis turned it toward who a building is built for.
Since 2022 I have put that habit to work at Bechtel on the Natrium® Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project in Kemmerer, Wyoming, where I am the architectural lead for three facilities across the plant's nuclear and energy islands. The work runs from design basis and licensing documentation through complete drawing packages and into the field, most recently watching the Test & Fill Facility reach its full height and close in.
I am drawn to buildings where the architecture has to earn its place among the engineering disciplines: energy, industrial, defense, research, and other mission-critical facilities where clear drawings and disciplined coordination decide whether a project gets built well.
