[1] She is a professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Seoul, and has previously been awarded a Fulbright Visiting Scholar grant.
[1] Of her experience studying architecture in Korea in the mid-1980s, Rieh admits that she had to ‘’struggle alone as one of the few female students, acknowledging that she had to “design in a highly masculine way out of desperation to survive.”[2] Her difficult experience has borne out a willingness to discuss gender realities that has marked her practice, teaching, and research.
[3] She acknowledges that she was initially appointed as a professor due to a Seoul municipal quota policy to increase the low proportion of female professors at the University of Seoul; yet she celebrates that women in Korea are now “considered as people who can realize universality,” with “women” now being used in a positive sense.
Such childhood memory imprints not only affect life quality, but also frame identity and enduring traits of adult world view.
The childhood school environment therefore needs special attention with respect to sense of place…If architects want to create schools that help child development and heighten quality of life in the form of assisting the formation of lasting cherished childhood memories, they need to pay special attention to aesthetically satisfactory design…[including elements of design at areas representing] boundaries, centers, and paths…[as well as] functional diversity, privacy, thermal comfort, articulated outdoor space and children’s participation in the design and/ or construction of the school setting.
[6] In providing a place of connection that meets the public's changing needs, schools have an opportunity (in addition to the standard purpose of cultivating youth) to work for all of society's benefit.
Yet, for Rieh, such tools and any kind of performance-focused certification are not enough: they must be partnered with qualitative research based on environmental psychology.