From Venice to Affordable Housing: Sarah Carpenter Closes One Chapter and Opens Another

Sarah Carpenter in front of the ground floor plan she created for "Growing Within Fragments"

When Sarah Carpenter toured Wentworth Institute of Technology as a high school sophomore, she knew immediately it was where she belonged. She enrolled in the Architecture program in the fall of 2021 and never looked back, including when it came time to choose a graduate school.

"I felt I had made a home at Wentworth," she said. "I wanted depth, not just a degree, and I felt confident that Wentworth could give me that."

That instinct paid off. Carpenter graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2025 with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, earning the highest cumulative GPA in her class along with the President's Award for Academic Excellence and the Design Excellence Award. She has since been named a Metropolis magazine Future100 recipient, which recognizes her as one of the top architecture graduate students in North America.

Carpenter has completed multiple co-ops across Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and has been actively engaged on campus as an architecture tutor, SPEC mentor, Graduate Research Fellow, and Graduate Dean's Student Council representative.

Carpenter on the front steps of Wentworth Hall as she prepared to graduate in 2025

Now, as she prepares to receive her master's in Architecture and take the podium as student speaker at next week's Commencement Ceremony, the body of work she has built over five years tells its own story.

Among her most memorable academic projects was a graduate collaboration completed through Wentworth's Global Study Program in Venice, Italy. Working alongside classmates Logan Lombard and Sean Youngquist, Carpenter helped design a proposal addressing Venice's chronic flooding, one that sought to weave together the lagoon's ecology and agricultural heritage rather than simply manage the tides.

"Our design sought to honor the legacy of the lagoon by reintegrating water and vegetation into the abandoned site, celebrating its aquaculture history through immersive storytelling and the rhythms of the seasons," she said.

Carpenter's work has also taken on urgent social dimensions. Her project designing affordable housing specifically for domestic violence survivors, "Growing Within Fragments," brings architecture into direct conversation with social justice, drawing upon something much closer to home.

"I believe one of the most powerful things a designer can do is make systemic issues impossible to ignore," she said. "This project was both a professional commitment and a personal one, shaped by the women in my own life who have faced similar circumstances."

Section models made using RHINO, laser cutter, and hand-modeling tools made in collaboration with Megan Leger, Architecture '25, Master of Architecture '26. The models imagined a new home for the Helsinki Architecture and Design Museum in Finland.

For Carpenter, the real test of good architecture is to ask if it creates space for dignity, healing, and visibility. "That is the standard I hold myself to in every project," she said.

That thinking carries into how she approaches the business side of the profession as well. A minor in Business Analytics (complementing her concentration in Adaptive Interventions) pushed her to see architecture not just as an art form but as a practical tool, one that only works when you understand the systems behind it.

"Now I can walk into a conversation with a client or stakeholder and speak their language, not just talk about design," she said.

As she prepares to address her fellow graduates, Carpenter has a clear message for the incoming class of first-year students.

"Find what makes you passionate, and don't be afraid if it looks different from everyone else's path," she said. "The best work and the most fulfilling career come from knowing what you stand for and letting that guide everything you do."

Spring Commencement 2026 takes place at the MGM Music Hall on Thursday, April 16. Wentworth student Sonia Abdel-Fattah, Architecture, will sing the National Anthem.