Anja Cordell’s involvement with the College of Architecture + Design’s Summer Design Camp has come full circle. 

Cordell, who graduated from the college’s School of Architecture in May, was introduced to architecture when she attended the camp in 2019 as a rising high school senior. As an architecture student at UT, she served as a teaching assistant at the camp in 2022, 2023, and 2024. And this summer, having just completed her bachelor’s degree in architecture, Cordell is serving as the camp’s coordinator. 

Each year, Design Camp draws about 120 high school students—rising freshmen to rising seniors—from around the nation. They spend a week in a UT design studio learning about the various disciplines taught in the college: architecture, graphic design, landscape architecture, and interior architecture. This year’s camp will run from July 13-19. 

For Cordell, who enjoyed the visual arts, math, and science at Farragut High School, attending Summer Design Camp during the summer after her junior year seemed the perfect way to explore architecture as a possible career path. 

“I loved building things,” she said. “At camp I really threw myself into the projects.” 

One of the projects she remembers from her days as a camper: Pouring Plaster of Paris into a balloon, then applying rubber bands to mold it into a unique shape. The resulting solid object was mounted onto a platform, or topography, to symbolize a building. She then created drawings of what the interior of her “building” and the landscape architecture of the exterior might look like. 

Such projects allowed the campers to experience what it would be like to study architecture in college “to see if you enjoy that workflow and mindset.” Cordell loved the creative work and reveled in the camaraderie she found with other campers and with the older students serving as teaching assistants.  

“Visual thinking isn’t something everyone understands,” she said, and it was exhilarating to be around “others who understand how your brain works.” 

Once she came to UT to study architecture, Cordell maintained relationships with some of the teaching assistants from the camp. 

“They cared, and it was very obvious,” she said. That inspired Cordell to help with the camp and mentor younger students.  

As the coordinator of this year’s Summer Design Camp, Cordell wrote a curriculum filled with projects that will introduce the high school students to all facets of architecture and design. For example, she said, the graphic design project—dubbed “Frankenfont”—will challenge campers to create a 27th letter of the alphabet. 

Although being the camp’s coordinator is “a bit intimidating,” Cordell said she’s enjoying the challenge. 

“I love the camp,” she said. “It’s of massive importance to the college. I think a lot of design is about connecting with the community. And this camp is a big part of that.” 

Julie Beckman, the college’s director of student development, has overseen the camp since 2014. While she’s enlisted some alumni and faculty to lead the camp in the past, Cordell is the only new graduate to have served as camp coordinator. 

“Anja is an incredibly talented young woman on a lot of fronts,” Beckman said. “She’s smart, motivated, and creative. She just really loves the camp and loves the purpose of the camp and the way it introduces design to younger students.” 

“We only have a week (for the camp). We have to think about ways to do things quickly but expose the campers to all of these design concepts,” Beckman said. 

“Working with high school students is challenging,” and Beckman said Cordell always has “back-pocket projects” in mind to keep campers engaged and busy. 

During her undergraduate years, Cordell also served as a college ambassador and teaching assistant for several classes. She interned at Edgewater Technical Association in the summer of 2021 and was part of the college’s study abroad experience in Tokyo in 2023. She received the 2021-2022 Hubert Bebb Scholarship for third-year students and was awarded the Director’s TA Award during her fifth year. 

Cordell has also spent the summer working on a variety of projects. She assisted John Sanders of Sanders Pace Architecture LLC in creating some physical models for a KMA exhibition about the Little Switzerland neighborhood of Knoxville, an example of regional modernism from the 1930s and 1940s. She’s also spending a few hours working in UT’s Fab Lab. 

This fall, Cordell will begin graduate school at the Architectural Association in London. She will focus on housing and urbanism.