Jess Myers

As the flagship program of , Exhibit Columbus is an exploration of community, architecture, art and design that activates the modern legacy of Columbus, Indiana. Through a two-year cycle of events, conversations are convened around innovative ideas, and then site-responsive installations are commissioned to create a free, public exhibition.

Now in its fifth cycle, this year’s theme, “,” invites contributors to explore the legacy of Columbus by adding to the multiple and overlapping lives of buildings and spaces. Originating in improv theater, “Yes And” is a technique for affirming and building upon an idea to create a shared narrative.

This year, University Design Research Fellowships were awarded through a national, open-call competition for full-time university and college professors whose work explores community-based urban design and the challenges facing activating historic downtowns. Applicants were asked to respond to the “Yes And” theme and work from existing material to shape positive change. UDR Fellows were then shortlisted and selected, from nearly 50 submissions, by the 2024-25 based on the Request for Qualifications process.

“The high level of research represented by these six University Design Research Fellows is inspiring and we are honored to showcase their work in this cycle of Exhibit Columbus. Together, these professors place emphasis on the curatorial theme, ‘Yes And,’ in their own way, and collectively allow us to build an exhibition that has curatorial depth across the country,” the five curatorial partners said in a joint statement.

Through a cycle of events, the fellows—along with four —will work with community members in Columbus to create installations at various locales, encouraging the public to collaborate in the creation of the ongoing performance of the city. Whether it’s recovering architectural remnants, reflecting on cultural legacy, staging a dramatic spectacle, or reimagining public play, “Yes And” invites everybody to the public spaces of Columbus to expand what forms of togetherness and collaboration are possible. Winning fellows can request a budget of up to $15,000 to support the realization of an installation during the three-month exhibition in downtown Columbus.

The of Myers, César A. Lopez (University of Virginia), Amelyn Ng (Columbia University), and Germán Pallares-Avitia (Rhode Island School of Design) bring a strong interdisciplinary track record in public installation and exhibition, material experimentation, and historical architectural research to the UDR Fellowship and the legacy of Exhibit Columbus.

Jess Myers (second from the left) is one of four faculty members to be named Exhibit Columbus University Design Research Fellows for 2024-25.

“What unites [us] is a commitment to leveraging our unique experiences and expertise to create impactful public installations that resonate with the community,” says the team. “As former architecture students turned educators, we are dedicated to learning about and shaping the built environment while inspiring future architects.”

Building upon Columbus’s exemplary modern architecture in conversation with its community, the team’s proposed project, “Public School Grounds,” aims to extend their admiration for modern architecture to children and the larger Columbus community by fostering an environment that encourages hands-on learning, imaginative exploration, and meaningful interactions for individuals of all ages.

The project installation will draw inspiration from the dynamic rooflines and material patterns found in mid-century modern-designed schools in Columbus. Throughout the fellowship, the team will work with the students, educators, and staff at these schools to scale down and collage these rooflines to create an engaging sensorial platform for children.

“Public School Grounds” will become a tactile experience, potentially constructed from reclaimed local brick or colorful recycled foam, drawing from the vast range of brickwork and bond patterns found across Columbus’ modern architectural landscape. By creating an interesting and interactive space at ground level, the new public space will showcase the influence of educational architecture on the city, highlight the significance of children in the community and prioritizing hands-on play as a learning tool.

Designing and planning for a longer life cycle for the project and its materials is a critical objective of the installation. By finding a reuse after the Exhibit Columbus programming concludes, the mission of exposing a broader community to the wonder and beauty of the built environment will have a longer legacy. Recognizing that not all schools have equal resources, the team aims to design their project in pieces or sections so that it can easily be assembled, disassembled, transported, and distributed to schools needing recreational equipment and/or to communities as public furniture. Alternatively, if the project is donated to a single school or after-care organization, the team hopes its design can be “re-collaged” in various configurations, rather than remaining in its original consolidated form, allowing the project to evolve according to the new client’s needs and contexts.

The built installation will be accompanied by a series of workshops and programs facilitated by the “Public School Grounds” team who will work directly with students, educators, and staff at select local schools through key partnerships with two related organizations—the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC), ?which oversees the public schools in Columbus, and the Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation (BCSF), which supports the learning experience of Columbus youth.

Myers, an urbanist whose practice includes work as an editor, writer, podcaster and curator, will bring her expertise in sound to the project and explore the sonic breaks and flows of a young student’s day.

“There is an auditory schedule that schoolchildren keep that vanished from the public soundscape during the COVID-19 lockdowns,” says Myers. “I will be researching the bells that organize quiet and frenzy, the many languages that Columbus students use and the organized bustle of drop-offs and pick-ups to develop a light, soothing soundscape that activates the physical playscape.”

Throughout these events and the Exhibit Columbus programming, the team will observe and document how children and community members engage with their project, with a goal of creating a series of diagrams that can inspire future educational spaces.

By using a collaborative and community-engaged approach, “Public School Grounds” seeks to bring the tactile and sensory elements that have enriched educational environments within schools to the broader public and inspire inquisitive play within the city of Columbus.

As University Design Research Fellows, Myers and her team recently attended the two-day where they were paired with BCSC’s and . Working at these unique sites, they will create an installation that will become a focal point during the 2025 Exhibit Columbus event in August 2025.

In this fourth edition of the competition, sponsored by , architects, designers and visionaries from around the world were asked to redefine the future of residential architecture by designing a dwelling for the year 2124 that focused on innovation, sustainability and adaptability.

With issues like climate change, urbanization and technological advancements at the forefront, the competition invited participants to think beyond the conventional and explore the uncharted territories of architectural design by pushing the boundaries, challenging preconceptions and creating visionary concepts for homes that will define the 22nd century.

Guided by Marcos Parga, associate professor at the School of Architecture, the 黑料不打烊 student team of Yifan (Ivan) Chen ’25 and Yue Zhuo ’25 designed “The Domestic Nomad,” a project that, rather than a housing solution, serves as a statement and provocation that redefines nomadism at a contemporary, domestic scale to address the rigidity of private enclosures promoted by the capitalist market.

“The Domestic Nomad”

Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s notion of nomadism in “A Thousand Plateaus,” the team proposed a radical rethinking of residential spaces and household activities, prioritizing public, communal living over private ownership—even in cold climates like Chicago, their chosen site. Their project manifests as a versatile framework of four distinct levels, each offering unique combinations of height, light, acoustics and thermal properties designed to foster shared experiences and reduce the requirement for extensive private areas.

The design of “The Domestic Nomad” promotes efficient use of resources and energy, enhancing adaptability by allowing domestic activities to shift between indoor and outdoor settings. Sustainability and thermal consideration drive the formal output of the building. Throughout the project, tested building technologies and passive thermal systems that support dynamic living configurations are deployed on different levels, unified by a 22nd-century “hearth,” as theorized by Semper in his “The Four Elements of Architecture,” 1851, that serves as both a heat chimney and a vertical transport system.

Modular, multi-functional ‘creatures,’ a tribute to Hejduk’s “Victims,” 1984, become the catalysts for domestic mobility and community engagement by carrying practical function (sleeping, dining, etc.) and migrating to different levels through the “hearth.” Moving as shared infrastructure between the indoors and outdoors depending on the time and season, these nomadic apparatuses redefine interaction with the neighborhood and challenge the constructed borders of space, enclosure, program and privacy on a domestic scale.

Overall, “The Domestic Nomad” encapsulates a proactive approach to residential architecture by blurring the boundaries between private versus public living. The project invites residents to rethink their interactions with space and aims to set a precedent for how homes can evolve to foster a communal life in the century ahead.

“We wanted to use the Home2124 competition as an opportunity to present our thoughts on the future of living in a communal way and exhibit how novel spatial relationships and technologies could foster alternative forms of a collective domestic life,” says Shen.

After being critiqued by a jury of leading architects, designers and academicians of international repute, the 黑料不打烊 team’s project was selected to receive the competition’s first-place prize. Shen and Zhuo were awarded a certificate of recognition, interviewed by competition organizers, and their project will be included in an upcoming publication.

In addition to winning the Home2124 international award, “The Domestic Nomad” received the overall design prize in the Spring 2024 competition at 黑料不打烊’s School of Architecture competition at 黑料不打烊’s School of Architecture.

“Shen and Zhuo’s project successfully merged creative freedom and real constraints, two critical challenges of my Integrated Design Studio course: it demonstrates an absolute commitment to experimentation and uses constructive imagination to celebrate an unapologetic approach to tectonics,” says Parga. “Their project encourages us to look closely at the dwelling spaces we live in and think deeply about the domestic landscape we would like to see in the future.”

“The Domestic Nomad” was also recently selected for a student design award from the American Institute of Architects Central New York Chapter (AIA CNY), which will be presented to Shen and Zhuo at the event on Friday, Nov. 15.

“We hope “The Domestic Nomad” will be remembered for its legible approach that not only redefines living spaces but also inspires a new generation of architects and students to think critically about the role of design in society’s progression,” says Shen.

Selected from submissions made at the foundation’s annual application deadline in February 2024, these projects—exhibitions, publications and other public presentations—expand understanding, methods and platforms of contemporary architecture discourse and feature work by architects, archivists, artists, curators, designers, educators and other professionals working with organizations worldwide in cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Nashville, Athens, New York and Chicago, where the Graham Foundation is based.

‘Ethical Narratives: Essays by Richard Ingersoll (1949–2021)’

Richard Ingersoll

School of Architecture faculty , associate professor (lead editor), and , architecture field studies coordinator at 黑料不打烊 Abroad Florence; along with , and have been awarded funding to support their publication, “Ethical Narratives: Essays by Richard Ingersoll (1949–2021).”

The book, under contract with Actar Publishers, assembles key texts, drawings and images by and of Richard Ingersoll, the prominent architectural historian, critic and educator who wrote prolifically for the world’s leading architectural publications from the 1980s until his passing in 2021.

Ingersoll was a rare voice in the field, admired for his global and ethical perspective that relentlessly challenged architects and students to consider the environmental and social impacts of their work. He rigorously contextualized his topics within larger historical and cultural frameworks, tying them to today’s pressing ecological and political imperatives.

“Ingersoll’s writing was characterized by its gentle persistence and foresight, setting him apart in his field. This book seeks not only to capture his nimble intellect but also aims to underscore the creative, playful and generous aspects of his life and personality,” says Davis.

This compilation of more than 30 of Ingersoll’s most impactful texts (selected from over 350 essays and lectures) are organized thematically, centered on Ingersoll’s primary polemics, including social justice and climate change. Observations and recollections offered by his colleagues, friends and students, including Margaret Crawford, Luis Fernandez-Galiano, Liane Lefaivre, Pippo Ciorra and others, offer additional insight into the extraordinary man behind the words.

Richard Ingersoll, “Istanbul,” ca. 1982. Watercolor on paper, 18 x 12 inches (Photo courtesy of the Ingersoll Estate)

“Professor Ingersoll, a long-time faculty member of our Florence program, was an impressive intellectual figure and this collection of essays—which also includes reflections by some of the most important architects and critics in contemporary architecture—will be of great interest to anyone interested in architecture’s ethical and political impact on late 20th and early 21st century culture,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture.

“Congratulations to Associate Professor Lawrence Davis and the entire team of architects and editors on receiving a prestigious Graham Foundation organizational grant to support the publication of this important collection of essays by Richard Ingersoll,” says Speaks.

“Our international editorial team is extremely grateful for this vital funding from the Graham Foundation,” says Davis. “The book editors would also like to thank Caroline Bowling, graduate research and design intern, for her ongoing work and Dean Speaks for his support.

The new grantees join a worldwide network of organizations and individuals that the has supported over the past 68 years. In that time, the Foundation has awarded more than 44 million dollars in direct support to over 5,100 projects by individuals and organizations around the world.

Alessandro Arienzo and Isabel Abascal (LANZA)

Alessandro Arienzo and Isabel Abascal

and will teach the visiting critic studio, “黑料不打烊 Spiral,” where students will explore spirals and the architectural possibilities that come with this inherently infinite geometric shape. Before 黑料不打烊 was established in 1820 in Onondaga County, another city named 黑料不打烊 flourished on the Italian island of Sicily. This first 黑料不打烊 is known as the birthplace of great astronomer, mathematician and engineer Archimedes, and the place in which he set the basis for the famous Archimedes’ spiral. Inspired by such history, this studio will look at spirals—from Archimedes to the golden ratio, the phenomena of curves reveal themselves across nature, governing distant galaxies and our own DNA—from the design of a city to the design of a seat. Through hand drawings, hand models and prototype building, students will test the growth systems hidden in these geometries.

Pablo Sequero (salazarsequeromedina)

Pablo Sequero

will teach the visiting critic studio, “Platform Surfside: The Adaptive City,” that foregrounds coastal adaptation and flood mitigation strategies for the existing residential block of the town of Surfside, Florida, a town in Miami-Dade County on a coastal barrier island in the northern extension of Miami Beach. As a continuation of the research initiated by the spring 2024 visiting critic studio led by Laura Salazar and Sequero—and part of a multi-year campaign around coastal resilience in collaboration with the Surfside community—students will use the previously produced work as a reference and starting point to shift their scale and depth of study to analyze the entire town of Surfside, allowing for a comprehensive approach that’s scalable, phased and flexible. However, where the spring studio dedicated its efforts to the design of a single-family residence in Surfside, students in this studio will thinking through strategies for residential typologies and the city block simultaneously. As the studio progresses, students will produce an interactive kit-of-parts conceived as a collection of strategies serving resilient housing, which could be redeployed not only in Surfside but in other coastal communities. Additionally, students will work with diverse members from Surfside to engage the community through a series of events including workshops, lectures and publications, as well as an exhibition with students and faculty from the University of Miami School of Architecture.

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca (Katherine Hogan Architects)

and will teach the visiting critic studio, “Working Backwards,” where students will work backwards to gain a greater understanding and confidence in the process of making architecture and develop a tectonic language, refining their individual instincts of how to approach a project. Through the development of physical models, present details and wall assemblies at large scales and in a variety of media, students will explore how an idea can be tested and ultimately strengthened through a critical analysis of site, context, program, material assemblies, craft and proformas.

Yuyang Liu (Atelier Liu Yuyang)

Yuyang Liu

will teach the visiting critic studio, “A Linear Museum in Suzhou,” where students will envision a linear museum in Suzhou, China—a city renowned for its rich cultural heritage and industrial prowess—that bridges the gap between historical reverence and contemporary innovation, creating a unique urban intervention that celebrates both the city’s rich heritage and its evolving present. Strategically located along a historically significant canal area renowned for its imperial tiles and ceramics dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911), the linear museum project will serve as a transformative intervention, reimagining the conventional museum as a dynamic, linear element embedded within the urban landscape rather than a singular, monumental structure. Students will approach their designs for the museum as continuous, integrated spaces that combine exhibition areas, retail outlets, food and beverage services and hospitality functions, offering multifaceted experiences to visitors and residents alike, while simultaneously revitalizing the area and reestablishing its historical significance.

Erin Cuevas

The has announced that architect Erin Cuevas is the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2024-25. Cuevas will succeed current fellow, Christina Chi Zhang.

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give emerging independent creatives the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

During the 2024-25 school year, Cuevas will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, Redefining Performance, which aims to advance independent, progressive and emerging design practice, stretching architecture into adjacent artistic realms and localities, bridging disciplines and communities alike. Students will push boundaries of animated mixed media representation and discover design opportunities within the unique Venn diagrams of their own interests.

‘Redefining Performance is a growing body of scenographic practice at the intersection of performance art, interactive digital media and architectural installation, participating in the evolution of theater into immersive experiences that blur the line between audience and performer,” says Cuevas. “The interdisciplinary and highly collaborative nature of the research embodies collective creativity and thought exchange between diverse participants across phases of researching, designing, capturing and experiencing the work.”

Like the eight previous Boghosian Fellows, Cuevas will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. Her research will culminate in a participatory public performance, expanding the School of Architecture beyond traditional bounds of the studio environments, activating spaces on campus, and engaging students, faculty and local artists and communities in a collective scenography.

Dismantling the privileged view in lieu of a shared stage, advances the inclusive potential of scenography by employing storytelling of underrepresented voices, site-specific public community events and accessible emerging technology. Often in collaboration with Jana Masset Collatz, as part of their co-founded design practice, CMLA, Cuevas’s work has been showcased in venues such as L.A. Dance Project Studios, the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, ACADIA and Architektur Galerie Berlin. Her practice has also received recognition through residencies, grants and published work spanning disciplines, including the Northwest ByDesign Film Festival, Cultured Magazine’s Young Architects list, Goldsmiths’ motion capture residency program and the World Stage Design conference, where CMLA received the first-place design award in 2022.

Prior to joining 黑料不打烊 Architecture, Cuevas was the director of global retail story design at Nike Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon, where she provided design direction of new global retail and seasonal concepts—most recently focusing on the installation for the 2024 Olympic Games. She received a graduate degree with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California (USC). Cuevas taught architecture and digital media at the USC School of Architecture from 2017-2022.

“Having followed the work of Boghosian Fellows over the past years, I am inspired by the program’s dedication to elevating diverse emerging talent and fostering new perspectives in the field of architecture,” says Cuevas. “The Boghosian Fellowship is an opportunity for me to expand the traditional architectural discipline through a unique and highly personal concert of elements—dance, architecture, storytelling and creative technology.”

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016-17), Linda Zhang (2017-18), James Leng (2018-19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019-20), Liang Wang (2020-21), Leen Katrib (2021-22), Lily Chishan Wong (2022-23) and Christina Chi Zhang (2023-24).

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, the .

Selected from nearly 600 submissions, 84 individuals—including established and emerging architects, artists, curators, designers, filmmakers, historians and writers—were given the prestigious annual grants for their publications, research, exhibitions, films, site-specific installations and digital initiatives that expand contemporary ideas of architecture through innovative rigorous interdisciplinary work on design and the built environment.

“Congratulations to both Professor Brown and Assistant Professor Myers,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “These awards are among the most prestigious in architecture and the fine arts and will help these professors and, indeed, our school to advance scholarship and research in our discipline.”

‘Women Architects and Global Solidarity Across the Cold War Divide: The International Union of Women Architects, 1963–1993’

Lori Brown

Lori A. Brown, along with , senior lecturer in architectural design at the University of Melbourne, have been awarded funding to support their research project, “Women Architects and Global Solidarity Across the Cold War Divide: The International Union of Women Architects, 1963–1993.”

Feminist architectural history has frequently been organized around individual figures or national historiographies, but rarely around the transnational networks that connect women architects into a global feminist movement. This project uncovers a key transnational women’s organization: the International Union of Women Architects (UIFA), founded in 1963, to narrate a new global history of women’s organizing in architecture. Spanning a diversity of sites from Berlin, Bucharest, Cape Town, Iran, Paris and Seattle, during the years 1963–93, UIFA’s membership crossed 90 countries, and the organization attracted powerful women patrons—from the Empress of Iran to Princess Grace of Monaco. This geographic reach offers a sharp lens for investigating how women architects organized across the Cold War divide and how nation states mobilized the UIFA global conferences to promote their own political aspirations, including state feminism.

International Union of Women Architects, Ramsar, Iran (Photo courtesy of Noushin Ehsan)

“We are honored that our research project is receiving support from the Graham Foundation,” says Brown. “This grant recognizes the innovative quality of the project which locates women architects in a transnational organization that was advocating for women’s professional equity. This research will redraw the map of women’s architectural history to understand the diversity of places and people shaping architecture in the second half of the 20th century.”

Here There Be Dragons, Season Four: Odes[s]a

Jess Myers

Urbanist Jess Myers has been awarded funding to support Odes[s]a, season four of her narrative documentary podcast, “,” which explores the gaps between residents’ security concerns and the responses their governance structures make visible in policy and design decisions.

After seasons on New York, Paris, and Stockholm, season four of “Here There Be Dragons” turns to the Black Sea to focus on the diasporic and residential communities of Odesa, Ukraine, and how they navigate the question of safety. The podcast’s title is inspired by medieval cartographer’s depiction of sea monsters and demons hovering over unexplored land or dangerous territories, accompanied by the phrase hic sunt dracones, “here be dragons.” The dragons are symbolic of the systems of uncertainty and fear that define the borders of a known territory. Each season explores contemporary urban territories and engages with residents on the concept of security narratives and the “dragons” that perpetuate them. Resident experiences reveal the impact that urban policy, design decisions and social histories have over time, recognizing the shift in the landscape of post-9/11 security politics in which the growth of cities is inextricably linked to the proliferation of securitized development. The podcast navigates the hidden post-occupancy studies that lurk in mundane encounters with city life.

“Studio Collage” by Jess Myers

“The Graham Foundation’s support allows me to refine and elevate research on Odesa, Ukraine in a period where this work is particularly difficult,” says Myers. “I am immensely grateful for funding that will allow me to pursue the rigor that residents’ stories deserve.”

The 2024 grantees join a worldwide network of individuals and organizations that the has supported over the past 68 years. In that time, the Foundation has awarded more than 44 million dollars in direct support to over 5,100 projects by individuals and organizations around the world.

Linxi (Jenny) Zhang

Linxi (Jenny) Zhang ’24—a fifth-year bachelor of architecture degree student in the —has been selected for , an elite group of architecture and interior architecture students from the United States and Canada.

Launched in 2021, the award recognizes the top 100 graduating students in North America who, as rising leaders, are defining and reimagining the practice of architecture and interior architecture. Selected from a diverse pool of candidates, Zhang is one of only 21 undergraduate architecture students to receive the honor, selected based on the creativity, rigor, skill and professionalism exhibited by their portfolios and nomination entries. “We were blown away by the quality of work you and your peers submitted, and we feel that you represent a bright future for our industry—one of beautiful, thoughtful, innovative, sustainable and inclusive design,” says Avinash Rajagopal, editor in chief of the magazine, in the award letter.

窜丑补苍驳’蝉 represents her interest in the relationship between spaces, sequence and formal aesthetic. As an architecture student and future designer, she is especially concerned with how architecture design and the user experience is changing people’s lives.

In the project “LPC Headquarters,” Zhang and her partner designed a building on top of an existing landmark for the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) headquarters. To fully respect the context of 315-317 Broadway, the design incorporates setbacks on all sides. A cantilevered hearing hall is “bitten” into the landmark where the open corner plaza invites the city in to watch hearings on large-scale video boards. Inside, the building features a utility core, an open office and meeting room, bookshelves that act as a lending library for staff, as well as an exhibition space that serves as a museum and area for hearing introductions. The building’s fa?ade pattern and material are highly influenced by the inside programs.

LPC Headquarters, elevation from Broadway

More recently, Zhang and her partner worked on “Sweep Scapes,” (shown below) a project to create a new access point between The 606—a 2.7-mile elevated park and trail in Chicago that was built on what was once an industrial train line—and a green boulevard. Their design incorporates a fully accessible bike ramp that cascades throughout the building, leading up to a green roof and garden for the community and its bikers. Through utilizing ramp circulation, green spaces and sport court projection, these sweep scapes extend the experience of The 606 and provide further recreational space in Chicago throughout the year.

“Among her various attributes, Jenny’s ability to construct architectural tectonics and forms from thoughtful consideration of urban context and user experience is notable,” says Daekwon Park, undergraduate chair and associate professor in the School of Architecture, who nominated Zhang for the program. “Her impressive work consistently shows her commitment to social, cultural and environmental sustainability.”

While at 黑料不打烊, Zhang has served as an undergraduate program associate for a first-year design studio for three semesters, as well as working as a (SOURCE) undergraduate research assistant for Professor Lori Brown’s faculty research team. She has been awarded the Louis Jay Masters Scholarship (2021-22), Robert W. Cutler Scholarship (May 2022), Internship Funding Award (2023), and Integrated Design Studio Prize (Spring 2023), along with being named to the Dean’s List every semester since 2020.

“I am greatly honored to have been selected for Metropolis magazine’s Future100, knowing that my work and design concepts are recognized by the wider audience,” says Zhang. “I will continue to dedicate myself to designing and renovating architecture to benefit the community by solving social issues and using design to improve the quality of people’s lives.”

After graduation, Zhang plans to gain hands-on experience in the practical world by entering the architecture profession as a young designer, but would also like to extend her research further along the way. She looks forward to attending graduate school after a few years with more specific interests and design perspectives.

As part of the Future100 honor, 窜丑补苍驳’蝉 work will be included in a compilation of video segments by , featuring Future100 members, scheduled for release in the spring.

The full Future100 class of 2024 digital showcase is .

“Sweep Scapes” model

Albert Williamson-Taylor

The School of Architecture has announced that world-renowned engineer Albert Williamson-Taylor, director and co-founder of international engineering firm , will address graduates at the 2024 Convocation ceremony on May 11 at 10 a.m. in Hendricks Chapel.

Williamson-Taylor grew up in the United Kingdom, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and built his career in London, initially working for Price & Myers and for Anthony Hunt Associates, before ultimately co-founding Adams Kara Taylor—now AKT II—in 1996. Today, Taylor and his firm put design and technology at the forefront of engineering practice to find solutions for the planet’s many challenges.

While overseeing AKT II for over 25 years, Williamson-Taylor has worked on numerous high-profile projects with architects and designers in more than 50 countries. Under his technical leadership, AKTII’s service to both the art and science of design has been recognized with 400-plus design awards, including four RIBA Stirling Prizes. The practice has also been named Building Awards 2019 “Engineering Consultant of the Year” and Architizer A+ Awards 2021 “Engineering Firm of the Year.”

Highlights of Williamson-Taylor’s portfolio of design authorship include the Stirling Prize-winning in London; the “groundscraper” in London; the inhabited sculpture in New York; the master planned Google Mountain View campus in California; the demountable for Expo 2010 Shanghai in China; the eco-friendly in the Red Sea; the science city in Abu Dhabi; and the monumental development in Ghana.

Williamson-Taylor’s portfolio also includes several landmark towers, such as the and redevelopments in London, the in Baghdad, and the Villaggio Vista residential development in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. He is presently leading the structural engineering for the Mukaab in Riyadh, becoming the largest building structure on the planet.

In addition to his professional practice, Williamson-Taylor has taught with London’s Architectural Association School of Architecture (the AA) since 2011, where he leads technical tutoring for the master-level architecture course within the institution’s avant-garde Design Research Laboratory (DRL). He has also served as a design-review panelist for the London Borough of Southwark and the London Borough of Newham. Williamson-Taylor is a fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

In 2023, Williamson-Taylor was the first Black engineer to be awarded the Gold Medal Award—the Institution’s highest individual honor—in recognition of his outstanding contribution to structural engineering and to society. To celebrate this achievement, Williamson-Taylor delivered his Gold Medal address in September 2023 at the institution’s headquarters in London and , where he reflected on his career to date and on the future of engineering.

Williamson-Taylor studied engineering at the University of Bristol and Bradford University from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, while working variously as a site laborer, a chef, a nightclub doorman and an overnight factory worker, in addition to tutoring younger students and mentoring youth offenders.

For many years in parallel, Williamson-Taylor also leveraged a professional Taekwondo career—achieving the elite “fifth-dan master” level and competing globally—to mentor young people from underprivileged backgrounds into higher education. He ran martial arts clubs in London with the specific policy of “no education; no training.”

Today, Williamson-Taylor is integral to AKT II’s outreach with inner-city schools and colleges, alongside the firm’s volunteer STEM Ambassadors who encourage young people from all backgrounds to consider careers in engineering and design. He has also been appointed as the first president of the charity , which aims to make urban design and architecture more accessible to everyone and works to steward young people into the built environment’s design and construction.

Williamson-Taylor is now working—including through his role as a board trustee with the new architecture school, —to enable the sharing of technology for architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) in Africa.

Election to the AIA’s College of Fellows is one of the highest individual honors the institute bestows on members. Out of a total AIA membership of more than 98,000, only 3% carry this distinction.

The elevation to fellowship is conferred on architects with at least 10 years of AIA architect membership and demonstrated influence in at least one of the following areas: promoted the aesthetic, scientific and practical efficiency of the profession; advanced the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of practice; coordinated the building industry and the profession of architecture; ensured the advancement of the living standards of people through their improved environment; made the profession of ever-increasing service to society; advanced the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of architectural education and training.

Fellows are selected by a nine-member Jury of Fellows. This year’s jury included Chair Sandra Barclay, Hon. FAIA, Barclay & Crousse Architecture; Andrew Fox Bromberg, Hon. FAIA, Andrew Bromberg Architects; Lisa Lamkin, FAIA, Brown Reynolds Watford Architects, Inc; Carl D’Silva, FAIA, Perkins + Will; Sanford Garner, FAIA, RGCollaborative; Margaret McFadden Carney, FAIA, Cornell University; Pamela Rew, FAIA, KSS Architects; Anne Schopf, FAIA, Mahlum; and Lourdes Solera, FAIA, MCHarry Associates.

“We congratulate Ann Marie and Jeffrey on the occasion of being elevated to the prestigious AIA College of Fellows,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Such recognition is a testament to not only their singular achievements, which are impressive, but also to their significant contributions to the profession and society on a national level.”

Ann Marie Borys

Ann Marie Borys?is a professor in the . As an architect and scholar who studies conditions of practice and the built environment as material culture, her research explores the relationship of construction, intention and meaning. Borys examines the ideas and influences that contribute to design and their relationship to the physical and experiential qualities of architecture.

Borys began practicing architecture in Washington, D.C. and Boston area firms, achieving licensure along the way. She taught full-time at the University of Cincinnati in 1991 and joined the faculty of the University of Washington in 2010, where she regularly teaches an undergraduate integrated design studio, a required graduate history and theory course, and a required professional practice course.

Borys has published two books,?“,”? the first English-language book on this 16th-century northern Italian architect, and “,” which explores the denominational context for significant contributions to 150 years of American architecture and how they embody the unique social and cultural profile of Unitarianism in American history. Both books focus on shifts in the role of the architect and on interpretation of design as an expression of explicitly stated ideas and values.

Borys holds a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree in architecture from 黑料不打烊 and a doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, where she focused on Roman and Renaissance studies.

“I am incredibly honored to become a member of the College of Fellows and proud to be included in a group of accomplished colleagues advancing all aspects of the profession,” says Borys. “I am grateful to the honors and awards committee of AIA Seattle for the support and mentorship I received in this process, and for the esteemed colleagues that were willing to support me as well with their letters. This honor provides a sense of satisfaction in reflecting on certain struggles and challenges along the way—as well as the successes—and discovering that they all contributed to a larger purpose.”

Jeffrey J. Pastva

Jeffrey J. Pastva is the vice president of development at , a Philadelphia-based real estate firm. As an architect and certified passive house consultant, he has extensive experience designing housing—including affordable, student and senior typologies—for both single and multi-family projects as well as new and rehab projects. Previously, Pastva held senior project architect roles for traditional architectural practices in the Philadelphia area.

A longtime Philadelphia resident, Pastva is highly active in his local and national AIA organization, serving as the 2021 AIA Pennsylvania President and on the AIA Philadelphia board. He has also held the role of director of communications for the AIA Young Architects Forum (YAF) and editor-in-chief for “YAF CONNECTION” and the AIA College of Fellows “QUARTERLY” magazines.

At the civic level, Pastva served as co-chair of his neighborhood community organization’s architectural review committee, which set the precedent for design review committees throughout the city. He also initiated and led a community development partnership with AIA’s Blueprint for Better campaign, AIA Pennsylvania and the New Cumberland Borough in Pennsylvania that became a model for how national grant funding and an AIA state chapter could engage at a local level. The project was awarded an American Society of Association Executives Gold Circle Award in 2020.

Pastva has been amply recognized for his contributions to the field, including being named a recipient of the 2017 Young Architects Award by AIA, a year after he won the AIA Pennsylvania’s Emerging Professional Award.

Pastva holds a bachelor of architecture degree from 黑料不打烊 and has been a licensed architect in Pennsylvania since 2011.

“Being elevated to the College is a tremendous honor and it means I have even more of a responsibility to give back to the profession,” says Pastva. “I have the privilege of earning this distinction in an early stage of my career and I pledge to provide guidance, mentorship and assistance to the emerging talent in our profession so they can reach their own potential and goals.”

For more information on the College of Fellows or to view the complete list of newly elevated architect fellows, visit the .

Christina Chi Zhang (Boghosian Fellow 2023-2024)

Christina Chi Zhang

Christina Chi Zhang, the eighth Harry der Boghosian Fellow at 黑料不打烊 Architecture, will teach the visiting critic studio, “A Seed for a Song: Urban Seed Libraries as Memory Vessels,” where students will learn about a city and its recent history, and design for its people with sensitivity and care.

As place-makers, how do we make hopeful and benevolent spaces in a post-traumatic city? Spending years in darkness before it germinates and grows, a seed is a powerful metaphor for resilience and hope in difficult times. In Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the city that endured the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, seeds are rich in meaning; they carry generations of indigenous knowledge, represent wartime memories, and invite people to collectively care, imagine and plant a new landscape.

Traveling to Sarajevo and working with local collaborators Kuma International and Smirna Kulenovi?, students will learn to translate rigorous on-site research into sensitive design solutions by designing a series of small-scale “seed libraries” located on the public streets of Sarajevo. These urban seed libraries will not only showcase and transmit seeds of indigenous plants, but also collect and tell oral histories about these plants, and provide spaces for gathering, sharing, and other public activities. Through this design exercise, students will explore architecture’s power to tell stories, connect, and heal.

窜丑补苍驳’蝉 fellowship research will culminate in the form of a symposium and exhibition in fall 2024.

Gary Bates (Make Make) and Albert Williamson-Taylor (AKT II)

Gary Bates (left) and Albert Williamson-Taylor

and will teach the visiting critic studio, “BIG Harlem,” which is framed around housing, workspace, environmental justice, health equity and economic development and proposes a deliberate transgression of the status quo, afforded by the absence of client, budget and program.

The studio will begin by reinterpreting programs, reclaiming the drawing and designing for scenarios yet to be considered. Students will look to learn from aspects of Harlem’s history that are rarely addressed: the profound efforts of those who have worked to revitalize the community and will investigate the rise, fall and reinvention of community development corporations in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.

Beyond the traditional lens of redlining, flight, deindustrialization, abandonment and disinvestment, the studio will start where CDC’s left off in the 1980s, replete with their failed efforts to attract the middle class in this new context of the creative destruction of Harlem and the recapture of the urban core. In this context, the studio will attempt to resurrect the radicalism that informed the formation of community development corporations, and propose a step change, from HOUSING as an architectural construct to LIVING as a social framework.

Laura Salazar and Pablo Sequero Barrera (salazarsequeromedina)

and will teach the visiting critic studio “Platform Surfside: The Resilient Case Study House” that foregrounds the design of a single-family residence in Surfside, Florida, as a case study house illustrating strategies for coastal resilience in response to sea-level rise.

Laura Salazar (center) and Pablo Sequero Barrera (right)

As one of the most recognizable, culturally valuable and environmentally vulnerable landscapes in the world, the present and escalating effects of climate change confronting the built environment on Surfside—a town in Miami-Dade County on a coastal barrier island in the northern extension of Miami Beach—are exemplary for coastal communities everywhere. Much of the landscape of metropolitan Miami has been artificially constructed, and its continued existence hinges on further infrastructural adaptation and mitigation systems at the territorial scale.

Beginning with this studio, the School of Architecture plans to launch a yearlong campaign around coastal resilience in collaboration with the Surfside community, generously supported by School of Architecture alumnus and Surfside resident Roy Raskin ’95. While the scope and complexity of the challenge is overwhelming, the campaign plays out over a sequence of smaller design projects that serve to produce awareness and incite actionable efforts in the community.

In this spring studio, students will design practical, single-family housing models that embody known resilient, adaptive principles that consider the performance of their houses under storm and sea-level rise conditions. As the project progresses in scale and specificity, a kit-of-parts will be derived from the design process as a constructive system or a catalog of forms, which could be redeployed to other coastal communities.

Complementing the development of the project, students will travel to Surfside twice over the course of the semester where they’ll explore the site conditions, the community and its surroundings, experience the architectural history of Miami as a lineage to which the Case Study House must respond to, and have the opportunity to verify the validity of adaptive design principles and design strategies by sharing the production of their mid reviews with local collaborators and regional manufacturers.

T+E+A+M

Adam Fure, Meredith Miller and Thom Moran (standing left to right) and Ellie Abrons (seated) of T+E+A+M. (Photo by Hugo Yu)

will teach the visiting critic studio, “Screen Space / Green Space,” where students will use the representational tools of scenography, virtual production and livestreaming to design an architectural proposition for an existing building in Detroit.

Avoiding demolition of buildings has become an urgent task for the field of architecture. Historical restoration and adaptive reuse are common strategies to preserve signature older buildings, but many buildings, especially those that may be seen as unremarkable, or that have fallen into severe disrepair, require more radical approaches to preservation.

This studio builds on T+E+A+M’s recent pedagogical experiments exploring the relationship between existing material conditions and digital representation, and their deepening expertise in repurposing buildings in disrepair. Working with an existing building site in Detroit, students will design on-site architectural interventions, digital spaces, production studios (green screen environments) and the mediated interactions that produce this hybrid architectural experience. During the semester, students will travel to Detroit to see and document the site and tour historical buildings and see the unique ways in which artists, architects and developers are imagining new uses for old buildings.

T+E+A+M will give a on Thursday, Feb. 8, at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Georgia Fernandes

From a young age, Georgia Fernandes ’24, a fifth-year student from Kenya studying in the School of Architecture, has always wanted to tell stories. Fernandes’ desire to create something from scratch, much like architecture, led her to begin writing movie scripts as a hobby during the pandemic. Realizing the impact that film had on communities in Kenya and around the world, Fernandes wanted to create films that would do the same and make people think, feel and imagine.

“All of my scripts surround strong women and put women in the main spotlight,” says Fernandes. “Where some create feel-good experiences, others are more of a raw insight into what it means to be a woman living in this world.”

After listening to true stories of the resilience and bravery that many young Kenyan girls had, Fernandes knew she had to tell their story.

“,” a Kenyan film highlighting the truth about HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence, written and produced by Fernandes, opened with its first screening in November 2022 on the eve of the , an annual international campaign led by UN Women.

Representing the perseverance that thousands of young girls demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when statistics of gender-based violence reached appalling heights in Kenya, the film combines hundreds of different real-life stories affecting girls under the age of 15 that all have one thing in common: rape.

“Mercy”

In the film, 15-year-old Mercy faces the unimaginable. What could have been the end of her story is only the start of an incredible and transformative journey of triumph over adversity.

“‘Mercy’ is not a film that begs for sympathy, but it strives for change,” says Fernandes. “I think stories like this that describe the courage that young African girls show should not be kept secret but instead should be shared with the world. I hope that everyone who watches the short film will see how one wrong decision can affect multiple lives.”

“Mercy” officially opened for public viewing in March 2023, coinciding with , a day-long student-driven event to raise awareness of modern slavery.

“My hope for this film is that it will launch the , which would push men to think twice before they even touch a girl,” says Fernandes. “‘Mercy’ is more than a movie; it’s a movement with a purpose.”

Since premiering, the film has been that focus on women’s rights, including those partnering with the as well as the .

Fernandes is working on creating “Triple Caution,” a film about a female’s courage and determination in the Kenyan motorsport industry, due out in 2025.

Li Han and Hu Yan (Drawing Architecture Studio)

and , co-founders of Beijing-based , will teach the visiting critic studio, “Building Stories: The Poetry in Everyday Space,” where students will showcase how architecture and space transcend their utilitarian functions to become integral components of storytelling.

Li Han and Hu Yan

Inspired by the backdrop of the multi-family house featured in the graphic novel “Building Stories,” the studio is conceived as an experimental exploration of a design approach based on narrative and sensitivity. Beginning with the interior design of a multi-family house and gradually expanding to encompass various scales and design domains, ranging from everyday items and furniture to architecture and urban landscapes, students will embody different roles and derive inspiration from everyday spaces in 黑料不打烊, defining poetic moments through design and telling their own building stories. The entire design process—emphasizing intricate observation, detailed representation, multi-threaded storytelling and collage—is viewed as a comprehensive study of multi-family housing, spanning from the functional layout of living spaces to the lifestyles of residents, and from the cultural aesthetics of architecture to the historical memories of the city.

Han and Yan will give a , focusing on their upcoming exhibition, “,” on Sept. 21 at 6 p.m. in the Hosmer Auditorium at the Everson Museum of Art.

Da-Un Yoo (Ewha Womans University)

Da-Un Yoo

, professor in the Department of Architecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Extreme Living: 22nd Century Seoul Housing,” which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the publication “Towards a New Architecture” by Le Corbusier by exploring the ‘new architecture’ for the 22nd century.

Just as Le Corbusier explored the various housing typologies and lifestyles that new technologies would change in the era of automobiles, airplanes, ships and mass production about 100 years ago, students will imagine the future of urban housing based on the latest technologies such as autonomous vehicles, drone taxis and online telecommunication. Using Seoul as the site for their investigations, students will research scenarios for extreme living and design a high-density urban housing proposal for 22nd-century Seoul. In addition to typical studio sessions, students will travel to Seoul in the fall, as part of a one-week sponsored trip, to gain a greater understanding of the city’s extreme housing culture—the high-rise apartment buildings and neighborhoods resembling ‘towers in the park’—reminiscent of the city Le Corbusier predicted 100 years ago.

Yoo will give a on Sept. 28 at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Bing Bu (黑料不打烊 Architecture and INCLS)

, director of the 黑料不打烊 Architecture Three Cities Asia program, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Project Promised Land,” where students will examine “managed retreat” as a necessary measure in response to climate change induced natural hazards in the contexts of social, technological, economic, ecological and political aspects.

Bing Bu

Climate change now feels more real than ever as we have witnessed New York City covered by wildfire smog or California deserts flooded by a hurricane in the past summer. Whether or not we have lost the tipping point in the war against global warming, it’s time to take actions to adapt to these new climate patterns. Structured in two phases, the research phase and the design phase, the studio will focus on a relatively new approach to increased coastal hazard risks—managed retreat, the purposeful and coordinated action to move infrastructure and people away from areas of high-risk of negative impacts due to climate change. In phase one, students will research climate change and managed retreat for Lake Ontario communities in upstate New York and represent their findings through visual mediums. In phase two, working in site-specific project teams, students will identify issues and challenges from a local view and establish their managed retreat frameworks, design proposals and means of implementation for the built environment in both sending and receiving sites.

This studio is a part of the “ launched earlier this year by the New York Department of State (DOS) to engage graduate and undergraduate students in DOS programs and projects that focus on climate change and climate justice. During the semester, students will access a wide range of data and information provided by the DOS and meet twice a month with DOS officials and regional staff, as well as in-house experts and trusted partners. The final works produced by students will be shared with policymakers, program managers and decisionmakers from the Office of Planning, Development and Community Infrastructure as a visual tool, and incorporated into statewide policy and program guidance to be utilized by both DOS and other state agencies working on coastal and climate resilience.

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis (DAVIDSON RAFAILIDIS)

and , co-founders of the architecture practice , will teach the visiting critic studio, “House for Everyone,” where students will look at an adaptive reuse project that exemplifies how architecture is both a private matter and a public good.

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis

In this studio, students will examine a property located at the southern edge of the Adirondacks. Owned by a family with ties to 黑料不打烊, they have expressed an interest in opening up the use of the property, which has historically been a private summer home, and finding new ways that it can serve their private needs and serve a wider community. Students will analyze the existing buildings on the property: their materiality and construction, their apparent tectonic logics, the types of spaces they offer and their relationship to the landscape of the Adirondacks and the climate of upstate New York. They will study existing spatial typologies that have—either through design or happenstance—proven to be spaces for everyone: radically inclusive, and not bound to a specific program or user group, as well as a typology specific to the Adirondacks: “Great Camps.” Following these investigations, fragments of these studies will crosspollinate with documentation and exploration of the site—detailed measurements, exhaustive photos and an inventory of materials—taken from a sponsored site visit during peak fall foliage season. Through the complex process of adaptive-reuse, students will create outcomes that are typologically unclassifiable and alive, informed by the past and imaginings of the future, hopeful and provocative, populist and joyful.

As part of several new research initiatives by the Lender Center to accelerate efforts to address the racial wealth gap and help dismantle the root causes of wealth disparity, the funded proposals—supported by the —provide support to scholars with new or ongoing research projects that relate to the causes, consequences and solutions on the problem of ever-expanding economic and social inequality.

The architecture team’s research project, “Closing the Racial Wealth Gap through Environmental Justice and Participatory Design,” intends to identify ways that the built environment can have a positive impact on basic life needs that are typically neglected in underprivileged communities, which include communities of color, low-income, disability, the elderly and immigrant populations. Through three phases—data analysis and design research, curricular implementation and impact and transferability—the team hopes to better understand the entrenched systems (policy, municipal, zoning, etc.) that have created and exacerbated racial wealth gaps.

CloudHouse Shade Structure, a temporary pavilion designed by Iman Fayyad in collaboration with the City of Cambridge in 2021, provided a space for respite in a park frequented by nearby daycare and school children as well as public housing residents in a low-income neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Photo by Iman Fayyad)

With this knowledge, their project intends to engage communities through design technologies using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and other participatory tools to create opportunities for exchange, participation and co-production of knowledge to empower communities to have a voice into what is modeled and built within their local environments.

“The highlight of this project is its focus on participatory planning, a challenge that we will address through both technology and design, merging disciplines and expertise,” says Abu-Hamdi, principal investigator (PI) for the project. “The Lender Center is supporting our growing roster of faculty engaged in community-facing research, allowing us to become further recognized as a reliable partner to local communities, demonstrating the value of design in relation to ongoing economic, infrastructural, social and spatial challenges.”

In phase one of the team’s project, design strategies centered around environmental justice concerns such as urban heat islands and shade, accessibility/universal design and building construction technologies, will be developed to address how inadequate physical infrastructure, specifically with regard to design and construction, has historically excluded members of minority communities from participating in the construction, selection and design of community facilities, municipal resources and public recreation.?In this way, communities, policymakers and planners can better understand the conditions that generated current developmental problems and the potential interventions that could reverse detrimental effects through design.

“There is a lot of opportunity to push our own disciplines in service of climate justice, sustainable building practices and community involvement,” says Fayyad, co-PI for the project. “Through our combined efforts with research, practice and teaching, we can consider how to make public spaces healthier, more accessible and equitable, and importantly, explore how design can empower communities by providing aesthetic value as well as functional, efficient and necessary infrastructure to improve the livelihoods of marginalized populations.”

Tree Canopy Score in 黑料不打烊, New York (Rendering by Daniel Cronan)

Site-specific implementation is another primary goal of the first year of funding and phase two of the project. The team plans to create and prepare content for curricular development of a studio course jointly led by faculty at the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture and SUNY-ESF in which students will research, design, develop and build proposals for public infrastructure for select communities in the City of 黑料不打烊. To propose the curriculum, the team will develop design research over the next year as “products” (tools and techniques) that students will use as part of the course.

“We see this endeavor as a great challenge and hope to expand the scope of this year’s research focus to provide transferrable skills, frameworks and expanded resources to build awareness and resilience within these communities,” says Cronan, co-PI for the project.

In the third phase of the project, the team will assess the applicability of their research and development of the BIM platform, as a digital twin, for broader purposes and for a variety of sites—rural, urban, large or small. This interface, and the site-specific design interventions that can be realized, are key to community empowerment in any location, to serve any variety of community needs. Through the BIM application and design proposals (both in the form of a built prototype and further speculative variations), the team’s co-production framework of analysis and design will allow for transferability to future research applied to communities with similar concerns and further research beyond the applied case study for 黑料不打烊.

“We are grateful to the Lender Center for providing this opportunity for us to evolve our research and for supporting efforts on campus to connect with our immediate communities in 黑料不打烊 as well as address greater systemic issues across the United States,” says the team.

The team will present their collected data, built proposal and speculative future proposals at the annual , jointly hosted by SUNY-ESF and 黑料不打烊 faculty and students, in March 2024 and March 2025. For more information about the Lender Center for Social Justice’s programmatic initiative to explore the racial wealth gap in the United States, visit .

Lawrence Chua (Photo courtesy of Timothy Gerken)

Throughout the upcoming academic year, will embark on three international fellowships supporting the research and writing of his next single-authored scholarly monograph investigating the chronopolitics and temporal entanglements of modern architecture and the pre-modern built environment in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Tentatively titled “Constructing Anachronism: karma, renaissance and rebirth in Southeast Asian architectural history,” the project builds on Chua’s previous book, and traces the movements of Southeast Asia’s architectural and epigraphical fragments from the pre-colonial past into the present. The book argues that although architectural modernity is typically narrated as a new conception of time rooted in the present, modernism in the region was also oriented toward “medieval” and “classical” pasts.

“This argument necessitates an investigation into what these temporal categories, imported from European historiography in the 19th and 20th centuries, meant in the context of the Southeast Asian built environment and how the colonial deployment of the concept of ‘renaissance’ squared against local understandings of karma, rebirth and sovereignty,” says Chua.

Through a historical investigation of the construction of an anachronistic landscape in modern-day mainland Southeast Asia, Chua’s book seeks to understand the ways that various regimes disaggregated fragments of the historical past from their older social and cosmological contexts as they crossed over into the progressive clock- and calendar-time of modernity.

Chua will spend the summer and fall of 2023 on a Visiting Research Scholar Fellowship at the at Kyoto University in Japan, one of the world’s foremost centers for Southeast Asian regional studies. Awarded to “productive scholars of high reputation—who work on comparative and regional issues from a multi-area perspective—to conduct research, write or pursue other scholarly interests in connection with their field of study.” The center is of particular importance to Chua’s project because it has the most extensive library of “cremation volumes” outside of Thailand. Initiated in the late 19th century, these commemorative books were given as gifts to guests at Thai funerals, and usually include a biography of the deceased as well as other literary materials.

“These unique volumes are important resources for archival material that may not have been collected in state or institutional archives,” says Chua. “They include not only biographies of early 20th-century architects and urban planners but important documents about the history of the architectural profession.”

During the first half of 2024, Chua will study as a Senior Research Fellow at the , an overseas research center that promotes research, teaching and public service in the social sciences, arts and humanities in Cambodia and the Mekong region. Based in Siem Reap, near the Angkor Archaeological Park in northern Cambodia, the fellowship places him in close proximity to not only Angkor Wat but many of the other medieval and modern sites in the region that corresponds with his research.

“This in-country research fellowship will allow me to also access important archives in Phnom Penh that relate to the professionalization of architecture in the Sangkum Reastr Niyum era, the brief but influential period of non-aligned socialism the country enjoyed after its independence from France,” says Chua.

In addition to the fellowships in Japan and Cambodia, Chua will concurrently hold a fellowship through the (FRESCO), initiated by the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS), the international research college of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t, Freiburg in Germany. Intended to establish long-lasting and sustainable relationships between “excellent researchers in Freiburg and high-ranking national and international researchers to substantially strengthen and develop emerging fields,” Chua’s five-month FRESCO fellowship is spread out over two years and will allow him to develop a collaborative project with members of the comparative field of Comparative Area Studies and Transregional Studies in the university’s initiative.

“I am delighted to be able to return to FRIAS, where I held a Marie S. Curie Junior Research fellowship in 2018,” says Chua. “That earlier fellowship exposed me to so many excellent scholars in linguistics, visual studies, mathematics and law. The transdisciplinary conversations we had were inspiring and intellectually generative. The fellowship allowed me to complete the manuscript of my first scholarly monograph, and I am hoping this one will be as productive.”

Chua is a historian of the modern built environment with a focus on Asian architecture and urban culture. He is the author of “Bangkok Utopia: Modern Architecture and Buddhist Felicities” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2021). He has been a fellow at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; a Marie S. Curie FCFP fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universit?t, Freiburg, Germany; and a fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. Chua currently serves as co-editor of the “ArchAsia” book series at Hong Kong University Press; as a member of the editorial collective of “positions: east asia critique;” as a member of the editorial board of the “Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians;” and as co-chair of the Race and Architectural History affiliate group of the Society of Architectural Historians.

For more information about Lawrence Chua and his work, visit .

Luo (left) and Zhang

Launched in 2021, the award recognizes the top 100 graduating students in North America who, as rising leaders, are defining and reimagining the practice of architecture and interior architecture.

Selected from a diverse pool of candidates, Luo and Zhang are two of only 24 undergraduate architecture students to receive the honor, selected based on the creativity, rigor, skill and professionalism exhibited by their portfolios and nomination entries.

“We were blown away by the quality of work you and your peers submitted, and we feel that you represent a bright future for our industry—one of beautiful, thoughtful, innovative, sustainable and inclusive design,” says Avinash Rajagopal, editor-in-chief of the magazine, in the award letters.

Chenhao Luo

尝耻辞’蝉 attempts to answer the question: How can urban design shift social and cultural paradigms in today’s precarious world and rapidly changing economic landscape?

“Grabhub,” 尝耻辞’蝉 project, uses the vending machine as a metaphor to create a grocery store, with steel as the primary material, to anchor the population of downtown 黑料不打烊. The proposal takes the conventional linear supply chain and the enfilade of spaces (unloading, back of house, floor space, storefront window display) and collapses their relationship into a series of planar moments. So much like the vending machine, the window display, the inventory, the transaction interface and the projected social bubble all exist within a thin slither of space. Each programmatic element takes on multiple agendas; shopping for groceries is also a social opportunity or a recreational moment.

“Grabhub” uses the vending machine as a metaphor for such omnipresence that puts materialism and our blasé consumerism on display as a mass spectacle. (Courtesy of Chenhao Luo)

“Chenhao tackles each project with an extraordinary rigor and unrivaled productivity,” says , undergraduate chair and associate professor in the School of Architecture, who nominated Luo. “His body of work is primarily rooted in the urban domain, yet his approaches are as meticulous and precise as it is all-embracing and systematic.”

During his time at the school, Luo has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for both first- and fourth-year studios based in Shanghai and 黑料不打烊. He has also received academic research funding from the (SOURCE) to study new forms of urbanity, material archi-tectonic research and new modes of sharing based on everyday life in Los Angeles.

“This nationwide competition was an excellent opportunity to evaluate my prior knowledge and design thinking. I feel incredibly honored to have been selected for Metropolis magazine’s Future100, and I’m thrilled that a wider audience can recognize my design,” says Luo. “I am truly grateful to the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture for providing me with a wonderful education—I would not be who I am without the program’s supportive faculty and encouraging peers.”

After graduation, Luo plans to make traveling a priority so that he can see and experience different architectural styles and cultures, giving him a deeper understanding of the ways in which architecture can shape and reflect society and inspire new ideas and approaches to his own design work. He also hopes to concentrate on gaining real-world experience in the fields of architecture and urban design, as well as exploring other industries, like regional planning, consulting or real estate, while preparing to take the Architect Registration Examination for professional licensure.

Angelina Yihan Zhang

窜丑补苍驳’蝉 demonstrates her keen interest in the systematic creation of resilient habitats as practical remedies for disenfranchised communities.

In “Re-imagining Makoko,” an architectural and urban project done during the pandemic, Zhang worked closely with doctors, anthropologists and stakeholders in a marginalized slum neighborhood in Lagos Lagoon, adjacent to Nigeria, to address the undocumented health and safety hazards compounded by the resource scarcity.

“Re-imagining Makoko” is a modular mobile housing proposal for slum typology. (Courtesy of Angelina Yihan Zhang)

She led the design team in proposing mobile amphibious assemblages that could be adapted for multiple uses, with the goal of raising awareness and momentum to resolve the resource inequities that have been normalized in the Global South. The modular home design aims to tackle the most prevalent challenge experienced by inhabitants, from the predicted rise of sea levels to the lack of access to clean water, electricity and sewage systems.

“Angelina’s projects tackle the contemporary issues of climate change, extreme habitation, social inequality and technological influences through a systematic modular design approach,” says Park, who nominated Zhang for the program.

In addition to receiving the Future100 award, 窜丑补苍驳’蝉 work has been featured at the 9th UABB International Low Carbon City Exhibition (La Bonifica) and in the Villa Rossa Voice (Savoring Italy), as well receiving design awards by numerous international competitions such as Buildner (BeeBreeders, 2021), Non-Architecture (2022), ArchTwist (2022) and LandArtGenerator (2022).

While at 黑料不打烊, Zhang has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for a fourth-year integrated building design studio, as well as a research assistant for several faculty research projects. Zhang also received academic research funding from the SOURCE for her thesis research fellowship that explores the convergence of function and aesthetics by examining the possibility of plant integration in complex regenerative architectural mechanisms.

“We as designers are tasked with the responsibility of equipping mankind with the toolset to progress, explore and integrate new material provenances as we adapt to alternative ways of living. Being selected as one of the Metropolis Future100 means that my interest in optimized modular design as an accessible and collaborative medium is recognized by a wider range of audience,” says Zhang. “My pursuit for designing resilient habitats as practical remedies for disenfranchised communities will drive my research further and eventually be put into practice to benefit those in need.”

After graduation, Zhang hopes to attend graduate school for advanced study in the field of resilient designs as well as through research and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She also looks forward to contributing her expertise to firms and nonprofit organizations by deploying affordable, crisis-responsive, multi-scalar designs for the marginalized communities that can benefit most from these ingenuities.

As part of the Future100 honor, Luo and 窜丑补苍驳’蝉 work and credentials have been shared with architecture and design firms across North America to encourage professional connections and career opportunities, and are posted on the and in the magazine’s March/April issue, on newsstands now.

Christina Chi Zhang

The has announced that designer and researcher Christina Chi Zhang is the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2023–24. Zhang will succeed current fellow Assistant Professor Lily Chishan Wong.

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give faculty members, early in their careers, the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

“Christina 窜丑补苍驳’蝉 research uses architecture to frame, analyze and intervene in areas often thought outside the purview of professional and academic practice,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Her proposal, submitted as part of the fellowship application, is powerful, provocative and timely because it reframes precisely what it means to study and practice architecture. We are so thrilled to welcome her and look forward to working with her this next year.”

During the 2023–24 school year, Zhang will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, “Scales of Healing in Post-Traumatic Landscapes” that explores the tools of representation used to document, analyze and represent post-traumatic landscapes in different scales.

窜丑补苍驳’蝉 research trajectory will explore the limits and implications of photography, cartography, drawing and virtual reality, and discuss the powers of documenting individual narratives, archiving evidence and synthesizing different levels of information through drawing and re-imagining a speculative landscape.

To create a broader conversation with students about ongoing wars and conflicts, Zhang plans to extend the geographical focus of her previous independent research and discuss other post-traumatic landscapes of students’ interests.

“Through these explorations and discussions, we should ultimately be able to understand, engage and find our place in ongoing social-political issues as architects,” says Zhang, whose goal is to become a compassionate architect who cares about and designs for people.

Like the seven previous Boghosian Fellows, Zhang will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. Her research will culminate in the form of an exhibition and interdisciplinary symposium exploring issues of memory, reconstruction and resilience in post-conflict landscapes and societies in the contemporary world and tools to talk about them as architects.

Zhang is currently completing the last year of her master of architecture degree program at the Yale School of Architecture where she served as a teaching fellow for two graduate studio courses and two undergraduate courses.

During the 2021–22 academic year, Zhang was awarded the George Nelson Travel Scholarship, which supported her year-long trip and research inquiry into post-atrocity reconstruction in Bosnia and Rwanda, resulting in her 2022 exhibition, “ at Yale’s North Gallery. In this exhibition, Zhang explored trauma, memory and reconstruction through remediation, restoration, map-making and a virtual reality landscape installation created based on interviews with survivors of genocides and wars.

Zhang holds a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University where she was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts in 2017 for her practice in humanistic architecture. While at Yale, Zhang received the Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration Research Travel Award (RITM) to work and research in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. During her time in Kakuma, she co-founded a non-profit organization, International Development in Action, through which she initiated and directed the construction of a refugee-run adult learning center. The curriculums are now managed and taught by refugee leaders, offering literacy, business and reproductive health programs.

From 2016–17, Zhang organized and co-directed an interdisciplinary competition, to encourage collaboration between architects and policymakers and envision new responses to the global refugee crisis based on autonomy and resilience. The subsequent symposium, “Reform Refugee Responses,” was hosted in collaboration with Yale University, New York University and the United Nations in New York City.

Zhang has practiced architecture professionally at EFFEKT Arkitekter in Copenhagen; Studio MM Architect in New York City; Turner Brooks Architect in New Haven; and Atelier Deshaus in Shanghai. Together with teammates Joshua Tan and Claire Hicks, she won the first prize in the international architecture competition organized by Bee Breeders in 2022.

“I am honored to join the community and look forward to together exploring memory, life and recovery in post-traumatic societies, a relevant and urgent topic today,” says Zhang. “The Boghosian Fellowship offers an amazing opportunity to work with a diverse, intelligent and brave student body that is eager to engage and challenge. Through teaching and research, I am excited to envision and experiment with ways to heal, care and create in today’s world.”

For more information about Christina Chi Zhang and her work, visit .

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016–17), Linda Zhang (2017–18), James Leng (2018–19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019–20), Liang Wang (2020–21), Leen Katrib (2021–22) and Lily Chishan Wong (2022–23).

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, visit the .

Christian Sottile

Election to the AIA’s College of Fellows is one of the highest individual honors the institute bestows on members. Out of a total AIA membership of more than 96,000, only 3% carry this distinction.

The elevation to fellowship is conferred on architects with at least 10 years of AIA membership and demonstrated influence in at least one of the following nomination categories: promoted the aesthetic, scientific and practical efficiency of the profession; advanced the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of practice; coordinated the building industry and the profession of architecture; ensured the advancement of the living standards of people through their improved environment; made the profession of ever-increasing service to society; advanced the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of architectural education and training.

Fellows are selected by a seven-member Jury of Fellows. This year’s jury included Chair RK Stewart, FAIA, RK Stewart Consultants; Carl D’Silva, FAIA, Perkins + Will; Lisa Lamkin, FAIA, Brown Reynolds Watford Architects, Inc.; Rebecca Lewis, FAIA, DSGW Architects; Pamela Rew, FAIA, KSS Architects; Anne Schopf, FAIA, Mahlum; and Allison Williams, FAIA, AGWms_studio.

“Election to the AIA College of Fellows is among the most significant forms of recognition in our profession and we are thrilled to celebrate Christian’s appointment to this distinguished group of architects,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Christian joins so many of our alumni who are acknowledged for their professional achievements through AIA, a true testament to the education they received at 黑料不打烊 Architecture.”

Sottile, FAIA, NCARB, is principal of , a Savannah-based urban design and architectural firm working extensively in Nationally Registered Historic Districts. His work includes civic design and master planning, emphasizing historic research, urban analysis, and communitywide engagement.

Trained under the guidance of renowned master architect John C. LeBey, FAIA, Sottile learned that Savannah, much like his native Florence, Italy, is an unlimited environment: a humane and universal context for discovery, connection and progress. For the past three decades, Savannah has formed the backdrop of Sottile’s professional and personal life, a home for his practice and a foothold for his work in the world. Across his portfolio of projects, he applies timeless principles and modern science to approach urban design from a regenerative perspective, evolving the city while protecting and respecting its rich history.

Concurrently with his professional practice, Sottile is a professor of architecture and urban design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and is the former dean of the SCAD School of Building Arts, where he led the graduate and undergraduate programs in architecture, architectural history, preservation design, interior design, furniture design, and urban design.

Sottile has taught architecture courses and served in academic leadership roles at the SCAD for more than 20 years. He regularly leads student delegations to AIA national conferences; he hosted a pioneering national AIAS Forum fully integrated into the urban fabric of Savannah and he worked closely with NCARB to develop an inclusive, progressive Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure.

Sottile has been distinguished with the 2014 National Young Architect Award from the American Institute of Architects and has received more than 50 awards for his work, including three international Charter Awards from the Congress for the New Urbanism, awards from the American Planning Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, three National Honor Awards from the AIA, and the 2021 Global Award for Excellence from the Urban Land Institute. USA Today named him one of the top 100 academics in the nation. Sottile’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Preservation Magazine, Architect Magazine and Architectural Digest. He has lectured for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute.

“This milestone has provided both opportunities to reflect, and to focus new energies on the opportunities ahead—providing support and mentorship to the next generation,” says Sottile.

Sottile holds a master of architecture degree from SCAD’s School of Building Arts, graduating as valedictorian. After spending two years researching urban design in Florence, he completed work on his master’s of architecture and urban design at 黑料不打烊.

For more information on the College of Fellows or to view the complete list of newly elevated architect fellows, visit .

Each year, the award spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada and Mexico with distinct design voices that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism.

“We are thrilled to congratulate Katherine and Vincent in winning a 2023 Emerging Voices award,” , dean of the . “Their contributions to the future of design exemplify the impact they will have on forthcoming generations of architects—from 黑料不打烊 and beyond.”

Vincent Petrarca and Katherine Hogan ’05

Hogan and Petrarca are the principals and owners of , an architecture practice based in Raleigh, N.C. When the firm was first founded in 2003 (under the name of Tonic Design | Tonic Construction), its work focused on small design-build commercial and residential projects. As it has grown, its portfolio has broadened to include projects for public schools, universities, state parks and nonprofits.

Katherine Hogan Architects has crafted a diverse body of work, and has received numerous American Institute of Architects awards at the local, state and national levels for innovative design solutions to complex problems and for using ordinary materials in inventive ways. The firm was included in the 2022 AN Interior Top 50 and received a 2022 AN Best of Practice Award.

Hogan earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from 黑料不打烊 and is a member of the school’s advisory board. Petrarca earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in architecture from the North Carolina State University College of Design, where he has taught as a professor of practice.

“This is a significant honor to be recognized by the Architectural League of New York,” says Hogan. “At 黑料不打烊, I was educated by professors, practitioners and mentors who operated at a high level of work and discourse and inspired me to be aware of the impact of the League since my first semester. Originally from New York, and now practicing architecture in the south, recognitions like this are important to our clients, co-workers, and partners, but most importantly to our community.”

Since 1982, the Emerging Voices award has been bestowed to over 300 firms and individuals. Past winners include Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi (1983), Toshiko Mori (1992), James Corner (2001), Eric H?weler & Meejin Yoon (2007), Tatiana Bilbao (2010), Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg (2013) and Chris Leong and Dominic Leong (2017).

The selection process involved a two-stage review of work from approximately 50 entrants. This year’s Emerging Voices class was selected by a nine-person jury of design professionals (including several past Emerging Voices winners): Marie Law Adams (2022), Fernanda Canales (2018), Stephanie Davidson (2018), Mario Gooden (2001), Zach Mortice, Marc Neveu, Rashida Ng, Chelina Odbert (2021) and Nader Tehrani (2003).

The jury reviewed significant bodies of realized work and considered accomplishments within design and academia. The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape and the built environment.

“The works of this year’s Emerging Voices winners exhibit architecture’s ability to work across the various scales of the built environment in the production of community, sociality, space, and discourse,” says Mario Gooden, jury member and president of The Architectural League said in a statement.?“[They] challenge the discipline and the profession of architecture to confront architectural practices, histories, and their entanglements with social, environmental, and technological changes.”

This year’s winning designers will present their exceptional and challenging work to their peers, the greater design community and the public through a series of virtual Thursday evening lectures from March 9-30. Each moderated event, sponsored by The Architectural League of New York, will showcase two awardees. Hogan and Petrarca will lecture on March 9 at 6:30 p.m. ET as part of the series.

Advance registration is required.?Visit for additional details on the upcoming online lecture series and to learn more about the winners’ work.

Lily Chishan Wong (Boghosian Fellow 2022-2023)

Lily Chishan Wong will teach the visiting critic studio, “Manuals for Human-Plant+X Interactions,” which will consider architecture a “material manual” for the regulation of human and plant lives facing climate change.

Lily Wong

Shaped as much by spontaneous flora that springs up between buildings as by idealized forms of “nature” such as gardens and parks, our urban experience is defined by plants. Many of the herbaceous plants that adorn city-owned parks and public streetscapes in New York City are currently propagated in three greenhouses run by the Department of Parks and Recreation, located at the urban outskirts, disconnected from the quotidian lives of the city.

What does it mean if parts of these horticultural programs are situated in the heart of the city? What new forms of urban conditions, uses, and human+plant+X interactions (additional site, user and program dispositions) can be created? Who are these spaces for? Focusing on a site in Lower Manhattan, students will visit the city and explore these questions by designing across three scales—ecological, architectural and body—and consider the effects of their proposed interventions.

Wong joined the School of Architecture as the seventh Harry der Boghosian Fellow. She is interested in how global systems shape building cultures and vice versa. Her research centers on the use of vegetation in architecture and its spatial, socio-political and environmental implications. More recently, Wong has begun to study the architecture and infrastructure of the plant trade network and its multi-scalar locations and planetary effects.

Previously, Wong completed her master of architecture degree at Columbia University GSAPP, where she received the Award for Excellence in Total Design; the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize; and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize. She is also the recipient of the Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) Traveling Fellowship from the KPF Foundation and the Fred L. Liebmann Book Award from the New York Society of Architects. At Columbia, Wong cofounded : (pronounced “colon”), a publication and workshop focused on the rhetoric and media that are rooted in the field of architecture.

Wong also holds a bachelor of fine arts in architectural design from the Parsons School of Design and a bachelor of arts in philosophy from the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Her research interests in water infrastructure and constructions of nationhood were supported by the Michael Kalil Endowment for Smart Design and the India China Institute.

Wong’s fellowship research will culminate in the form of a on March 29 as well as an exhibition opening in Fall 2023.

?Jooeun Sung (Yonsei University)

Jooeun Sung will teach the visiting critic studio, “The Architecture of K-Food,” which proposes to investigate K-Food, among the less-well-celebrated cultural products that have recently gained notoriety as part of the famous “Korean Wave,” or Hallyu.

Jooeun Sung

K-film, K-drama and K-pop have become global phenomena, prompting the Oxford English Dictionary to add a series of K-words, reflecting the “soft power” impact of this new wave of Korean culture. Working from the micro-to-the-macro scale, students will study K-Food as a sociocultural category and as an urban design typology. Indeed, while the studio will research the K-Food industry as a sector, it will pay special attention to the local places—the food stalls, small shops and alleyways—where food is prepared and consumed.

Over spring break, as part of a school-sponsored trip to Seoul, students will visit many of these local food places and experience in person not only K-Food, but also many of the other cultural forms of Hallyu. Ultimately, the studio will suspend the normative architectural proposal and focus instead on the architectural representation of urban research.

Sung is a UK-chartered architect and is currently a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. Through her built works and her research, she balances participatory and educational concerns and attempts to broaden the definition and our understanding of architecture itself. Sung studied at Yonsei University and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.

Sung gave a at the School of Architecture on Jan. 24.

Li Han and Hu Yan (Drawing Architecture Studio)

Li Han and Hu Yan will teach the visiting critic studio, “A Little Bit of 黑料不打烊,” which will encourage students to become fl?neurs in the city of 黑料不打烊 so that they may discover the often-overlooked everyday architecture that comprises 99% of the built environment. The studio will employ large-scale drawings and handmade, craft models to present a new view of the city’s architecture.

Li Han and Hu Yan

Inspired by the kind of architectural narratives produced by Japanese artist Jiro Taniguchi, students will choose eight vernacular buildings in 黑料不打烊—houses, shops, restaurants or laundromats that aren’t landmarks or designed by architects—and create handmade models representing the unique features of each building. Following the approach of Taniguchi’s meticulously drawn stories in the graphic novel, “The Walking Man,” which captures the mood, ambience and emotional experience of a middle-aged man’s stroll around his new neighborhood, students will design a narrative of their selected buildings. Each narrative will take the form of a Chinese scroll drawing and will emulate the actual experience of walking through the city. These drawings and models will be woven together to form a single, long scroll drawing that will be presented as the final studio project.

Han and Yan are the co-founders of (DAS), a Beijing-based creative platform that specializes in architectural drawing, architectural design and urban studies. DAS has been exhibited widely in China and abroad, including at the 4th Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Chinese and Japan pavilions of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, the 7th and 9th Shenzhen/Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, and many others. Their works have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney, the Macao Museum of Art in China, Pingshan Art Museum in Shenzhen, and Wind H Art Center in Beijing for their collections. DAS’ publications include A Little Bit of Beijing, A Little Bit of Beijing · Dashilar, The Joy of Architectural Drawing, Hutong Mushroom and Apartment Blossom.

Han is a National Class 1 Registered Architect (P.R.C.) in China. He received his bachelor of architecture from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, and a master of architecture from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Yan received her bachelor of fine arts from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Han and Yan will give a at the School on Feb. 16 at 5:30 p.m. in Slocum Auditorium.

Timothy Stenson (黑料不打烊 Architecture)

Timothy Stenson will teach the visiting critic studio, “Fabricating (Design),” which features fabrication-based design work at 1:1 scale, combined with conventional-media processes.

Tim Stenson

It is widely acknowledged that design output is related to, and consequently limited by, design-process media. And, at least to the extent that architecture is characterized as building design, architectural designs rely on indirect forms of media. Architects do not design by building, but rather by making small-scaled representations of buildings, and then preparing instructions for others to build. Consistent with this, architecture school studios are generally taught through indirect media—this is certainly so at 黑料不打烊 Architecture. Though long practiced, design teaching through indirect media likewise has its limits.

Throughout the studio, students will get to know their own work in a different way by researching fabrication-based practices and production, establishing, in the process, a material-fabrication vocabulary. Students will design and prototype furniture-sized artifacts and will extrapolate and apply what they learn to produce a room enclosure for those artifacts.

Stenson is associate professor of architecture at 黑料不打烊. He joined the 黑料不打烊 Architecture faculty in 2004 after teaching at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan. His pedagogic interests have focused on core design studios.

Stenson’s creative work, spanning from urban to furniture scale, and from graphite on paper to folded steel, has been exhibited widely, and has received design awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and various publications. Stenson served as the chair of 黑料不打烊 Architecture’s undergraduate program from 2011 to 2016.

, assistant professor in the School of Architecture, won the Young Architects Award for , a shade pavilion she designed and built with four student researchers—Rayshad Dorsey, Pietro Mendon?a, Jack Raymond and Audrey Watkins (all M.Arch ’23), from the Harvard Graduate School of Design—in Greene-Rose Heritage Park, one of the more underserved and most diverse neighborhoods of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The CloudHouse structure sits in the corner of the park with its open form facing the center. (Photo by Sam Balukonis)

The pavilion, developed with the City of Cambridge’s Public Space Lab and Community Development Department, provides temporary respite from the heat and rain and complements the city’s “Resilient Cambridge” program, which educates the public on urban heat islands and sustainability and recommends an increase in shading parks in lower-income neighborhoods that have a deficit of tree canopy coverage.

CloudHouse’s design was informed by one central constraint: avoiding material waste. The pavilion is built using HDPE (high-density polyethylene), a recyclable UV-treated plastic. Its translucency provides shade while letting some ambient light through, creating a sheltering membrane that is both illuminated and protective.

Designed and constructed using curved-crease folding—a geometric technique akin to origami that creates rigid structural surfaces out of low-cost, flat material—the entire structure is composed of five different reconfigurable modules that shape the walls, individual seats, communal benches and gable-vault roof and require limited skill and cost in assembly. The units are designed around the most standard and readily available stock size (4-foot x 8-foot sheets) and produce zero off-cuts in their construction.

“I appreciated the fact that this pavilion was made with a couple of different units flipped to their concave or convex sides to make an engaging shape,” said Felecia Davis, a member of the Best of Design Awards jury. “It looks like it can expand to be a bigger shelter as well and is, in fact, a building system for a material that is shapable like plastic. Perhaps this works for many kinds of recycled plastics one might find in a material stream in a community.”

Offering ample seating and an open form, CloudHouse invites people to socialize, rest and seek necessary refuge from the elements. In April 2022, it fulfilled its intention to celebrate existing usage of Greene-Rose Heritage Park by serving as a venue for Earth Day events organized by local organizations to promote education on climate resilience for Cambridge schoolchildren.

Entrants were invited this past fall to submit completed works in 39 categories that reflected AN’s editorial coverage, as well as the interests and obsessions of the newspaper’s readers. This year’s competition proved to be the largest to date for AN, with more than double the number of submissions than in typical previous iterations of this program, from firms big and small across every corner of the North American continent.

A place of rest and gathering for students from nearby elementary schools (Photo by Sam Balukonis)

The Best of Design Awards jury—including James Burnett, president of OJB Landscape Architecture; Tei Carpenter, founder of Agency–Agency; Sekou Cooke, director of the master of urban design program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Felecia Davis, associate professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design and Computation; Gabriela Etchegaray, cofounder of AMBROSI | ETCHEGARAY; Ron Stelmarski, principal and design director at Perkins&Will; Aaron Seward, editor-in-chief at The Architect’s Newspaper; and Jack Murphy, managing editor at The Architect’s Newspaper—judged each entry based on several criteria: strength of presentation, evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability and, most importantly, good design.

Awards were given to everything from completed commercial and residential buildings to public and urban design projects; from interiors and small spaces to exhibition design and temporary installations; from research initiatives to architectural representations, and beyond.

“I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to execute this project as a demonstration of how geometry, material and construction processes can have social and environmental impacts even if at modest scales,” says Fayyad. “It was an honor and privilege to get to know the neighborhood’s history, hear stories from members of the community, and work with the City of Cambridge and my dedicated research and fabrication team.”

Fayyad is founder and director of project:if, a research practice that places constraints of architectural geometry in dialogue with material economy, visual perception, and the politics of physical space and building practice.

Winning projects, along with photos, descriptions and juror comments, are featured in , distributed at industry events and conferences throughout 2023. Winners will also receive a limited-edition print from Archigram produced especially for AN.

For a full list of 2022 Best of Design Awards winners, honorable mentions, editors’ picks and project of the year profiles, visit .

The 黑料不打烊 Orange chapter of NOMAS received an Honorable Mention for their project “Between the Land and Memory.”

The Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition is one of the highlights of the NOMA conference for both student and professional members. Originating more than 20 years ago with just three schools, the competition today features the work of nearly 30 NOMAS chapters from across the country participating in a two-day competition.

This year’s event challenged student chapter teams to focus on a project that serves to address the gentrification and displacement of North Nashville community members as the result of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System, built in the 1960s. Once a thriving community populated with businesses, music clubs and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the construction of Interstate 40 demolished homes and separated the North Nashville neighborhood. Specifically, teams were asked to show how design and architectural strategies can rebuild a community. Students were to envision a complex that serves as a cultural center to preserve the history of North Nashville and a new bridge to serve as a landmark and monument for the community.

The Orange NOMAS design team’s project, “Between the Land and Memory,” which placed fourth overall in the competition, aims to be an extension of the community, both physically and culturally, through a simple, expressive design that concentrates on restoring the land taken and recreating the urban sequence that was interrupted by the interstate.

The project proposes to stitch the community back together by providing a land bridge to reconnect the two sides of Alameda Street, an open public park for activity and leisure, integrated legal mural walls along the bridge and highway, and a playground at the end of the bridge that further integrates the design into the neighborhood.

Conceptual drawing of “Between the Land and Memory,” which placed fourth overall in the Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition at the 2022 NOMA conference.

The landscape is modified to create a gentle hill that makes the transition from the street level and the bridge level smooth and enjoyable. Along the hill, people encounter the market space for local small businesses, meander in an open grass area for picnics and activities and arrive at a museum displaying North Nashville’s history. The project’s main building complex, zoned for CN (commercial neighborhood), is embedded into the landscape, and includes such programs as galleries, a performance/conference hall, music club, art studios and workshop/classroom space.

The project’s name comes from the team’s symphonic treatment and arrangement of the landscape and one of the major design features—canopies composed of inverted roofs, making it easier for local mural artists and organizations to display their commissioned artwork illustrating the history and culture of North Nashville.

“We address potential displacement by considering the community’s needs, giving local artists a space to create, making the program financially beneficial for the local economy and minimizing the interruption to the immediate built context by blending seamlessly into the city fabric,” the team’s entry explains. “Walking in between the land and memory, people will not only remember the history of the community, but enjoy the landscape designed for and by the community.”

Architectural model of “Between the Land and Memory”

The 黑料不打烊 team—advised by , undergraduate chair and associate professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Teaching Professor —included undergraduate students Yifan (Ivan) Shen ’25 and Yuqi (Kelvin) Duan ’26 (co-chairs), Ching-Hsing (Johnny) Chan ’25, Tianjian Cheng ’25, Jacob Chong ’26, Tianchonghui (Felix) Fang ’25, Yexin (Tina) Jiang ’26, Chinghan (Madeline) Lin ’25 and Mingrui (Ray) Xie ’26.

“The success of this year is a collective effort from our nine team members, three faculty advisors and the NOMAS e-board,” says Shen. “The four month’s preparation was an unforgettable journey, and one of the highlights of my study experience at 黑料不打烊.”

“We are very proud of our NOMAS chapter and this team who have continued the success of past winners,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “The competition and the NOMA conference in Nashville also provided our students an opportunity to meet peers from other schools as well as 黑料不打烊 Architecture alumni.”

This year’s national conference, —the first in-person since 2019—attracted more than 1,300 NOMA members, allies and students. Conference attendees honored the achievements of its members, learned from industry peers through inspiring keynotes and educational seminars, and collaborated on opportunities that advance NOMA’s mission to increase the diversification of Blacks and all minorities in the design and architecture profession. The next NOMA conference is scheduled for October 2023 in Portland.

For more information on the 黑料不打烊 Orange chapter of NOMAS, contact nomassyr@gmail.com.

Jenny Suwiwatchai ’23

Growing up in Thailand, her grandmother was supportive of Suwiwatchai’s pursuits and kickstarted her artistic journey by introducing her to new mediums and the art of world creations.

“She was my first art teacher,” says Suwiwatchai. “I remember making dioramas in front of the Teletubbies in our living room; it was one of the most joyful times of my life!”

Suwiwatchai continued her passion for animation throughout high school by enrolling in the Harrow International School in Bangkok, a British international school focused on the arts. She initially researched college opportunities in the United Kingdom, but it was the freedom to choose courses outside of her field that led her to the United States.

“I love history as much as architecture, and 黑料不打烊 was able to provide me with that,” says Suwiwatchai. “One simply cannot be an architect without a proper education in architecture, however, one who is educated as an architect can transfer to an array of disciplines within the art industry. It’s an incredible steppingstone in pursuing a wider branch of artistic opportunities once graduated.”

Despite her heavy academic workload as an architecture major with a history minor, Suwiwatchai still finds time to accept commissions as a freelance illustrator.

“I have done it all,” says Suwiwatchai. “From digital pet portraits, phone cases, scarves and fashion apparel to sustainable tote bags, digital currency logo designs, graphic design, architectural drafting and comic writing.”

But it’s only in the past few years that the scale of Suwiwatchai’s commissions has picked up to the point where she could call her work a professional job. Young adult publishers, authors and game producers throughout Thailand have contacted Suwiwatchai to create cover art or concept art for their projects.

“It still gives me chills being able to enter a random bookstore in Bangkok and see the covers I’ve illustrated among the shelves,” says Suwiwatchai.

“That King and I,” Suwiwatchai’s novel project.

She recalls one of her proudest moments occurring when she received the “Top in Thailand” AS Media Studies award by the Cambridge International Examination board for directing, writing, coordinating, animating, editing and post-marketing the short film, “Ace of Spades.”

In her free time, Suwiwatchai continues to illustrate her own worlds and stories. Her most recent work, ““—a novel project about warring kingdoms in a fantasy land—has gained minor popularity within the Thai digital art community.

The narrative follows Vidaar, Arandia’s minister of finance, and his newly appointed position of chief strategist amidst a brewing continental war. The lands of Arandia, Cerusar, Hesphere, Hemnut and 黑料不打烊 all have vernacular styles of architecture that, though fantastical, are based on different Eurasian regions between the seventh and 14th centuries CE.

Launching Oct. 8 at Comic Avenue in Thailand, all copies of “That King and I” sold out in three hours.

“Honestly, it surprised me to see how many people, mostly prospective architecture students, were interested to see the combination of history and architectural studies in a narrative cartoon form,” says Suwiwatchai.

Initially imagined in the form of a novel, “That King and I” has morphed into a concept book.

“Issue 1 is a stand in for ‘there will be more,'” says Suwiwatchai. “I was not prepared for all the feedback I’ve gotten from just introducing the characters and their concept alone, even before the first chapter is published. Many have expressed their desires to see Vidaar and others as tangible media they could enjoy.”

Suwiwatchai graduates in May 2023 and plans to attend graduate school to further her historical and design education. “There is still so much I want to know about the human past and the architecture of the old,” she says.

She dreams of one day working in the entertainment industry as either a visual developer or as an imagineer on a film set.

“I would love to see magic and fantasy brought to life by my own hands,” says Suwiwatchai. “Right now, I am only able to bring people into a world of make-believe in a two-dimensional form, but without the ability to construct that 2D imagination into inhabitable, tangible sets, a large part of me is yet to feel satisfied.”

? Molly Hunker and Greg Corso

As a flagship program of , Exhibit Columbus is an exploration of community, architecture, art and design that activates the modern legacy of Columbus. Through a two-year cycle of events, conversations are convened around innovative ideas, and then site-responsive installations are commissioned to create a free, public exhibition.

Now in its fourth cycle, this year’s theme, “,” builds on the legacy of Columbus to explore how collaborations between communities and designers can revitalize and reimagine historic downtowns as equitable, beautiful, healthy and joyful places.

Fellows were selected through a national, open call competition for full-time university professors whose work is deeply rooted in design research. Applicants were asked to “respond to, enhance and/or critique” downtown activation strategies recommended by James Lima Planning + Development (JLP+D) within the firm’s city of Columbus-commissioned .

“City Thread” (2018) is a public space that re-envisions an unused alley in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. Credit: Benjamin Chase

Shortlisted contenders were selected by six curatorial partners and then chosen by a 13-member jury of community stakeholders. While the UDRF is not a new component of Exhibit Columbus, this is the first time the fellows have been selected via an open competition—and one juried by a cohort of community members.

“These fellows represent a cross-section of artists, architects and landscape architects working in the U.S. at this moment. It’s an impressive group whose research is advancing important work on sustainable materials and community-based design in the public realm,” says the six curatorial partners in a joint statement.

The fellows, along with , will place the many communities of Columbus at the center of the conversations and do this in a public format by creating specific opportunities for engagement between the designers and the citizens of Columbus.

Winning fellows can request a budget of up to $10,000 to support the design and building of an academic research-showcasing public installation that explores the enhancement of modernist architecture-rich Columbus, Indiana’s downtown corridor.

As founders of the award-winning design collaborative, , based in 黑料不打烊, New York, Hunker and Corso’s work focuses on creating compelling spaces that are catalysts for social activities. Much of their work has been public interventions that leverage the possibility for simple design and fabrication gestures to have significant urban and community impacts.

“The theme of Public Design makes us think of design that privileges possibilities and multiple perspectives, rather than a specific way something should be understood or used,” says Hunker and Corso.

Hunker and Corso’s design approach for the fellowship is centered around an exploration of three main elements—context, flexibility and atmosphere. Building on the unique physical/architectural context of Columbus, they propose to frame their installation as infrastructural—an architectural intervention that supports and promotes a range of unique and exciting possibilities within the community.

“By embracing color, form and material effects in our project, we aim to a create a vibrant design that allows people to rediscover familiar spaces downtown with new atmospheres and experiences,” says Hunker and Corso.

Approaching the installation as an educational experience, Hunker and Corso anticipate engaging students in various aspects of the process and realization of the project. Such participation gives students a unique perspective of architecture outside of the classroom.

“Rounds” (2016) is an outdoor theater pavilion for the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. Credit: Nick Zukauskas

Further, acting as a provocation for visitors and locals alike, Hunker and Corso see an incredible opportunity to engage the community in the process of the project, particularly through physical interactions and programs designed to deepen their relationship with the space.

“We’re excited by the value that the city and community of Columbus sees in design,” says Hunker and Corso. “What a special perspective—to see extraordinary design work that makes up the built environment as ordinary parts of daily life.”

The UDRF partner sites will be announced later in the month, around the 2022 Exhibit Columbus Symposium, which will be held in downtown Columbus Oct. 21–22.

Held annually during the summer since 2003, the BIADW competition is offered by the and invites students to investigate a wide array of creative architectural and urban design approaches in the context of the 21st-century urban culture.

Connective Corridor plan

Responding to the theme, “,” teams consisting of one guiding professor and three students were asked to propose a development plan for Busan’s railway network and its stations near the East Sea, which has been one of the most important factors in determining the success of the ‘Busan Ulsan Gyeongnam (Buul-gyeong) megacity’ in Seoul.

This year, 15 tutors and 45 students from both domestic and overseas universities participated in the online workshop, which took place over the course of 17 days and included two proposal critiques, with the goal of interpreting the topic within a limited time and presenting architectural alternatives to the targeted sites.

Guided by Daekwon Park, undergraduate chair and associate professor at the School of Architecture, the 黑料不打烊 student team of Nicholas Chung ’23 (B.Arch.), Chenhao Luo ’23 (B.Arch.) and Zhi Zheng ’23 (B.Arch.) was assigned Busanwondong, the railway station on the first stage of the Donghae Line in South Korea, as the site for their intervention.

At one time, the Donghae Line railway network served as a driving force in Busan’s development and as a gateway into the city. Though its history and surrounding developments are currently underestimated in utility and importance compared to the past, the train line is still a crucial artery that strings up the coastal cities like a beaded necklace, linking South Korea’s eastern shoreline to the rest of country and beyond.

The School of Architecture team began its research into the Busanwondong station by first understanding the significance of the Donghae Line through various scales, given that the route itself has a rich historic narrative and vast geographical range, passing through three provinces. With Busanwondong station cantilevering above the Suyeong River, the team saw an opportunity to leverage the river as a new mobility option through the introduction of a ferry system that stops at various commercial sites and transit ports, offering a new way for people to move along the coastal boundary of Busan.

Connective Corridor vignettes

Through analysis of Busanwondong station’s demographics and usage patterns, the team revealed the? need for civic, cultural and recreational programs and proposed activating the riverbanks by extending the existing coastal landscaping upstream from the bay, creating a resilient green corridor that proliferates into the surrounding urban landscape, repaving streets and activating urban voids that become third spaces for locals.

A series of elevated expressways flanking the Suyeong River and Busanwondong station are transformed into porous membranes that invite people to come together while pragmatically and symbolically activating Busan’s metropolitan periphery—the water that is so vital to the identity of Busan becomes the hearth of the community.

The team’s transformation of the waterfront becomes an instigator that triggers a series of complementary design proposals compounding on each other to form a series of robust and diverse networks for local communities.

After undergoing a series of critiques and revisions, the 黑料不打烊 team’s project was selected by the jurors to receive the grand prize, presented by the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

“Although the workshop was only 17 days, my students were able to formulate a thoughtful proposal based on rigorous site analysis and topic interpretation,” says Park. “Their research on mobility systems (train, highway and ferry systems), waterfront development and neighborhood needs are compelling, and the strategy to use the river floodplain as a catalyst for regenerating the neighborhood is intriguing.”

“We hope our design can belong as part of a larger conversation of how the urban environment should be a dynamic reflection of its people and how it should adapt to indigenous residents’ needs,” says the? team members.

To view a video of the team’s winning submission, visit .

An exhibition featuring work produced during this year’s BIADW competition will be on display during the in October.

Ju Bin

Ju Bin (Horizontal Design)

Ju Bin, along with , founding partner and branding designer of URSIDE Design and URSIDE Hotel Shanghai, will teach the visiting critic studio, N?ra 2.0, which focuses on the connection and relationship between design thinking and atmosphere of space for the Qingxi Country Park in Shanghai, China.

Located in the Yangze River Delta, Qingxi Country Park is one of the first pilot country park construction projects in Shanghai that aims at integrated ecological and green development and the only country park featuring wetlands in Shanghai; nearly one third of the area is covered by water. Through a series of research and design exercises centered around the park’s history, economic and social factors, culture and natural resources, and emotional space studies, students will work to develop an architectural design incorporating two typologies of space—cultural and lifestyle—according to the understandings of the site.

Bin is the founding principal of . Established in 2003, the firm works in the fields of architecture, interior, landscape and product design and is considered one of the most celebrated design offices in China. Through consistent practicing and reflecting, Bin has formulated a unique design philosophy and vision towards architecture. He especially focuses on the study of the emotion and atmosphere, the historical context and the locality, the image and construction of the building, etc., which have been fully expressed in projects with his own methodology and system and gained him numerous professional achievements and social prestige, including winning the “Most Influential Chinese Designers” award in 2009, 2010, 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2020.

Bin has studied in the China Central Academy of Fine Arts and is now the vice chairman of the Institute of Interior Design of the Architectural Society of China and the deputy director of The Art Display & Decoration Committee of China. He also serves as the graduate supervisor at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts, and Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. Bin was a visiting critic at the Politecnico di Milano in 2020 and has lectured worldwide at the Royal Academy of Art in UK, among others. He is also the founder and council member of C-Foundation, which is a public nonprofit welfare organization committing to promote the reform and research of design education and building an international platform for design education and practice.

Bin will give a at the School on Oct. 27 at 5:30 p.m. in Slocum Auditorium.

Lexi Tsien

Lexi Tsien (Soft-Firm)
Lexi Tsien will teach the visiting critic studio, Emergent Publics, which analyzes and strategically proposes new designs for the Community Plaza at the Everson Museum of Art to reclaim and redefine a new public.

黑料不打烊 is an emblematic post-industrial, post-urban renewal city. Interstate 81 (I-81) attracted capital and visitors to malls and cultural object-buildings while displacing its black and working-class community, leaving the city as one of the top ten most segregated metro areas in the county. 黑料不打烊 will become one of the first cities to address past highway construction (and its resulting injustices) by demolishing the I-81 viaduct and replacing it with a Business Loop and integrated Community Grid to disperse traffic along local streets. The demolition will free up the front yards of Pioneer Homes (黑料不打烊’s oldest housing project) to grant more direct access to the downtown area and its institutions. One such institution—the beloved Everson Museum of Art by I.M. Pei—extended the notion of the fine arts museum beyond the building and yet, its adjacent plaza lacks dynamism to match. I-81’s demolition and its reparative alternative is a timely opportunity to address the museum’s connection to the city and redesign the plaza as a shared public amenity that is active and inclusive.

Operating as a collective research and design team, students will develop strategies that combine landscape, sculpture, and enclosure to present to the Everson Museum board so it can reimagine its relationship to the community and city, and in the process, reimage its identity, and that of museums in cities like 黑料不打烊. The studio will define a network of social and programmatic infrastructure to reposition the museum and plaza as an essential amenity and destination for the city as it actively redefines its future.

Lexi Tsien is a co-founder of , based in New York City. She is interested in new forms of representation, vernacular spatial practices, and their ability to shape and self-determine the built environment. Soft-Firm pursues progressive and collaborative programs to promote agency and equity, seeing architecture at the intersection between culture and built infrastructure. The practice has designed interactive exhibitions, residential and commercial projects, and public installations. Soft-Firm is both speculative and concrete: taking a playful and lo-fi approach to visual perception, elemental forms, and material contrast. Their work has been featured in “Wallpaper,” “Metropolis,” “PIN-UP Magazine,” “Time Out New York,” “Architect Magazine,” “Architectural Record,” and on PBS Newshour.

Tsien earned her M.Arch degree from the Yale School of Architecture and has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Visual Arts from Columbia University.?She has taught at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Yale School of Architecture, Parsons School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), The Cooper Union, and contributed to Dark Matter University.

Tsien will give a at the School on Sept. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in Slocum Auditorium.

Katrib will give a on Thursday, Sept. 8, at 6 p.m. in Slocum Hall’s first floor atrium. A public reception will follow.

Throughout the 2021-22 academic year, Katrib, the school’s sixth Boghosian Fellow, has taught an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research to deconstruct the myths surrounding Mies van der Rohe’s proposal for IIT’s post-WWII modernist campus expansion, as well as organizing “,” a virtual symposium that convened a cross-disciplinary group of scholars and practices whose work deconstructs “official” historical narratives and reconstructs counter-histories.

“Leen Katrib’s symposium, studio and seminars were among the intellectual and design highlights of this last school year in Slocum Hall,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Now, in this exhibition, she brings all of that work and research together to offer an incisive critique of university planning and its enlightenment pretensions and a corrective to established Miesian historiography.”

In collecting and reconstructing materials that are not included in “official” Miesian historiography, Katrib’s exhibition contributes to a counter-historiography that highlights Miesian modernism’s entanglement in social, racial and bureaucratic realities. More specifically, Katrib seeks to highlight the ways in which IIT not only shaped subsequent discursive and pedagogical agendas in architecture, but also how it commenced a pattern of post-WWII university campus expansions into vulnerable neighborhoods that continue to this day.

“LESS IS…” deconstructs Mies’ 1941 flattened photomontage of the campus expansion proposal to reveal the complex and co-authored mechanics behind the campus expansion and the material record that was literally, figuratively and necessarily suppressed—all in the name of progress. The vehicle of that suppression was the tabula rasa, which was enacted by an “apolitical” architect intent on creating an “apolitical” architecture. Taking its cues from the very spatial and ordering systems that govern Mies’ master plan—the 24-square-unit grid and flattening—”LESS IS…” reveals the very materials, narratives and people that were suppressed, hidden and covered over by the creation and maintenance of the Miesian myth adopted as official history.

Ultimately, “LESS IS…” “looks backward” to offer a corrective to those architects “looking forward” to future university campus expansion projects.

“The culminating exhibition marks the beginning of longer-term research I’m conducting to trace a pattern of past and ongoing university campus expansions into vulnerable neighborhoods across the United States,” says Katrib. “Many have adopted similar mechanics and alliances established in IIT’s post-WWII expansion—in some cases, they were led by Mies’ very own disciples. Ultimately, in challenging the official histories of these expansions, I hope to offer a corrective to architects working on ongoing and future campus expansion projects.”

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture was established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister, Paula der Boghosian ’64. Designed to give faculty members, early in their careers, the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching, the one-of-a-kind program has helped the school attract the best and the brightest emerging professors.

“I’m grateful for the time and space the Boghosian Fellowship afforded me to conduct research and to design research-integrated seminars and studios,” says Katrib. “The support and guidance I received throughout the year from Dean Speaks and faculty has been instrumental to the development of the work.”

Organized by the , the Design Awards invited all design-related practitioners and students to send their best built and unbuilt works to the awards category of their choice.

The Learning and Sports Center is a rural community center in Masoro Village, Rulindo, Rwanda, which combines spaces for play and learning for all, especially youth and women.

A jury of architects and industry professionals including Talisha Sainvil, AIA, 40 Six Four Architecture; Louise Braverman, FAIA, Louise Braverman Architect; Joseph Vance, AIA, Joseph Vance Architects; Nicholas Garrison, FAIA, FXCollaborative; and Christian Bailey AIA, ODA, judged each entry based on program solution, site and space planning, construction system, overall design solution and aesthetics, and details and function. They selected over 30 winning projects in the Awards of Excellence, Honor and Merit categories.

The —a 2-hectare campus with seven buildings and sports amenities built by GAC’s group of designers, artists, educators and researchers—received a Design Award of Honor.

The Learning and Sports Center, located among the rolling hills of rural Masoro in Rwanda, where nonprofit architecture firm GAC has been working for the past 14 years, is a collection of interior and exterior spaces that provide a safe and secure environment for learning, play, and wellness. The project provides a library, classrooms, technology education rooms, indoor exercise spaces, community and teaching gardens, outdoor theaters, event seating, a basketball court and a community soccer field, all of which are accessible to community members free of charge.

During the construction period, GAC hired 390 builders from the surrounding neighborhoods, 54% of whom were women. They received pension contributions, breakfast and lunch, as well as safety training and equipment. The site and time of construction offered the community builders training opportunities in sustainable and durable construction techniques, including modern brick construction and screen weaving using local grasses and bark. Off-the-grid infrastructures such as rainwater harvesting and a biodigester were implemented. Unlike typical Rwandan institutions surrounded by fortress-like walls, the center uses parameter buildings to create a sense of security across small courtyards. The surrounding slopes are used to provide seating and define an existing soccer field for sport and community events. Excess soil from excavation was turned into compressed soil blocks for future construction.

The 2-hectare campus with seven buildings and sports amenities, designed by General Architecture Collaborative, was named recipient of a 2022 SARA | NY Design Award.

GAC partnered with community leaders and education and health nongovernmental organizations to ensure that the center became an actively used space for and by the community. After opening, GAC acted as the facilities director and oversaw the hiring and training of local managers. Thanks to this new team of local managers, during the pandemic, the Learning and Sports Center became the hub for disseminating knowledge and supplies necessary for keeping the community safe. The harvest from the gardens was given to the Masoro residents, and books in the library were made accessible to children so they could continue to learn when schools were closed. Community members built the center, gather here today and decide how to use it collectively as a commons.

“Masoro Learning and Sports Center is a unique place. From the planning, through the construction and management phases, the project tried to be part of the community,” says Yutaka Sho, associate professor of architecture at 黑料不打烊’s School of Architecture and a founder and partner at GAC. “There have been many challenges and errors during the process, no doubt. But because of this process, the residents have ownership over the place and its openness is tangible when you step into the campus.”

For many who live in Masoro, accessing services means making the 40-minute trip into town on a motorcycle taxi, bus or lift on the back of a passing truck. To have an area that is uniquely theirs and equipped to host and support sports and learning opportunities has profoundly impacted rural Rwandans.

“These activities may sound normal to you, but for this community, they are challenging if not impossible to access, and they create significant opportunities for the future,” says Sho. “Most houses in this rural area do not have access to electricity or water, let alone Wi-Fi, further education, training or a free time to play sports.”

Selected among entries from over 80 countries, the Learning and Sports Center was also a jury winner in the “+For Good” and “+Community” categories of the , the largest awards program focused on promoting and celebrating the year’s best architecture.

The 2022 SARA | NY Design Award recipients were celebrated at the annual Design Awards Gala at The Manhattan Manor in Times Square, New York, on June 14. To view the full list of winners and their winning designs, visit .

The space provides a library, classrooms, technology education rooms, indoor exercise spaces, community and teaching gardens, outdoor theaters, event seating, a basketball court, and a community soccer field.

Sponsored by , the challenge, by way of a spring 2022 design studio, tasked multidisciplinary teams of graduate and undergraduate students from six participating universities—University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams University, 黑料不打烊, Northeastern University and the University of Florida—with reimagining at-risk sites in the Narragansett Bay region of Rhode Island through an iterative, design-driven approach.

The students’ mission was to develop innovative pathways forward in the face of sea level rise based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) high curve. Based on these projections, Narragansett Bay will see three feet of sea level rise by 2050, five feet by 2070, seven feet by 2085 and nine feet by 2100.

“Instead of?experiencing anxiety and paralysis in the face of climate change,?we have a window of opportunity to imagine how to adapt and even thrive in the future,” says Wendy Schmidt, founder of ReMain Nantucket. “While the Challenge began as an exercise in big ideas, we hope it will also spur big action—in Narragansett Bay and in all the world’s coastal towns and cities, which hundreds of millions of people call home.”

Czerniak and Brown incorporated the challenge into their spring 2022 visiting critic studio, “Design Scenarios for Adaptive Coastal Communities,” that takes the position that although protection is one way of addressing rising water, we must engage climate change not only through mitigation but by reexamining our lifestyles and patterns of consumption.

“The broad charge is to rethink our world, not simply save it,” says Czerniak. “There are a lot of wrongs that can be addressed.”

The students focused on the town of Warren and the village of Wickford, two small—and quite different—coastal historic communities along Narragansett Bay that share a common future; they are slowly going under water. Through researching moments of natural and cultural adaptation through time and across scale, traveling to the sites for ground truthing, and meeting with local experts and residents, they tested a set of design scenarios for each of the sites to adapt to the challenges of climate change and be resilient to future changes through the lens of architecture.

Using scenario planning, an apt approach that offers a way to assert control over a rapidly changing world by identifying assumptions and determining possible responses, the students set up the scenarios for each town as IF, THEN statements and then isolated and tested what it meant to alternatively RETREAT & ADAPT (moving settlement to higher ground and proposing novel ways of living that is more climate friendly); EMBRACE & ENGAGE (remaking shorelines to participate with rising waters and open them up to common use by human and non-human species); or PROTECT & ABSORB (by preserving invaluable resources by innovating ways to stay put).

In responding to the needs of these communities, the students presented ideas that are big, bold and innovative, challenging entrenched ways of thinking and showcasing radical reimagining of these coastal areas.

Town of Warren

Known as the smallest town in the smallest county in the smallest state, the town of Warren, Rhode Island’s shorelines are bordered by Belcher Cove and Warren River. Though not quite as popular with tourists as its neighbors, Warren—once a bustling port for whaling and shipbuilding—still draws a steady seasonal crowd to its working waterfront and downtown. This ancestral land of the Pokanoket Nation, Warren continues to rely on its coastal location for much of its economy, way of life and recreation.

Students Clara Faure-Dauphin ’23 (B.Arch) and Ayana Ayscue ’23 (M.Arch) concentrated on the RETREAT & ADAPT scenario by rethinking the use of land for higher density communities, for land reparation and for public and ecological corridors of connectivity. By introducing a multi-use development on Metacom Avenue, the existing residential area, the team prioritized a relationship between land retreated to and land retreated from.

RETREAT & ADAPT scenario for the Town of Warren by Clara Faure-Dauphin ’23 (B.Arch) and Ayana Ayscue ’23 (M.Arch)

Instead of treating the shoreline as a barrier where the sea puts people at risk, team members Ruoxi Li ’23 (B.Arch), Muge Zhang ’24 (B.Arch) and Tony Fitzgerald ’23 (M.Arch) used the EMBRACE & ENGAGE scenario to reimagine Belcher Cove as a multi-species common that changes with sea level rise and can be used seasonally for recreation, habitation and business.

EMBRACE & ENGAGE scenario for the Town of Warren, drawing by Ruoxi Li ’23 (B.Arch)

Students Khoi Nguyen Chu ’24 (B.Arch) and Zhuofan Song ’24 (B.Arch) focused on the PROTECT & ABSORB scenario by proposing a new recreational waterfront along Water Street, an important street close to the coastline with a large commercial area that is exposed to the sea. By reviewing the town’s historic plans, the team posited that the current coast had lost its urban form and proposed to reintroduce it by designing new development that is climate friendly and economically generative: mixed-use housing with commercial space.

PROTECT & ABSORB scenario for the Town of Warren, drawing by Khoi Nguyen Chu ’24 (B.Arch)

Village of Wickford

The original home of the Narragansett Nation, the historic village of Wickford sits on the west side of the Bay and is one of the oldest preserved colonial villages in the country, dating back to the 17th century, with structures from the early 18th and 19th century. With a long maritime and fishing history, Wickford’s economy remains tied to the water through boating, fishing, and tourism. Its population is double that of Warren and is a popular summer destination for sailing, shopping, and fine cuisine.

The student team of Zhi Fei Li ’23 (M.Arch), Raquel Rojas ’23 (M.Arch) and Kaylee Holmes ’23 (M.Arch) studied the RETREAT & ADAPT scenario by rethinking how people move across land to higher ground. On Post Road, northwest of the existing village, they proposed a new intergenerational waterfront community with ecologically rich social spaces for human and non-human species, sustainable dense collective housing, and new routes and types of transportation.

RETREAT & ADAPT scenario for the Village of Wickford by Zhi Fei Li ’23 (M.Arch), Raquel Rojas ’23 (M.Arch) and Kaylee Holmes ’23 (M.Arch)

By using the EMBRACE & ENGAGE scenario, students Troy Schleich ’23 (M.Arch) and Ruth Shiferaw ’23 (M.Arch) offered an adapted version of the “Wickford Walk” in contradistinction to the current historic walk connecting significant areas of the town. Defined by its role as a historic seaside village, the new Wickford Walk offers three key zones—recreational, educational, and ecological—that enable residents and visitors to embrace a new relationship with the water.

EMBRACE & ENGAGE scenario for the Village of Wickford by Troy Schleich ’23 (M.Arch) and Ruth Shiferaw ’23 (M.Arch)

Students Parker VanderVen ’24 (B.Arch) and Yifei Xia ’23 (M.Arch) researched the PROTECT & ABSORB scenario, with a focus on the historic assets endangered by sea level rise. By choosing to protect Wickford’s historic district, the team reimagined (over time) preservation and engagement of the colonial buildings of the village along Main and Brown Streets. Through alternative strategies such as introducing absorptive surfaces, employing natural barriers, elevating buildings and infrastructure, and deploying new forms of immersive technologies such as augmented reality, they proposed new ways to protect the memory of the village and celebrate the history of Wickford.

PROTECT & ABSORB scenario for the Village of Wickford, drawing Yifei Xia ’23 (M.Arch)

In late April, the students presented their ideas virtually to the larger Envision Resilience Challenge cohort, including teams from the other participating universities, during a , who commended them for their clear, impactful proposals, superb illustrations and articulate arguments.

School of Architecture students and faculty at the “Envision Resilience: Designs for Living with Rising Seas” exhibition opening with Rebecca Lamond, supervising planner and Nicole LaFontaine, director of planning and development, for the Town of North Kingstown.

In addition, a month-long exhibition entitled, , which features adaptive designs by university student teams that reimagine infrastructure, shorelines and neighborhoods in Rhode Island communities vulnerable to sea level rise, is currently on display at the in Providence, Rhode Island. The free exhibit runs through June 26 and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and until 9 p.m. on Thursdays.

“We are delighted to welcome this exhibition to Rhode Island and to support ReMain Nantucket in this important work,” says Barnaby Evans, executive artistic director of WaterFire Providence. “This show is a wonderfully concrete and engaging extension of the conversations about the environment that we have been hosting here at WaterFire. These exciting proposals will expand our thinking and enrich our perspectives as Rhode Island communities work toward finding the best solutions to coping with sea level rise.”

For more information, visit the .

As the most challenging required component of the honors curriculum, thesis projects are the culmination of three to four semesters of independent research and professional and creative work by students from across the schools and colleges of the University. Working with a faculty advisor, students design, research and complete a significant project in their major field of study.

The entire thesis requires the development of “next level” professional and academic skills and must be a particularly high-quality piece of scholarly work, worthy of Honors in the scope of its conception and execution.

Every year, thesis advisors select honors thesis projects that they deem “prize-worthy,” and committees made up of honors core faculty members meet to determine prize recipients in five categories—the humanities, the creative, the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering, and the professional.

After evaluating each project nomination, subcommittee members awarded Jin with the Best Thesis Prize in the creative category for her project, “Woven Tensions: Chinatown Contestations.”

Dara H. Jin ’22

“This thesis would not have been possible without the guidance and support of both Professor Joseph Godlewski and my honors reader, Professor Danielle Taana Smith,” says Jin. “It’s truly an honor to be selected, and to have so many people resonate with the project’s aspirations is tremendously gratifying. I look forward to developing the project further in the future.”

Executed under the direction of honors faculty advisor and School of Architecture Associate Professor Joseph Godlewski, Jin’s project deals with the tenuous relationship between the residents of Chinatown and Johannesburg, South Africa, and proposes an architectural intervention that aims to acknowledge the rift and create a space for open dialogue.

“As a Chinese-American who grew up around Chinatowns, the contestations that Chinatowns globally experience was an important subject that I wanted to shine light on,” says Jin.

The project focuses specifically on Cyrildene, a neighborhood in Johannesburg that has become a substantial enclave for Chinese migrants who have integrated themselves into the once affluent suburb. As this new Chinatown has started to form its identity, it has also begun to take on and reshape apartheid architectures that have predated its arrival.

Currently, Cyrildene Chinatown can be seen as an anxious neighborhood where notions of otherness, lack of safety and paranoia often trouble the Chinese. Public space has become a place of hostility and vulnerability.

Through both collaborative design and architecture, Jin’s proposal embraces local aesthetics of recombinant and flexible architecture by using the ubiquitous Chinatown feature of the street “stall” and its larger counterpart, the market, as a medium for opening the spatial conversation, creating new zones for gathering and promoting cultural exchange.

The thesis views public space through AbdouMaliq Simone’s concept of “people as infrastructure,” which describes the remaking of cities through constantly flexible, mobile and provisional space. By defamiliarizing this space, new possibilities and understandings emerge; the stall is reenvisioned not as just a space for physical goods, but for cultural and identity transactions. The stall and the market become new spatial zones for gathering and cultural exchange.

In this project, the architect is the instigator and the people of Cyrildene are the real makers of the space. By providing a framework that then can be adapted, edited and expanded, the thesis proposes a sustainable solution to Cyrildene’s contestations.

“Dara is a stellar student, and it was an honor working with her on this brilliantly executed thesis. We share interests in investigating architectural and urban forms in Africa, and her project points to the exciting potentials of a directed research model between faculty and students,” says Godlewski.

To view the Renée Crown University Honors Program Convocation in its entirety, visit the website.

Launched in 2021, the award recognizes the top 100 graduating students in North America who, as emerging leaders, are interpreting and reimagining the fields of architecture and interior architecture.

Selected from a diverse pool of candidates, Chung and Kanté are two of only 44 architecture students to receive the honor, selected based on the creativity, rigor, skill and professionalism exhibited by their portfolios and nomination entries.

“We were blown away by the quality of work you and your peers submitted, and we feel that you represent a bright future for our industry—one of beautiful, thoughtful, innovative, sustainable, and inclusive design,” says Avinash Rajagopal, editor in chief of the magazine, in the award letters.

Kristabel Chung

Kristabel Chung

Integrating architectural and anthropological research methodologies, Chung’s shows an equal commitment to her original motivations as a visual artist and a phenomenological connection to experience.

In “Eroding Topographies,” Chung’s proposal aims to repurpose the abandoned Skytop Quarry in 黑料不打烊 to fit the recreational and counseling needs of refugees living in the area. By using the “Water Temple” designed by renowned Japanese architect, Tadao Ando as a precedent, Chung’s project transforms the harsh landscape of the quarry into various spaces that can be used for storytelling, sports, education and gardening.

And in “Stored Labor,” Chung reflects on discriminatory labor laws and their impact on the design of private housing developments to design migrant domestic worker accommodations in her mother’s native Hong Kong. By conducting in-person interviews and quantitative surveys asking workers to evaluate and draw their own spaces, her study offers an alternative understanding of gender relations, rooted in an urban, post-colonial context in Asia.

“Thoughtful, rigorous, and creative, Kristabel is an ideal student with a promising future in both the profession and the discipline,” says Lawrence Chua, associate professor in the School of Architecture, who nominated Chung.

In “Stored Labor,” Chung reflects on the impact of discriminatory labor laws.

In addition to receiving the Future100 award, Chung was a part of the school’s National Organization of Minority Architecture Students chapter student design team that was awarded first place in the 2019 Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition for their mixed-income housing proposal. Additionally, she has won the Gold Key Scholastic Art and Writing award, as well as taking second place in the Southern California Art Regional Competition for her acrylic painting, “The Paradox of the Individual.”

“For the past five years, I have struggled immensely trying to genuinely figure out my passion within architecture. I have worked on many projects alongside my academics to design more than just buildings and follow my passion in making and researching,” says Chung. “Showcasing my portfolio to the “Metropolis” jury with work that is outside, yet still tangential, to the field of architecture, is a true honor.”

After graduation, Chung will be working at Perkins&Will as a Designer 1.

In “Eroding Topographies,” Chung’s proposal aims to repurpose the abandoned Skytop Quarry in 黑料不打烊 to fit the recreational and counseling needs of refugees living in the area.

Coumba Kanté

Coumba Kanté

碍补苍迟é’蝉 reflects a wide range of design interests and skills, from large scale urban and landscape speculations, to product and graphic design, to pragmatic urban design interventions, such as “Layers of Skin, Scales of Segregation,” a proposal focusing on the fundamental issues within the city of 黑料不打烊’s 15th ward through the context of a skin, the central factor to injustice.

Having previously worked at Elkus Manfredi Architects, 碍补苍迟é’蝉 portfolio also shows a deep understanding of construction drawing, 3D modeling and building technologies. Her work on the Volpe Development Project, completed while interning at the firm, included parametric prototyping of fa?ade designs and 3D additive manufacturing for the 3 million square foot masterplan in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Coumba’s work evinces a unique sensibility that enables her to confront the many social and ecological challenges that define contemporary life without compromising her very high design standards,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture, who nominated Kanté for the program.

From Kanté’s “Layers of Skin, Scales of Segregation” proposal.

During her time at the School of Architecture, Kanté has been a member of numerous school and university organizations, including the American Institute of Architecture Students, African Student Union and European Union, and has served as an officer for the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students and the Architecture Student Organization . In 2021, she was named one of the 15 winners of Gensler’s inaugural Rising Black Designers Scholarship and Design Challenge, a prestigious national scholarship for young Black designers.

“Being selected for the Future100, among so many strong and passionate designers, is surreal to me,” says Kanté. “I’m proud of how far I’ve come as a designer and find it to be a wonderful and proud expression of my undergraduate progress. It has also shown me my own potential and how far I can push myself and my work in a positive and responsive direction.”

After graduation, Kanté hopes to spend the summer working in West Africa, specifically the Ivory Coast, experiencing and understanding different means of designing that reflect a more global perspective outside of the academic realm. She’s also interested in exploring the possibilities of studying urban planning.

Kanté’s work includes a 3 million square foot masterplan for the Volpe Development Project in Massachusetts.

As part of the Future100 honor, Chung and 碍补苍迟é’蝉 work and credentials have been shared with architecture and design firms across North America to encourage professional connections and career opportunities, and are posted on the “ and in the magazine’s March/April issue, on newsstands now.

To view the full Future100 list, visit .

Specific views into the stage are curated through openings between the reed walls. As they grow,
the reeds create dynamic relationships with sunlight and line-of-sight.

Hosted by artist residency nonprofit, , the annual competition, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, provides artists, architects and designers with the unique opportunity to devise and construct a performance venue and gathering place on Ragdale’s grounds.

Each year Ragdale invites architects to reinterpret the open-air Ragdale Ring theater—designed in 1912 by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw for the work of his playwright wife, Frances—through interventions that explore intersections of architecture, sculpture, landscape design, public art and performance disciplines.

Responding to “Roots,” this year’s competition theme, a jury of architects and artists selected “Echo,” a proposal designed by the + team of Chowdhury, Desai, Gan and Zenawi, as the winner for the 2022 performance season.

By embracing the evident temporal qualities of the competition, “Echo” revisits the first Ragdale Ring—a proposition of nature.

“Shaw’s keen pursuit of landscaping crafted his garden into an enduring forum for the arts, an echo itself of the outdoor theatre at the Villa Ginanneschi-Gori. This typology is perhaps, at its most primordial—the echo of a meadow,” says the team.? “We propose to explore the layering of these echoes and their underlying sensibilities.”

Benches are integrated into the reed walls creating shaded seating along the enclosure of the project.

At the heart of the design is a round stage, a soil mound supported by compressed earth blocks reinforced with seeds and sealed with gold paint, mirroring the limestone lip of Shaw’s stage. Surrounding the stage is a deconstructed ellipse of reed walls, a nod to the planted tunnels in both Shaw’s design and at the Villa Ginanneschi-Gori, that invite slippage through and around the site. Low impact and sustainable, the enclosure’s plants—an assortment of native reeds and wildflowers—are recoverable at summer’s end, allowing the installation to enter a circular economy.

“The exploration of sustainable building methods and designed decay responded to the transitory quality of the project,” notes the team. “The mulch, soil, plants, bricks and flowers will all be re-sold, with minimal invasion to the site.”

Within the reed walls are nooks with simple, gold-painted benches that create seating along the design’s enclosure; a “meta-echo” audio system that allows music, sound and poetry to emerge from the plants; and colored, spherical ground lights, which act as a re-imagined version of the original Japanese paper lanterns displayed throughout Shaw’s theater.

Curated elements from “Echo” will be staged at both the Chicago Cultural Center and the Chicago History Museum, two off-campus venues where Ragdale performances will take place this season.

“The Ragdale Foundation allows designers to test ideas and experiment on the field as opposed to operating as a commissioned project,” says the team. “We look forward to further collaborative explorations of context, tools and agency on the Ragdale campus and engagement with its community.”

[sic] + fieldtrip was awarded a production grant to construct the temporary installation of “Echo,” as well as a design-build studio residency for a team of up to ten individuals at the creative community in Lake Forest, Ill.

“We are very proud of these recent alumni who, like many young architects, have started their own firms and are collaborating with other small firms,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Each of them is also either working for larger firms or is studying at the graduate level. Individually and collectively, they are creating new, collaborative models of practice and shaping the future of architecture. And the brilliant results speak for themselves.”

The original paper lanterns are reimagined as spherical ground lights.

Summer 2022 performances at Ragdale that integrate “Echo” are set to kick off on June 18. The final event in the Ragdale Ring series is scheduled for August 13.

For more information about the Ragdale Ring competition and this summer’s performance season, visit the .

Lily Chishan Wong

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give faculty members, early in their careers, the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

“Lily Wong joins 黑料不打烊 Architecture as the seventh Harry der Boghosian Fellow, and like previous fellows she has a strong record of academic achievement, including work as an editor and curator. She also brings to the fellowship six years of experience as a practicing architect with expertise in cultural and landscape projects,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Our students and faculty look forward to welcoming her and to working with her during her fellowship year.”

During the 2022–23 school year, Wong will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, “Producing Nature” that examines the use of vegetation in architecture and its spatial, socio-political and environmental dimensions. During the fellowship, Wong will study the architecture and infrastructure involved in the plant trade network and its multi-scalar registers and planetary effects.

“’Producing Nature’ challenges the idealized notion of nature and considers live plants as atmospheric design—grown, shipped and stored globally to be used in architectural production,” says Wong. “The goal of this research is to demonstrate how “nature” is produced and speculate on new forms of ecosystem. The project will also foster cross-pollination between architecture and other fields.”

Like the six previous Boghosian Fellows, Wong will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. By emphasizing collective participation and conversation, her research will culminate in the form of an exhibition and interdisciplinary symposium exploring the material culture of the environment.

Wong has worked at the New York-based multidisciplinary design practice, Weiss/Manfredi, focusing on museum projects and site design. Licensed in New York state since 2019, she is a current member of the National Organization of Minority Architects and the America Institute of Architects. In addition to professional practice, Wong has taught at Columbia University and the University of Arizona.

Previously, Wong completed her master of architecture degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she received the Award for Excellence in Total Design, the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize and the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize from Columbia, as well as the Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) Traveling Fellowship from the KPF Foundation and the Fred L. Liebmann Book Award from the New York Society of Architects.

At Columbia, Wong was co-founder and co-editor of (pronounced “colon”), a publication and workshop about the rhetoric and media that constitute the discipline of architecture. The collective was part of NEW INC, the first museum-led cultural incubator and an initiative of the New Museum in New York. Between 2015-17, Wong and her team’s work was exhibited in various international venues.

Wong also holds a bachelor of fine arts in architectural design from the Parsons School of Design and a bachelor of arts in philosophy from the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School. Her research interests in water infrastructure and constructions of nationhood were supported by the Michael Kalil Endowment for Smart Design and the India China Institute.

“The Boghosian Fellowship will be a remarkable opportunity for my intellectual and professional growth. I am inspired by the School of Architecture’s innovative and rigorous curriculum and am delighted to collaborate with 黑料不打烊’s distinguished community of students, scholars and scientists,” says Wong. “My project seeks to engage various disciplines and to enrich the ongoing, urgent conversations about designing the environment. 黑料不打烊 will be an incredible place for me to learn, to teach, and, ultimately, to initiate positive changes to our field.”

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016–17), Linda Zhang (2017–18), James Leng (2018–19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019–20), Liang Wang (2020–21) and Leen Katrib (2021–22).

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, on the School of Architecture’s website.

Professor Lori A. Brown (photo by Laura Heyman) and Joanna L. Schmickel ’87

Election to the AIA’s College of Fellows is one of the highest individual honors the institute bestows on members. Out of a total AIA membership of more than 94,000, only 3% carry this distinction.

The elevation to fellowship is conferred on architects with at least 10 years of AIA membership and demonstrated influence in at least one of the following nomination categories: elevated the aesthetic, scientific and practical efficiency of the profession; promoted the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of architectural education, training or practice; coordinated the building industry and the profession of architecture through leadership in the AIA or other related professional organizations; or advanced the living standards of people through an improved environment.

Fellows are selected by a seven-member Jury of Fellows. This year’s jury included Chair Steven Spurlock, FAIA, Quinn Evans Architects; Rainy Hamilton Jr., FAIA, Hamilton Anderson Associates; Lisa Lamkin, FAIA, Brown Reynolds Watford Architects Inc.; Rebecca Lewis, FAIA, DSGW Architects; RK Stewart, FAIA, RK Stewart Consultants; Allison Williams, FAIA, AGWms_studio; and Anna Wu, FAIA, University of North Carolina.

This year, 88 member-architects and two international architects from across the country were elevated to fellows.

“We congratulate these accomplished architects on the occasion of being elevated to the prestigious AIA College of Fellows,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Such recognition is a testament to not only their singular achievements, which are impressive, but also to their significant contributions to the profession and society on a national level.”

Lori A. Brown, FAIA, developed a creative research practice focusing on the relationships between architecture and social justice issues with particular emphasis on gender and its impact upon spatial relationships in hopes to broaden the discourse and involvement of architecture in our world.

As the co-founder of , Brown leads a women and architecture group working to bridge the academy and practice in New York City and seeks to raise the awareness of women in architecture, create support and mentoring networks, and take design actions broadening the exposure of architecture in the world. ArchiteXX’s current curatorial project is the travelling exhibition, , that has been supported by the Graham Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts and the National Endowments for the Arts. Through ArchiteXX, Brown is also currently collaborating with the Australian group Parlour on #wikiD to write more women architects into Wikipedia, which has been supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Brown’s two books include “” (Routledge, 2011), an edited collection of a group of international women designers and architects employing feminist methodologies in their creative practices that began as a traveling exhibition, and “” (Routledge, 2013), exploring highly securitized spaces and the impact of legislation and the First Amendment’s affect upon such places. She is also working with two abortion clinics on design interventions for their public interface. Brown’s current book projects include “Birthing, Borders and Bodies,” and co-editing “The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture 1960-2015” with Karen Burns. In 2021, Brown received an Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York.

“For my contributions to be recognized by the sole organization that architects have in this country is incredibly gratifying and an immense honor,” says Brown. “I am grateful for the acknowledgment by the AIA and being welcomed into the College of Fellows.”

Brown is a professor in 黑料不打烊’s School of Architecture and serves as the school’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion. She is also the faculty representative to the University’s Board of Trustees. Brown is a registered architect in New York state.

Joanna L. Schmickel, FAIA, LEED AP,? is principal of (formerly KressCox Associates) and has been a practicing architect in Washington, D.C. for more than 35 years. During this period, she has managed a diverse set of award-winning local and national projects for educational, institutional, commercial and residential clients. Schmickel has been the lead designer on projects ranging from individual structures to full campus master plans, resulting in the design and construction of multiple buildings. She has proudly sponsored and developed a new generation of architects who are active in the global architectural design and construction community.

In partnership with the Washington chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|DC), Schmickel has created and delivered multiple youth workshops for the , led an Architecture in the Schools team and was an inaugural creator of the , a program that teaches students the design processes used by architects.

“Introducing young people to architecture and the design process allows them to enter the world with a better knowledge and appreciation for the impact the built environment has on lives of individuals and communities,” says Schmickel.

She is the founder of the that pairs female design professionals with middle school girls to introduce them to architecture and other STEM-related fields. In 2017, Schmickel received the from the Washington Architectural Foundation in recognition of her work to develop and execute the program.

“Elevation to the College of Fellows is recognition that the work I do to introduce young people to architecture is valued,” says Schmickel. “I hope that my elevation inspires other women and people of color to enter the profession and motivates them to increase diversity within the design and construction industry.”

Schmickel is a registered architect in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland, and is a LEED accredited professional.

For more information on the College of Fellows or to view the complete list of newly elevated architect fellows, visit .

Patrick Ahearn ’73, G’73

The workshops are made possible by a gift from ’73, G’73—a School of Architecture alumnus, member of the school’s advisory board and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees—that created the Patrick Ahearn Workshops in Professional Practice Fund. The gift is part of the University’s .

As a student at the school, Ahearn participated in a similar series of workshops with practicing architects, which had a powerful impact on him and on the career path he would choose after graduation. As a result of that experience, Ahearn wanted to provide current architecture students with similar opportunities to work with professionals in architecture and related fields, especially business.

“Patrick Ahearn is not only among the most important residential architects working today in the U.S., but he is also a brilliant urban designer and business strategist. And his interests and expertise extend beyond architecture and planning to automobile and other design practices,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Patrick is a great architect. But it is this range of design-related interests, including business strategy, that have distinguished him from his peers and made him such an important and influential architect.”

Each semester, the School of Architecture will host up to three Patrick Ahearn Workshops.

From Feb. 11–14, G’93 (M.Arch.), will lead a workshop for graduate students at the School of Architecture. They will study archetypal elements that form the basis for a series of investigations that transforms conventional expectations through hybridization, recombination, morphological mutation, occupation and experiential speculation. Blackwell will also give a public lecture in Slocum Hall on .

From Feb. 28–March 4, and will lead a workshop for School of Architecture students enrolled in this spring’s ARC 409: Integrated Design Studio course. Through themed group sessions and mini-talks, students will navigate the front between engineering and architecture and become empowered about clear strategies for performative, responsive, intelligent and impactful architecture. Bates and Williamson-Taylor will also give an interdisciplinary public lecture in Slocum Hall on , where the discussion will be moderated by School of Architecture Associate Professor Sinéad Mac Namara, associate dean for student affairs in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

On March 26 and 27, ’99 (B.Arch.) and will lead a workshop for School of Architecture student organization representatives about leadership in the design profession. De Angel Salas and Cooney will also give a public lecture in Slocum Hall on .

“It is my distinct pleasure to provide 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture students with the insight and the tools to become ‘the most important person in the room,’ regarding the built environment process,” says Ahearn. “These workshops will open the doors for students to learn and develop the skills needed as architects in the real world to become leaders in the development process, and will provide them with a rich understanding of the skills required to be successful in the business of architectural practice.”

Previously, Ahearn established the at the School of Architecture, given each year to an architecture student, with preference given to those from Levittown, N.Y., or Boston, Mass. Ahearn serves on the University’s Boston Regional Council, which is made up of University alumni and parents dedicated to raising the profile of the school within the region. He also established the at the School of Architecture to help support key activities in critical areas and assist the dean in developing special projects and events to raise the school’s national and international profile.

Ahearn—a fellow of the prestigious American Institute of Architects—is the founding principal of . His firm specializes in historically motivated architecture and interior design. For nearly five decades, he has designed and built residential projects distinguished by finely crafted and detailed work spanning classic styles of architecture from city town houses to island homes.

He is author of “” (ORO Editions, 2018), which features 18 Ahearn-designed homes and explains how he adapts and applies philosophy’s greater-good theory to each of his projects.

In 2014, Ahearn was named the Dean’s Outstanding Alumnus, an award given by the School of Architecture annually to a graduate who has exhibited dedication to the school while also practicing at the highest levels of the architecture discipline. He was inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame in November 2013.

To make a gift to support the Patrick Ahearn Workshops in Professional Practice Fund, visit .

Xiluva Mbungela

Xiluva Mbungela ’24 (B.Arch.), a third-year student in the School of Architecture, has been named a recipient of the 2021 Robert L. Wesley Award from the . Named in honor of the first Black partner at SOM, the award supports BIPOC undergraduate students enrolled in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, urban design or engineering programs in the United States.

Established in 2020, the Robert L. Wesley Award recognizes the academic achievements and potential of emerging BIPOC designers and is intended to alleviate the cost of post-secondary design education. One of only three full fellows to receive the award, Mbungela will receive a $10,000 scholarship to support her academic development, in addition to a yearlong mentorship program connecting her with leading BIPOC practitioners and educators.

This year’s jury was led by and included Danei Cesario, Chris Cornelius, Joyce Hwang, and María Villalobos Hernandez.

“Last year we were honored to meet the inaugural fellows of the Robert L. Wesley Award and provide them with economic support and a mentorship program,” says Iker Gil, executive director of the SOM Foundation. “We discussed and learned about their interests, challenges and goals. We can’t wait to learn from and support a new group of students whose contributions are felt in their universities and communities.”

“The Regional Outpost Center in Madagascar” works toward providing technological infrastructure for small-holder farmers to be more sustainable and efficient in their farming and agricultural practices. The project includes community and learning gardens that become a hyperdensification of small farms, rather than being dispersed and creating situations that further contribute to the climate crisis. Credits: Xiluva Mbungela (drawing), Wenxuan Qiao ’24 (B.Arch.) and Tianhao Huang ’24 (B.Arch.) (project co-collaborators).

Born in Benoni, South Africa, Mbungela comes from an ethnic group that represents four percent of the country—the Tsonga. Thousands of miles away from home, she has been pursuing her dream of becoming an architect while chasing her passions for gender equality and minority representation through a minor in women and gender studies.

Mbungela believes that projects in the built environment not only have to be functional, but they must engage matters of social justice, ethics and environmental sustainability.

“As an architect, there is an unexplainable power that lies in the ability to create spaces that elicit emotion—a power can be implemented to do good in the world by creating safe spaces for people to form bonds and make connections,” says Mbungela.

“It is rare to witness a student with the intellectual prowess and drive that Mbungela possesses,” says Joseph Godlewski, School of Architecture assistant professor. “Her purpose-driven interest in equity and the built environment is at once clear, focused and scholarly. She has a real talent for explanation and conveying complex information in simple terms.”

During her time at 黑料不打烊, Mbungela has been involved in a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives aimed at educating the campus community and empowering marginalized students. She lends her voice to the school’s National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS) chapter—actively collaborating with students and faculty on diversity issues pertaining to her class—and has been a leader in the University’s African Student Union. Mbungela also serves as an orientation leader for 黑料不打烊 Welcome, the University’s student orientation program.

“A Day in Johannesburg” is a drawing that contains qualities of graphic fields, complex objects, color and entourage to depict a scene inspired by the Johannesburg CBD area in my home country of South Africa. In the drawing, abstract objects are “architecturalized,” while layers of linework are used to create the fabric of the scene and to communicate the urban landscape of this city. Credits: Xiluva Mbungela

“Mbungela’s powerful ability to share her experiences and emotions as a BIPOC student shaped the school’s collective consciousness during the fall 2019 semester when a series of racist attacks shook our campus,” says Godlewski.

“My ultimate dream is to become the founder of an architectural firm saturated by young African architects who create buildings that reflect the strength of African design,” says Mbungela. “Returning to South Africa with a world-class education from 黑料不打烊 coupled with the prestigious Robert L. Wesley award will distinguish me as a young leader in the field and set me on the path to be part of the drive to reinvent Africa as a place of architectural innovation.”

Visit the SOM Foundation website to learn more about the .

Leen Katrib (Boghosian Fellow 2021–2022)

Leen Katrib

Leen Katrib will teach the visiting critic studio “Counter-Mies,” in which students will design an archive within Mies Van Der Rohe’s IIT Crown Hall. The year 2022 marks the 70th anniversary since the demolition of Mecca Flats, a residential building that was home to a thriving African American population that was evicted after a series of tactics employed by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to make way for the construction of Mies’ IIT Crown Hall and his proposal for the expansion of IIT’s modernist campus into Bronzeville.

Students will deconstruct the modernist myth of tabula rasa that has long defined the official history of IIT’s campus expansion—and by extension, the post-WWII expansion of many American university campuses—to reveal the constellations of overlooked visible and invisible historical detritus that had to be suppressed—literally and figuratively—to uphold a narrative of Enlightenment and progress through higher education.

The archive seeks to take apart the official history of the modernist campus—and the myth of modernism itself—by addressing what historical debris will be collected; the cataloguing logic; how the collection of debris is handled within the archive, etc. As Jacques Derrida notes, “there is no political power without control of the archive,” for the archive “determines the structure of the archivable content even in its very coming into existence and in its relationship to the future. The archivization produces as much as it records the event.”

Katrib joined the School of Architecture at 黑料不打烊 in fall 2021 as the school’s sixth Harry der Boghosian Fellow. Her work draws upon multiple fields that range from anthropology to archaeology and preservation to investigate the afterlife of architecture’s debris and its decisive role in historical erasures and knowledge production commonly affecting marginalized communities.

Her research has been funded by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the Howard Crosby Butler Travel Fellowship, the George H. Mayr Travel Fellowship, and the William and Neoma Timme Travel Fellowship. Her work has been published in Future Anterior, Pidgin, Room One Thousand and Bracket, and has been exhibited at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Van Der Plas Gallery in New York and the A+D Museum in Los Angeles.

Katrib holds a master of architecture degree from Princeton University, where she was editor of the architectural journal Pidgin and was an assistant instructor for graduate and undergraduate courses. She also holds a bachelor of architecture degree with honors from the University of Southern California (USC), where she was designated a Global and Discovery Scholar and was awarded the A. Quincy Jones Memorial Scholarship for Exceptional Promise in Architecture and the Robert Allen Rogaff Memorial Award for Excellence in Delineation. At USC, she was a teaching assistant for undergraduate seminars and studios.

Prior to joining the School of Architecture, Katrib practiced at Marvel, LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis), McEwen Studio, Peter Marino Architect and OMA in New York City. Outside of practice, she has completed independent research in France, China and Jordan.

Katrib’s fellowship research will culminate in the form of an on April 8 and an on May 12.

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca (Katherine Hogan Architects)

Vincent Petrarca and Katherine Hogan

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca will teach the visiting critic studio, “The Re-Making of Machinery Hall,” which will explore methods to create progressive learning spaces that support research and innovation on campus by focusing on the renovation of 黑料不打烊’s Machinery Hall. A collaborative space, a public space, a gallery, a performance space and a laboratory—Machinery Hall will be a new typology on campus for cross-college collaboration.

As universities become increasingly interdisciplinary, the design of new learning spaces is critical to the academic progress of students, faculty, researchers and industry partners. What were once distinct activities are becoming more inclusive and collaborative.

The Machinery Hall renovation is a conversion of a 23,000 square-foot building on campus into an innovative maker space for multiple schools and colleges. It is uniquely positioned at the edge of the Quad, adjacent to the School of Architecture, the College of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Information Studies. At the nexus of these three, the building’s siting provides a connection to the main public space of campus.

In this studio, students will study Machinery Hall at various scales from the larger campus context to the details of building materials while utilizing an innovative approach to reusing an existing building. Students will examine precedents of renovations, restorations and building interventions, and analyze programs of maker spaces to develop design strategies. Experimental technology, intriguing materials and innovative display methods will all be utilized to enrich and transcend the current learning experience. There is no preconceived notion of what Machinery Hall can or will be, but through exploration and interrogation, students will collectively propose a viable future for this significant building.

Hogan is owner and principal of , based in Raleigh, North Carolina. As architect and educator, Hogan approaches each project with the belief that good design can happen at any scale and budget. Throughout her career, she has worked on projects of various scales and typologies, including institutional, commercial and residential projects. Hogan’s firm has crafted a diverse body of work, and has received AIA awards at the local, state and national levels for innovative design solutions to complex problems and for using ordinary materials in inventive ways. Katherine Hogan Architects has recently been featured at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale in the exhibition, “A South Forty,” which showcases the work of 40 regional firms and aims to provide an overview of the current vitality of contemporary architecture and design in the American South.

Hogan earned a B.Arch. degree in 2005 from 黑料不打烊 as a University Scholar, with a minor in Italian language. After graduation, she worked with Will Bruder Architect in Phoenix, Arizona, and after held a fellowship position with Bryan Bell at Design Corps, a nonprofit architecture practice assisting communities normally without access to architectural services. Hogan is serving her second term as a City Council appointed member of the City of Raleigh Appearance Commission. She also serves as an advisory board member to the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture and has been a visiting critic at the school since 2015.

Petrarca is a principal and co-owner of . He has over 30 years of experience in the practice of architecture. Petrarca has worked on a wide range of award-winning projects of various scales and typologies and has been recognized for his innovative approach to design. He has extensive experience in the making of architecture, and is also a licensed general contractor, bringing years of on-site experience and knowledge to the firm.

From 1993 to 2003, Petrarca worked for the award-winning firm of Frank Harmon Architect. During this time, he found many opportunities to fall into design build situations. Petrarca’s first independent project was a 1,700-square-foot house that he designed and built. It won AIA NC and AIA Southern Atlantic Region awards and was featured in Dwell and on the cover of the book, “25 Houses Under 1,500 Square Feet.”

Petrarca has been recognized as an innovative educator, receiving in 2014 an ACSA Faculty Design Award for his design of Weathering House. He is a professor of practice in the Department of Architecture at North Carolina’s State’s College of Design, where he received both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. II degrees. He has also been a visiting critic at the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture since 2015.

Julia Czerniak and Ted Brown (黑料不打烊 Architecture)

Julia Czerniak

Taught by Julia Czerniak and Ted Brown as a visiting critic studio, “IF, THEN: Design Scenarios for Adaptive Coastal Communities” joins in the Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge sponsored by ReMain Nantucket. The mission of this not-for-profit’s initiative is to inspire coastal communities around the globe to envision innovative adaptations to sea level rise. To that end, ReMain has convened a group of local and regional advisors to bring expertise to bear on each institution’s studio work, such as conservation, real estate development, architecture, historic preservation, natural resources, marine biology, civil engineering and transportation.

黑料不打烊 students will focus on Warren and Wickford, two small—and quite different—coastal historic communities along Narraganset Bay, Rhode Island. By researching natural and cultural adaptation through time and across scale, traveling to the sites for ground truthing, and meeting with local experts and residents, we will be poised to test a set of design scenarios for these communities to adapt to the challenges of climate change and be resilient to future changes through the lens of architecture.

Scenario planning is an apt approach that offers a way to assert control over a rapidly changing world by identifying assumptions and determining possible responses. In this context, students will investigate what it might mean to retreat and adapt (by literally moving settlement to higher ground and proposing novel ways of living with climate realities); embrace and engage (through remaking shorelines that recognize and engage rising waters and release them to common use by both human and non-human species); or raise and absorb (by preserving invaluable resources through innovative ways to stay put).

The studio will be complimented by a 黑料不打烊 Architecture lecture series, , that features leading voices in architecture, planning and design focused on coastal resilience.

Czerniak is associate dean and professor of architecture at 黑料不打烊 where she teaches studios as well as seminars on landscape theory and criticism. Czerniak is educated both as an architect and landscape architect and her research and practice draw on the intersection of these disciplines.

Although the techniques, scales and products of her research vary, Czerniak’s work focuses on the physical and cultural potentials of urban landscapes. Recent design research advances landscape as a protagonist in the remaking of Rust-Belt cities, from a series of public space interventions along a derelict creek to ecologically and spatially rich streetscapes for a newly planned campus of 黑料不打烊.

Czerniak’s work as a designer is complemented by her work as educator and writer, which in all cases advances design as both a way to enable new ways of seeing, imagining, valuing and acting within our challenged anthropocentric environment and the agent of a socially and ecologically rich public realm. “Large Parks” (Princeton Architectural Press) and “Case: Downsview Park Toronto” (Prestel) focus on contemporary design approaches to public parks and the relationship between landscape and cities. “Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures” (Princeton Architectural Press) examines potential futures for shrinking cities. Other writings include essays in “Third Coast Atlas” (Actar); “Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the History of Architecture” (Wiley & Sons); “Landscape Infrastructure” (Birkhauser); “Landscape Alchemy: The Work of Hargreaves Associates” (ORO Editions); “Fertilizers: Olin Eisenman” (Institute for Contemporary Art,); “Landscape Urbanism” (Princeton Architectural Press); “Assemblage 34” (MIT Press) and Harvard Design Magazine. Czerniak lectures and teaches internationally, most recently delivering keynote lectures at the Onassis Foundation in Athens, the Large Parks in Large Cities conference in Stockholm, the Open Space Summit in Brussels and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects annual conference.

Ted Brown

Brown is a professor in the School of Architecture, 黑料不打烊, where he has served as the graduate and undergraduate chair, and as director of the Florence programs.

Brown’s collaborative design practices work within the public and private sectors addressing architecture and the city at the infrastructural, neighborhood and apparatus scales. He is a founding partner of Munly/Brown Studio, with projects that include mix-use housing, the master plan for the Salt District Neighborhood, and the childcare campus and catholic chapel for 黑料不打烊. In collaboration with the landscape practice Julia Czerniak/CLEAR, Brown has worked on local waterfront redevelopment projects for the city of 黑料不打烊. His work in the visual arts has ranged from “Landscape Miniatures” to mix media stain paintings. His research includes the visualization of archeological evidence under the Basilica of San Marco, Venice, in relation to early settlement patterns and sea level rise. Brown’s recent research examines ways to link the art of assembly as a material practice with assemblage theory. The forum for this work is Studio R-A (Ted Brown/Bill Brown) resulting in articles, exhibitions, and design provocations on/of re-assemblage. “Siting re-assemblage” re-imagines landscape as an assemblage practice in the context of assemblage thinking in the visual arts, social theory, and urban geography.

“Casted Cabins” village view

Established in memory of Richard Ingersoll, a longtime professor of art and architecture in 黑料不打烊 Abroad Florence, and founder and director of , “The Living Museum: Micro-architectures in the Landscape” is part of a series of design competitions organized by , aimed at promoting original projects with a conscious vision about environmental and social sustainability.

Created to address the so called “take-away-tourism” that has always been a critical issue for Sardinian small villages and minor museums, the competition asked participants to integrate an accommodation program within the heart of the complex, situated one hour from the Sardinian coast.

Competitors were to imagine and design creative and unconventional proposals—small-scale structures capable of enhancing the value of the magnificent natural site—to host tourists intent on traveling through the Sardinian inland, as well as the international artists who periodically reach the museum to set up their own exhibitions.

In the search for innovative concepts and original projects, an international jury panel coming from well-known international firms and academic institutions evaluated the submitted proposals. Both the history of Italian sculptor, Costantino Nivola and his works of art, and the natural features of the site, were key factors in the designs of the winning projects.

Daniel Asoli ’18 (B.Arch), Nathaniel Banks ’18 (B.Arch) and Yidian Liu ’18 (B.Arch), co-founders of ,?and ’18 (B.Arch), designer at Perkins&Will, were awarded an honorable mention for their project, “.”

Influenced by Ingersoll’s research on urban ecology and sustainable architecture, the team of alumni set out to prove that by adding distributed residences to the existing museum complex, it could function simultaneously as an icon for the Orani municipality, as well as an entity separated from its ecological and civic context.

“Casted Cabins” section drawing

“Our proposal was intended to honor Professor Ingersoll who challenged and inspired us to expand our conception of the architectural discipline beyond the singular building and toward broader sociological issues,” says Liu.

The team’s project aimed to preserve the surrounding ecology by prudently situating the residences within an olive orchard; project a worthy civic icon, representative of Constantino Nivola’s signature sand-casting technique; and promote cultural heritage by utilizing a design that supports the local masonry economy.

By using rammed earth as the primary mode for achieving conservation ecology, the residences of “Casted Cabins” are erected using predominantly earth removed by on-site excavation, thus bridging Nivola’s artistic legacy given the conspicuous assembly and aesthetic similarities to sand-casting.

The sculpted towering profiles of the residences rise above the surrounding tree canopy formalizing an iconic vista for native Oranians living across the valley, while nimbly weaving between the tight arboreal constraints of the grove. The idiosyncratic arrangement and craft of the residences lends individual character to form, fostering opportunities for guests to experience many welcome surprises during their stay at the Nivola Museum.

“Winning an honorable mention recognizes the significant influence Professor Ingersoll had on us, his students,” says Asoli. “We, and the many architects he taught, continue to carry the lessons he shared, principally among which is the insight that architecture plays a vital role in solving social and environmental issues.”

Visit “The Living Museum” to view a list of all awarded projects.

All the competitions promoted by TerraViva are open to students, architects, designers, urbanists, artists, makers, activists and anyone interested in the architecture field. To learn more, visit .

Organized by the School of Architecture in cooperation with in Shanghai, the grand opening of the exhibition celebrated all of those who made it possible for 黑料不打烊 Architecture to provide a unique hybrid pedagogical model for more than 150 undergraduate students who were unable to travel to 黑料不打烊.

“Over the last 18 months, our school organized in-person studios in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen; curated exhibitions; ran workshops and traveling programs for incoming freshmen; held in person portfolio reviews; and conducted high school visits,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture.

“All of this was overseen by Fei Wang, School of Architecture assistant teaching professor and director of China programs,” says Speaks. “Wang’s extraordinary efforts, along with those of our faculty here in 黑料不打烊, provided our students in China with the opportunity to continue their studies without interruption and gave them and their parents confidence in our school and university.”

The School of Architecture was among the very few architecture schools in the nation that was able to continue teaching in person and recruiting in China during the pandemic.

Dr. Qi Fang, founder of Tontsen, and Professor Fei Wang welcomed more than 100 in-person guests—as well as 5,000 virtual attendees participating via a livestream broadcast—to the opening of the exhibition that included presentations by some of China’s leading young architect-designers who taught 黑料不打烊 Architecture students amid the pandemic.

Curated by Tontsen founding partner, Dr. Wang Xia and Professor Fei Wang, “Challenge and Opportunity: 黑料不打烊 Architecture Education Innovation in the Pandemic” is divided into three sections and showcases design drawings and models made by the students in the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters.

The first section focuses on work done in four distinct Beijing and Shanghai-based visiting critic studios taught by and (Drawing Architecture Studio, Beijing), (GEIJOENG?, Shanghai), (Natural Build, Shanghai), and (Pills, Beijing).

The second section features student projects from Professor Fei Wang’s integrated design studio course in Shanghai, as well as from “branding for architecture,” an elective course taught by graphic designer, .

The third section of the exhibit displays highlights from “Introduction to Architecture and Architecture Practice,” a unique course offered in fall 2020 for incoming freshmen living in China who deferred admission to January 2021. Led by Professor Fei Wang, students enrolled in the course traveled to three of China’s major cities where they visited 47 of the top architecture offices, met firm principals, toured important architecture projects and learned the fundamental principles of architecture.

“Thank you to all our students and faculty in China and 黑料不打烊 whose hard work and dedication transformed challenge into opportunity,” says Speaks. “The work produced was truly exceptional and we look forward to future collaborations in China.”

“Challenge and Opportunity” is on display in Shanghai through Nov. 15. Visit to view additional photos of the exhibition.

Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, Wang, the school’s fifth Boghosian Fellow, has taught an architecture studio and two professional electives devoted to the study of the superblock. The results of Wang’s studio and other courses taught over this last year are catalogued and published in two large volumes, which are part of the exhibition. But those materials tell only part of the story.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a large model of multiple scales—urban, architecture, interior—that comes in and out of focus depending on how and from what vantage point it is viewed. Indeed, depending on the vantage point, the scales appear not only to be multiple, but indeterminate. To be more precise, the model encourages our eye to move seamlessly between scales and accede to the ambition of “seeing all” named by “superblock,” a vantage point that might be best described as a mobile, 3D approximation of the views provided by Song Dynasty landscape paintings.

Ultimately, the exhibition demonstrates that “superblock” is not so much a term, concept or reality, but is instead the name for an ambition, shared by the architect and the urbanist alike, to “see all”: to represent, name and thus comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible complexity of the contemporary city.

“I’m thrilled to present this exhibition as the culminating event of my fellowship, which has been a truly collective and collaborative process,” says Wang. “In many ways, this project is a design manifestation of intellectual curiosities, endeavors and findings in excavating the conceptual and representational apparatus of architectural and urban imaginations today.”

“Wang, like all previous Boghosian Fellows, has enriched the intellectual and design culture of the school,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “He and his students worked for more than a year researching the superblock and its development in the west and in China. Last spring, Wang organized an impressive that included scholars from all over the world. His exhibition promises to be equally impressive for students, faculty and scholars interested in this important urban typology.”

Wang will give a at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in Slocum Hall’s first floor atrium. A public reception will follow.

Krystol Austin and Coumba Kanté (right) were named winners of the inaugural Rising Black Designers Scholarship and Design Challenge.

Two School of Architecture students have received a prestigious national scholarship for young Black designers by Gensler, one of the world’s largest design and architecture firms.

Krystol Austin G’22 (M.Arch.) and Coumba Kanté ’22 (B.Arch.) were named two of the 15 winners of the inaugural . Shiori Green ’22 (B.Arch.) was also selected as one of the finalists in the competition.

This new scholarship works to break down the barriers of entering the architectural profession by creating educational opportunities and materials resources to help talented design students overcome the costs associated with higher education. The program awards tuition scholarships, micro-scholarships for books and materials, and opportunities for summer internships to underrepresented Black students enrolled in U.S. not-for-profit architecture programs.

In addition to submitting an online application that included a resume, letter of recommendation and an example of an advanced-level architecture project, Gensler challenged tuition scholarship applicants to respond to design prompts that addressed current challenges in society. Finalists were also invited to submit a video that introduced themselves to the jury and presented their work.

Rethinking Social Cohesion in an Epidemiological Crisis

Krystol Austin’s project submission, “,” seeks to convolute two of the most unlikely things: quarantining and quarry restoration. The proposal creates a framework that addresses a new pandemic order by exploring the ritual of solitude, strict governance and programmatic typology engendered by the coronavirus outbreak.

To reinvent the human experience post-pandemic, the conceptual design for Austin’s master plan tapped into her interests in nature and biophilia, as well as her past research on the Tomkins Cove Quarry, an abandoned 199-acre limestone quarry along the Hudson River in Stony Point, New York. Taking a subversive approach to the Modulor—a universal proportioning scheme developed by Le Corbusier that places human needs at the center of design and architecture—Austin created graphic standards for social distancing that address the health concerns now associated with the use of space.

“By combining the typical dimensions of a man with guidelines outlined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization, I developed a new rule of thumb for creating post-pandemic architecture,” says Austin.

“Quarantine in an Abandoned Quarry” by Krystol Austin

Through a series of quarantines with reference states, Austin’s new modular way of designing reimagines rural spaces exploited by mining, challenges ideas of core restoration and explores how to reclaim the geology of abandoned, post-mining sites in a practical way.

“It’s really just finding creative ways for us to be ‘alone together’ in these trying times, using a site that is large enough to accommodate us doing so without consistently being isolated on the inside and incorporating the overlooked tools we need most to survive—biophilia, water and nature,” says Austin.

Austin, who received first prize honors in the competition, was also awarded a position in the for the summer of 2021 where she was paired with a mentor that served as a resource during the internship and ensuing academic year.

“I strongly believe that I am an amalgamation of my experiences; the opportunity to represent my country, my school, my alma mater, my race, my gender, my culture and socioeconomic background is an amazing feeling,” says Austin. “Winning this award shows that one can achieve their goals despite the inherent barriers in this industry.”

A Surrealist Critique of 黑料不打烊 Through an Urban Mask

Coumba 碍补苍迟é’蝉 project submission, “,” serves as a juxtaposition between the world of the above ground and the below ground. Rather than focus on the aesthetics of a structure, the design concentrates on the development of a spatial narrative that reimagines a bleak, gray concrete city center.

Sited in downtown 黑料不打烊, New York, the project sits within a pool of water, an underwater world that merges with the preexisting programs of the city block and so greatly contrasts the city itself.

“Comprised of three primary components, it becomes an antithesis in experiencing the monumentalism from the inside, instead of seeing it from the outside—an out-of-this-world experience only able to be seen when inside the space,” says Kanté.

Interior programmatic rendering of “You are the Fish” by Coumba Kanté

By hiding the building from view and submerging it into water, the first component, the urban mask design isolates itself from the city of 黑料不打烊, becoming its own entity. The new space emanates light and color, swimming fish and algae, a whole world thriving on its own.

The curved, concrete walls that encase the above-ground institutions become the second component, further isolating the institutions that lay within its walls and supporting and machining the organism that is created.

The third and most important component—the form—remains hidden, weaving through the water and the concrete, connecting and providing a new angle at which to view the above world.

“I’m fascinated by how every person perceives space differently and I think it’s extremely important to acknowledge this while designing,” says Kanté. “Adapting and re-evaluating what kind of spatial effect the lattice structure could have on human perception and the human experience was one of my primary considerations.”

“As a young designer, winning this scholarship symbolizes my potential as a future designer and architect, and inspires me to push myself and my designs to their limits,” says Kanté. “It also serves as a reminder to myself, and hopefully others, of how successful and impactful the work of Black designers is, and the importance it holds within changing climates.”

To learn more about Gensler’s scholarships, including the Rising Black Designers Scholarship and Design Challenge, visit .

Mushroom growing huts in the Akagera region of Rwanda. (Photo courtesy of General Architecture Collaborative)

Porcini, portobello and cremini … you’ve probably heard of these types of mushrooms, but how about mycelium? Literally translated as “more than one,” mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus consisting of a network of interwoven thin, white filaments. When compared to a plant, mycelium is the root structure, and the mushroom is the flower.

With the right nutrients present, fungal mycelium can grow in a wide range of simple organic materials including cardboard, sawdust and some forms of agricultural waste. When treated, the network of fibrous threads transforms into a foam or wood-like composite material that is lightweight and biodegradable, making mycelium-based materials a promising new architectural paradigm.

Over the past two years, School of Architecture assistant professor Nina Sharifi and Daekwon Park, associate professor and undergraduate chair at the school, have been investigating innovations at the scales of systems, construction methodologies and whole building design. With Sharifi’s research into low-carbon building technologies and Park’s expertise in architectural materials and fabrication, the two observed that the unique properties of fungal mycelium—a low-energy, low-carbon footprint bio-based material—had potential applicability in many fields.

“Attributes of working with mycelium include its sustainable material life cycle—as it is grown, not harvested; its ability to take the shape of any formwork; and its strength while remaining lightweight, among other properties that may be of interest to multiple scientific applications,” says Sharifi.

In 2020, through the support of the Collaboration for Unprecedented Success and Excellence (CUSE) Grant Program and the 黑料不打烊 Center of Excellence (CoE) Faculty Fellows Program, Sharifi and Park formed the collaborative Mycelium Research Group (MRG), with experts in materials science, biology and engineering, to conduct interdisciplinary mycelium-based research across a range of exploratory applications, including architecture.

Building on Sharifi’s prior research in low-carbon architectural systems, her lab has been working on the development of modular prototypes, testing and material hybridization with a focus on the design and integration of mycelium into low-carbon buildings.

Abstracted Rwandan patterns are integrated into interior partition modules along with waste plastic, while frames are constructed of materials that will be locally available on-site.

Upon hearing about Sharifi’s mycelium research, School of Architecture associate professor Yutaka Sho approached her about developing mycelium building elements for production and use in Rwanda—a context in which Sho and her colleagues at the nonprofit architectural design firm, General Architecture Collaborative (GAC), have been working for twelve years—where multiple building types including housing, restaurants and schools, in both urban and rural areas, were in various design phases.

“Nina told me she has been working with mycelium and we were both excited,” says Sho. “I was happy to find someone who was committed to developing sustainable and affordable building material, and she was psyched that I had actual projects in Rwanda that we could apply the research, with real sites, needs and constraints.”

By measures of sustainability, energy savings and constructability, the mycelium hybrid building systems that Sharifi’s lab had been researching seemed a good fit for the unique challenges inherent to Rwanda, a country with few paved roads and limited local building materials such as concrete, wood or steel. What the country has abundantly, however, are earth and people power, both of which GAC has been trying to promote in their architectural research and practice.

“The process of constructing modules was designed to approximate packing earthen bricks into molds, which could be done by most people; the mycelium hybrids were lightweight; and the material could be produced locally or on-site in growth chambers,” says Sharifi.

Through their research, Sharifi and Sho have begun to develop two lines of inquiry for mycelium-based construction materials in Rwanda: one for the service (urban) industry and one for the agricultural (rural) industry. The former use of the products is to apply them in offices and restaurants as ceiling panels and partitions since the ones currently used in Rwanda are low quality, imported and have a high carbon footprint. The latter use is in farming communities where the mycelium blocks can be used to construct mushroom-growing huts, essentially using mushrooms to make the structure that mushrooms grow in.

With the parallel goal of using recycled materials, Sho engaged Carene Umubyeyi, a student studying civil engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a former architecture intern at GAC and a native of Kigali, the capital and largest city in Rwanda, in researching local material and waste flows in the country so that abundant waste products can be used as a mycelium growing substrate.

Mushroom growing bed in Akagera, Rwanda. (Photo courtesy of General Architecture Collaborative)

“In order to remove harmful waste from the environment, we investigated the continued availability of plastic waste, such as single-use beverage and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, in Rwanda,” says Umubyeyi. “The hope is to collect waste products from private waste management companies in and outside the city of Kigali, which we can process and utilize as a potential substrate material.”

Meanwhile, back in 黑料不打烊, Sharifi’s team of interns, including Zoe Quinones ’23 (B.Arch), Morgan Noone G’23 (M.Arch) and Kiana Memaran Dadgar G’23 (M.S.), have sourced and begun to integrate the same substrate materials in the lab’s controlled environment where?they can test the performance of the mycelium-based construction materials under different environmental conditions.

“The goal is to minimize transport of physical modules to Kigali, and send nothing but initial formwork, raw materials and detailed design documentation and written manufacturing protocols,” says Sharifi.

Sharifi and Sho’s joint effort is ongoing as research yields new prototype designs and methods at 黑料不打烊 while fabrication and construction are set up in Kigali.

The University offers more than 20 living learning communities where students who share a common major or academic affiliation live together in a residence hall, have intentional faculty support and engage in academic and social experiences on and off campus.

During the housing selection process, more than 60 students indicated their interest in the new Architecture LLC through their residence application. In its pilot year, 38 students from the United States and around the world—China, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Poland and the United Arab Emirates—were selected to participate in this distinctive living experience.

Architecture Living Learning Community students with Dean Michael Speaks (sitting) and Assistant Dean for Enrollment Management Vittoria Buccina (standing, far right). Photo credit: Shengxuan Yu ’24

“I chose the Architecture LLC because I want to be immersed with other students in my class that share the same passion I have towards architecture,” says Christopher Stoumpas ’26.

Vittoria Buccina, assistant dean for enrollment management at the School of Architecture, will oversee the Architecture LLC as its director, helping students engage with architecture faculty crucial to the development of their professional network and academic success; explore course concepts through field trips, career services workshops, and visiting critic meet and greets; and join other Architecture LLC students and peer advisors in events and activities.

“The School of Architecture has explored the possibility of creating a living learning community for a number of years and, with the guidance of Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture, and Dan Cutler, director of learning communities, we were able to establish this new partnership,” says Buccina. “I am excited to be a part of the team and to watch this community grow.”

Fernando Vidal Claudio ’22? was selected as this year’s Architecture Living Learning Community Resident Advisor (LLCRA). As a fifth-year architecture student and former Resident Advisor (RA), Vidal Claudio brings with him a wide range of expertise about the School of Architecture and 黑料不打烊. From planning programs, interacting with faculty and helping students successfully transition to the University, his impact on Architecture LLC students will be profound.

“I am honored to be this year’s Architecture LLCRA,” says Vidal Claudio. “I’m quite a veteran when it comes to RA-student interactions. More than a friend, my role should be a mentor, a helpful guide, so that students have the best experience and knowledge of the University and architecture life.”

“As an incoming student, I’m concerned about figuring out how to adjust to campus life,” says Sukanya Handique ’26. “I am looking forward to meeting new people through the Architecture LLC and creating exciting memories.”

New students interested in the Architecture Living Learning Community can learn more by visiting the or contacting Vittoria Buccina at vabuccin@syr.edu.

The School of Architecture is also offering fourth-year undergraduate architecture students living in China the chance to enroll in a residential visiting critic studio, located in Shanghai, being taught by one of China’s leading young architects.

Gary Bates (Spacegroup, Makemake Agency)

Gary Bates

Gary Bates will teach the visiting critic studio, “Live,” which examines university student housing from various perspectives. Students will study the urban morphology of centralization—in this case, campus—where the unbundling of institutions of higher education became fully exposed amidst the COVID pandemic. By unravelling and exploring current and alternative housing models, along with the typology of housing and the human elements, students will develop a strategic plan, conceptual design, models and methodologies for future-oriented housing scenarios in a world confronted with COVID, climate change and racial reckoning.

Bates founded (Oslo) with Gro Bonesmo in 1999. As architects and planners, Spacegroup quickly made its mark with projects such as the Prostneset Ferry Terminal in Troms?, Vestbane National Library, Filipstad Masterplan and the Louisville 25-Year Vision plan.

Bates studied at Virginia Polytechnic University and State University (1985-90). He began his collaboration with Rem Koolhaas in 1992 at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) where he became a director and, from 1995 to 1998, a principal in charge of the Asian desk. He has been a guest professor at the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Kentucky, The Oslo School of Architecture and the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands.

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca (Katherine Hogan Architects)

Katherine Hogan and Vincent Petrarca will teach the visiting critic studio “Housing Types and Typologies,” focusing on the design of housing, in particular developing prototypes for future student housing on the 黑料不打烊 campus and elsewhere. The studio will explore the typology of university housing through precedents, research and site analysis—instigating a dynamic relationship between students and the university community. Students will visit with university stakeholders, gain insights from housing developers and learn from architects who are currently developing innovative housing solutions in their own practices. Through the investigation of building systems, structural strategies, environmental control/energy and enclosure assemblies and details, as well as previous coursework through the design of buildings, students will gain a greater understanding of the architectural implications along with confidence in the process of making architecture.

Vincent Petrarca and Katherine Hogan

Hogan is owner and principal of , based in Raleigh, North Carolina. As architect and educator, Hogan approaches each project with the belief that good design can happen at any scale and budget. Throughout her career, she has worked on projects of various scales and typologies, including institutional, commercial and residential projects. Hogan’s firm has crafted a diverse body of work, and has received AIA awards at the local, state and national levels for innovative design solutions to complex problems and for using ordinary materials in inventive ways. Katherine Hogan Architects has recently been featured at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale in the exhibition, “A South Forty,” which showcases the work of 40 regional firms and aims to provide an overview of the current vitality of contemporary architecture and design in the American South.

Hogan earned a B.Arch. degree in 2005 from 黑料不打烊 as a University Scholar, with a minor in Italian language. After graduation, she worked with Will Bruder Architect in Phoenix, Arizona, and after held a fellowship position with Bryan Bell at Design Corps, a nonprofit architecture practice assisting communities normally without access to architectural services. Hogan is serving her second term as a City Council appointed member of the City of Raleigh Appearance Commission. She also serves as an advisory board member to the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture and has been a visiting critic at the school since 2015.

Petrarca is a principal and co-owner of . He has over 30 years of experience in the practice of architecture. Petrarca has worked on a wide range of award-winning projects of various scales and typologies and has been recognized for his innovative approach to design. He has extensive experience in the making of architecture, and is also a licensed general contractor, bringing years of on-site experience and knowledge to the firm.

From 1993 to 2003, Petrarca worked for the award-winning firm of Frank Harmon Architect. During this time, he found many opportunities to fall into design build situations. Petrarca’s first independent project was a 1,700-square-foot house that he designed and built. It won AIA NC and AIA Southern Atlantic Region awards and was featured in Dwell and on the cover of the book, “25 Houses Under 1,500 Square Feet.”

Petrarca has been recognized as an innovative educator, receiving in 2014 an ACSA Faculty Design Award for his design of Weathering House. He is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Architecture at NC State’s College of Design, where he received both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. II degrees. He has also been a visiting critic at the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture since 2015.

Paul Preissner (Paul Preissner Architects)

Paul Preissner

Paul Preissner, AIA, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Tar, Dirt, Concrete, and maybe Wood,” that explores architecture as a construction which takes something rather profound, but necessarily absent any meaning (nature) and creates another thing which is superficial, boring, and full of meaning (architecture). The focus of the studio will center around the origin and organization of basic things (whether materials or social spaces) to investigate the two genealogies which has constituted the critical basis of architectural dialogue: Abstraction and Thingness. Abstraction refers to the parts of an architectural project which exist within opinion, while Thingness sits as the reality which enables meaning. Students will surround themselves with the subjects of nature and will look to find a more objective understanding of society through personal reflection. They will work with each of the materials and configure them into a building that does not reference or represent anything but enables everything; it’s not an abstraction or a metaphor but exists as a physical reality of imagined activities; it is it. Using some of what they’ve learned from themselves over the past year, and understanding the newly discovered societal appreciation, yet still unexercised need for self-reflection and self-criticism, students will design social space and private space in the form of cabin(s) in the woods.

Preissner is an architect and educator. He is founder of , located in Chicago. Preissner is the commissioner and co-curator of the Pavilion of the United States at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition—la Biennale di Venezia. He is a professor at the University of Illinois—Chicago School of Architecture and the author of “” (Actar, 2020).

Preissner will give a at the School on Oct. 21 at 5:30 p.m. in Slocum Auditorium.

Liu Z.Y. (SANAA)

Liu Z.Y.

Liu Z.Y. will teach the Shanghai-based visiting critic studio, “On the Edge,” which will attempt to rethink the Hongshan Zoo in the city of Nanjing, China. Due to the city’s unprecedented urban expansion in the last two decades, the Hongshan Zoo, previously located at the edge of the city, is now surrounded by urbanized setting. The changed edge conditions between the city and the zoo become the starting base for the students’ retrospective proposal. Just as how the city has enveloped the zoo, human intervention has also altered the activities inside the zoo. On the edge between the city and the zoo, nature and culture, human and animal, this studio calls for an open-ended framework that could reconcile those polar conditions through new hybrid possibilities.

Liu Z.Y. has been practicing as project architect at both and KSA (Kazuyo Sejima and Associates) in Tokyo, Japan since 2018 and is responsible for major works in China including the Suzhou Shishan Theatre, Kunshan Museum and mixed cultural spaces. His past professional experience includes Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, standardarchitecture and URBANUS.

Before joining SANAA, Liu Z.Y. was awarded a teaching fellowship at Yale University, taught design studio at Southeast University and assisted in Suzhou Garden class at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). He has curated exhibitions at Yale School of Architecture and Beijing Design Week and published articles in academic journals including Retrospecta, Perspecta, Construct, Time Architecture and others.

He received a master’s degree in architecture from Yale School of Architecture and a bachelor’s degree from UNSW.

Connie Caldwell

Connie Caldwell, former director of Career Services in the School of Architecture, died on June 11 at her home in Cazenovia. She was 65.

Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Caldwell moved to Nashua, New Hampshire, as a teen and later earned a degree from Rivier University, formerly Rivier College, with a focus in health education, and subsequently became a certified yoga teacher, Tai Chi teacher and vegetarian cooking instructor. According to , in connecting with people in these areas of health and well-being, Caldwell’s talent for mentoring and guiding others became clear.

In 1994, Caldwell brought her passion for helping others to her role as the director of Career Services in the School of Architecture at 黑料不打烊. She led the school’s career services operation for more than 20 years, touching the lives of hundreds of students, until her retirement in fall 2018. During this time, she created a signature career services program that was known nationally and internationally as a model for other schools.

“Connie was a creative and visionary leader. She expanded the mission of career services programming to include not only extensive resources for students but also for alumni, long before it was a trend in higher education,” says Katryn Hansen, former assistant dean in the School of Architecture.

As an experienced career services counselor, Caldwell opened doors for professional practices to access student strengths and set interviews for employment. She coached students on interview skills and helped firms on selection of talent, earning a high degree of trust.

“With a rare gift for creating connections, Connie nurtured extensive mentoring networks among alumni, employers and students, incorporating ideas from students and professionals to create a range of additional teaching tools,” says Hansen.

Caldwell was widely recognized by the profession as a pioneer in her role because of her ability to guide and connect some of the best architectural students in North America with many of the very best architectural firms in the world.

In 2013, the research firm DesignIntelligence named Caldwell as one of the from the architecture, industrial design, interior design and landscape architecture disciplines for her leading-edge efforts in career services. She was presented with a special Dean’s Citation for Exceptional Service award that publicly recognized her substantial and meaningful legacy at the School of Architecture’s convocation ceremony in May 2019.

There is broad consensus among professionals inside and beyond the school that Caldwell’s work in preparing students for professional life was the primary reason that 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture graduates were the No. 1 most hired alumni in the nation, according to the 2018-19 rankings report, compiled by DesignIntelligence.

“Connie laid the foundation for an amazing career services program at the School of Architecture,” says Kristen DeWolf, director of Career Services in the School of Architecture. “Her passion to help the students, positivity and mentorship will continue to have a profound impact on the students and alumni of our school.”

In fall 2019, a generous gift by the deGraffenried Foundation, spearheaded by four 黑料不打烊 alumni, established the Connie Caldwell Summer Internship Award to support the commitment to students and alumni that Caldwell displayed while at the School of Architecture. The award assists with expenses associated with an internship for one full-time architecture student each summer.

“Connie’s reach across architecture was far and her unique ability to connect students to leaders in the profession was invaluable,” says Elizabeth Gralton G’08 (M.Arch.), board member of the deGraffenried Foundation. “She made our transition into the real world achievable by teaching us the most effective ways to communicate our work and fostering an impressive network of alumni. She may not have been a professor or an architect, but she was a foundational member of the staff and I know her impact will be felt for decades to come.”

“Connie was an amazing presence. She was determined to help every student reach their future career goals,” says Jaclyn Doyle ’21 (B.Arch.), inaugural recipient of the Connie Caldwell Summer Internship Award. “Her dedication to the students has directly translated to the reputation of the 黑料不打烊 Architecture program and is what really makes our alumni stand out in the workforce.”

“But more than anything Connie cared about people at a deep level,” her obituary notes. “Messages to the family from former students, colleagues and friends reflect how indelibly she touched others.”

“Connie was a positive and supportive colleague and friend who inspired and mentored many of the staff of the school,” says Hansen. “Memories of her warmth, humor and keen intelligence will always be with us.”

“Connie’s extraordinary service, commitment to excellence and entrepreneurial spirit has made a lasting impact on the life of the school,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “She was and will always remain the heart and soul of our school; she was beloved and will always be so.”

In addition to her work in career services, Caldwell “enjoyed yoga, gardening, podcasts, spiritual reading and practices, music, hiking and rowing her sleek fast boat on Cazenovia Lake,” according to her obituary. “Her beloved dog Whimsy was on her lap most of the time she was sitting down, and her daughter and husband were always the main focus of her attention despite her active career and busy life.”

A celebration in remembrance of Caldwell will be held at the School of Architecture this fall.

Those wishing to honor her memory can contribute to the Connie Caldwell Summer Internship Award fund by writing a check to “黑料不打烊” with the words ‘in support of the Connie Caldwell Summer Internship Award’ in the memo line, and mailing it to: Office of Advancement, 黑料不打烊, 640 Skytop Road, Room 240, 黑料不打烊 NY 13244-5160. To make a donation online, visit .

Vasundhra Aggarwal

Vasundhra Aggarwal ’21 (B.Arch.), a fifth-year student in the School of Architecture, was announced as a Class of 2021 Honors Thesis Prize recipient during the virtual presentation of the Renée Crown University Honors Program Convocation on Friday, May 21.

As the most challenging required component of the honors curriculum, thesis projects are the culmination of three to four semesters of independent research and professional and creative work by students from across the schools and colleges of the University. Working with a faculty advisor, students design, research and complete a significant project in their major field of study.

The entire thesis requires the development of “next level” professional and academic skills and must be a particularly high-quality piece of scholarly work, worthy of honors in the scope of its conception and execution.

Every year, thesis advisors select honors thesis projects that they deem “prize-worthy” and committees made up of honors core faculty members meet to determine prize recipients in five categories—the humanities, the creative, the social sciences, the natural sciences and engineering, and the professional.

After evaluating each project nomination, subcommittee members awarded Aggarwal with the Best Thesis Prize in the creative category for her project, “Latent Territories: A Manifesto for Design Thinking.”

Executed under the direction of School of Architecture faculty advisors, Professor Jean-Fran?ois Bédard, Assistant Professor Britt Eversole, Associate Professor Roger Hubeli and Associate Professor Julie Larsen—and in collaboration with her thesis partner, Jaclyn Doyle ’21 (B.Arch.)—Aggarwal’s project insists that despite the appearance of living in a world of control, precision and total informational awareness, we are instead surrounded by a world of errors, mistranslations, digital hiccups and physical imperfections, all of which deserve to be evaluated as having positive cultural meaning and value, rather than simply erased as mistakes or optimized out of existence.

Using processes of LiDAR-scanning and 3D-prototyping, and HEX-editing and animating, “Latent Territories” creates a series of material studies exhibited both physically and virtually through a web-based interface. The results of the experiments showcase how information behaves as an evolutionary feedback process and suggest the possibility for design to do the same.

By reimagining the architectural operations manifesto, Aggarwal’s thesis proposes “Latent Territories” as the nascent sites of architectural innovation with machinic misbehaviors, delirious inefficiencies and spectacular blunders.

“The project is thoroughly original and fantastically creative,” says Eversole. “It is also a timely and urgent thesis, one that takes stock of the impact of technology on design practices while charting new aesthetic and intellectual ground.”

“The honors program has always been a space for me to meet and learn from diverse students and faculty in seemingly unrelated classes and incorporating architectural modes of thinking in all of them,” says Aggarwal. “Being awarded this prize reinforces all the exciting ways that architecture intersects with other disciplines, research and behaviors, which speaks to the nature of our thesis. I am so honored that my work with Jackie was selected, and grateful for all the support from our incredible team of advisors.”

Visit to browse all the Class of 2021 Honors thesis student project profiles.

Leen Katrib

The School of Architecture has announced that architectural designer Leen Katrib is the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2021–22. Katrib will succeed current fellow Assistant Professor Liang Wang.

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give faculty members, early in their careers, the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

“I am thrilled to welcome Leen Katrib, whose research and design projects are helping to redefine the study and practice of architecture preservation and reconstruction,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Her research focus on ‘the afterlife of buildings,’ including the analysis and archiving of building detritus, has the potential to redefine how architecture researchers and practitioners think about and work with memory, identity and place.”

During the 2021–22 school year, Katrib will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, “Decolonizing Architecture’s Debris.” Building upon her thesis, “,” which reimagines the afterlife of architecture’s debris and its decisive role in historical erasures and knowledge production, Katrib will use the typology of the university campus—both historical and contemporary cases—as a design research case study to investigate the destruction and mis/management of material afterlife and its social and cultural implications on impacted communities.

Since the debris in most of the campus case studies is no longer available or visible, Katrib will concurrently conduct design experiments that incorporate Mixed Reality technology to propose ways in which the debris could be integrated into and made visible in the existing architecture.

“Mixed Reality takes Augmented and Virtual realities a step further by allowing the real-time manipulation of digital reconstructions that are superimposed onto—and defined by the limits of—the real, physical architecture,” says Katrib. “Using this technology will allow me to conduct spatial experiments without altering the existing spaces.”

Like the five previous Boghosian Fellows, Katrib will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. Her research will culminate in an interdisciplinary symposium that convenes architects, artists, historians, anthropologists, preservationists and technologists who are addressing the implications of destruction and are decolonizing debris as an expanded mode of agency and resistance.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to work closely with distinguished faculty and students within the School of Architecture and the University to expand the discourse on debris and its material and immaterial implications throughout history,” says Katrib. “The fellowship will provide the time and space to engage interdisciplinary scholarship in course syllabi, design research and a concluding symposium.”

Katrib currently practices at the New York-based architecture and landscape firm, Marvel. Prior to joining Marvel, she practiced at LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis), McEwen Studio, Peter Marino Architect and OMA.

Previously, Katrib completed her master of architecture degree from Princeton University, where she received the prestigious , a merit-based fellowship exclusively for immigrants and children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate school in the United States and are poised to make significant contributions to the nation through their work.

At Princeton, Katrib was editor of the architectural journal, Pidgin, and was awarded the Howard Crosby Butler Travel Fellowship to track culture-specific practices at Zaatari refugee camp and to engage with local organizations in the development of a pilot program at the camp.

Katrib also holds a bachelor of architecture degree with honors from the University of Southern California (USC), where she was awarded the A. Quincy Jones Memorial Scholarship for Exceptional Promise in Architecture and the Robert Allen Rogaff Memorial Award for Excellence in Delineation and was designated a Discovery Scholar and Global Scholar for her independent research on the built environments of marginalized communities.

During her time at USC, Katrib was awarded the George H. Mayr Travel Fellowship to study the future of immigrants in Parisian suburbs, as well as the William and Neoma Timme Travel Fellowship to examine mimetic practices in China’s countryside developments.

“I’m elated to see initiatives spearheaded by the students at the School of Architecture to uncover silenced histories in the built environment of 黑料不打烊,” says Katrib. “I am very much looking forward to providing students with the tools to expand on these conversations and to integrate them into the practice and teaching of architecture.”

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016–17), Linda Zhang (2017–18), James Leng (2018–19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019–20) and Liang Wang (2020–21).

For more information about Leen Katrib and her work, visit .

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, on the School of Architecture’s website.

Liang Wang

Throughout the academic year, Wang, the school’s fifth Boghosian Fellow, has taught an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on his research project, “The Architecture of the Commons.” By engaging the idea of “commons” in relation to the disciplinary knowledge of architecture and particularly through the lens of the superblock development, Wang and his students have contemplated the role of architecture as both common means for spatial production and common knowledge in conceiving new modes of collective life and the idea of the city.

Organized as a live, roundtable discussion, the symposium will open a broader discussion on the new possibilities that might follow from a rigorous reconceptualization of the relationship between the superblock—its architecture, urbanism and socio-political processes—and the idea of the city—in both western and Chinese contexts—through its history, imaginary and representation.

Symposium participants include Eve Blau, adjunct professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where she is director of research and co-director of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative; Peter Carl, former professor at the University of Cambridge and London Metropolitan University; Nancy S.

Steinhardt, professor of East Asian Art and curator of Chinese Art at the University of Pennsylvania; and Jianfei Zhu, professor of East Asia at the School of Architecture Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University. Michael Speaks, dean of the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture, along with Wang, will moderate the discussion.

View of Xian, China, taken September 2012. Photo credit: Navjot Singh

“We are thrilled to have such a stellar group of scholars join us for this special event, and I am deeply grateful for all the unwavering support from our school, especially Dean Speaks, throughout
my fellowship teaching this year,” says Wang. “We believe this is a timely discussion not only to address some of the critical disciplinary questions related to the discourse of the superblock—its term, concept and “reality”—but also to provoke all of us, as designers and engaging citizens, to challenge the spatial, social, and political status quo and imagine a more equitable, sustainable, and humane future city.”

The at the School of Architecture was established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64. Designed to give faculty members, early in their careers, the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching, the one-of-a-kind program has helped the school attract the best and the brightest emerging professors.

To register for the symposium, visit .

As part of her final year on the faculty, Munly has designed an exhibition of work that features a series of perforated wooden screens and that also addresses, at the conceptual level, the challenges faced by all exhibitions during the pandemic.

Anne Munly in Slocum Hall’s Marble Room.

“Exhibition Interrupted” explores the dual nature of the screen as an architectural device. Whether as material space divider or video monitor, screens delineate and regulate the relationship between inside and outside, historic and contemporary, sacred and profane, private and public. Consistent with the hybrid, online-in-person reality that has emerged as a result of the global pandemic, and consistent with this dual reading of the screen, “Exhibition Interrupted” has been designed as a physical and an online installation that can be experienced in numerous hybrid formats in the Marble Room and on social media.

Three curving wooden screens have been inserted into the entry doorways of the Marble Room delineating what is inside and outside the physical exhibition and literally enacting the show’s title, “Exhibition Interrupted.” While these screens regulate physical movement into and out of the Marble Room gallery space, they also invite us to look through the screens into the gallery space where we view projections onto the marble wall surface and a display of digitally milled and printed design objects placed throughout the gallery space. “Exhibition Interrupted” can also be experienced through the screen of a computer or phone where, on select social media platforms, we are able to view a featuring recent projects designed by Munly, as well as a discussion about those projects and the challenges and opportunities of designing and exhibiting in the new hybrid, online-in-person reality that has become the screens through which and on which we now live our lives.

“My recent work explores the intersection of the virtual and analog, bringing together digital fabrication and hand finishing, coaxing common materials to perform in new ways,” says Munly. “This design and production loop takes several turns, moving from hand sketches to immaterial models to physical artifacts to film protagonists in an imaginary world of effects.”

Munly teaches undergraduate and graduate design studios and seminars in American urban settlement, theories of utopia and modern dwelling. She has taught in 黑料不打烊 Abroad programs in London, Florence and Japan, and directed both the 黑料不打烊 Architecture in London program and the Scuola di Architettura program in Florence, ltaly.

Aiming to reinforce disciplinary depth while broadening discourse within the field, Munly has engaged in several interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the College of Visual and Performing Arts and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Among her research grants are awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council for the Humanities, Boston Foundation for Architecture, the American Academy in Rome and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Munly is a licensed architect and partner in Munly Brown Studio (MBS), a design consultancy formed with School of Architecture professor Theodore Brown. MBS engages in projects ranging from material research to master planning, with a commitment to environmental, social and economic sustainability, and has been premiated in several national and international competitions.

Munly received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in architecture from Princeton University. In 2006, she was named a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence for outstanding teaching at the University.

“Professor Munly is among our most esteemed faculty members and has been a leader at the school for her entire career,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “We will miss her brilliant teaching and unparalleled commitment to the intellectual and design life of the school. But we are also excited to celebrate her design work, most all of which has been informed by her teaching.”

To celebrate the opening of “Exhibition Interrupted,” Munly will take part in an online conversation with Dean Michael Speaks and Assistant Teaching Professor Ivi Diamantopoulou on . The exhibition, also available at , will run through May 25.

Dorian Booth, Isabella Calidonio Stechmann and Anthony Gagliardi of Almost Studio (Photo by Jonathan Hokkl?)

, a Brooklyn-based design practice co-founded by Anthony Gagliardi, School of Architecture instructor, and Dorian Booth, Yale School of Architecture lecturer, along with junior designer Isabella Calidonio Stechmann ’20 (B.Arch), recently won the 2021 Ragdale Ring competition for their design proposal, “That’s a Wrap,” a series of highly adaptable, mobile stage sets that respond to this year’s competition theme, “Mobility”.

Hosted by artist residency nonprofit the , the annual competition, now in its ninth year, provides artists, architects and designers with the unique opportunity to devise and construct a performance venue and gathering place on Ragdale’s historic five-acre campus.

Each year Ragdale invites architects to reinterpret the open-air Ragdale Ring theater—designed in 1912 by Howard Van Doren Shaw for the work of his playwright wife, Frances—through interventions that explore intersections of architecture, sculpture, landscape design, public art and performance disciplines.

This year’s jury of architects and artists selected “That’s a Wrap,” an adjustable backdrop designed by the Almost Studio team of Gagliardi, Booth and Calidonio Stechmann, as the winner for the 2021 performance season.

“That’s a Wrap” Stage Set Diagram Site

Composed of a curved line generated from pure, repeating geometries that adapt to the ?? campus landscape, “That’s a Wrap” frames trees, outlines picnic areas and dramatizes existing spaces—including the fountain and entry lawn—by multiplying the form of Shaw’s original Ragdale Ring garden theater and amplifying this season’s performances, discussions and reflections.

With the capability to compose, reorganize and move the stage set throughout the campus, “That’s a Wrap” allows the place to partake in the play. The theater can be designed to the script, or the script to the theater.

“With the pandemic still looming, and the notion of artists presenting performative works at a venue that needed to be flexible in both physical structure and concept, Almost Studio truly embraced the challenge with their interpretation of mobility,” said the jury.

“That’s a Wrap” (Courtesy of Almost Studio)

“We are honored and grateful to be selected by the Ragdale Foundation and for the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture community’s support throughout the process,” says Gagliardi. “It has been a difficult year in so many ways for so many people. Our hope is that our design will bring a season of joy to those who need it, whether they are watching the outdoor performances in-person or virtually. We are eager to see all of the memories this year’s Ragdale Ring frames and we are thankful to be a part of it.”

Almost Studio was awarded a production grant to construct the temporary installation of “That’s a Wrap,” along with an on-site, design-build residency for a team of up to four people at the creative community in Lake Forest, Illinois.

“I remember learning about the Ragdale Competition in 2016 and looking forward to having an opportunity to participate in it after graduating, but I never imagined it happening so quickly and with such an amazing team,” says Calidonio Stechmann. “I am very grateful and excited to work on my first installation with Almost Studio alongside Ragdale’s amazing community and their famously beautiful campus.”

“That’s a Wrap” (Courtesy of Almost Studio)

Summer 2021 performances at Ragdale that integrate “That’s a Wrap” are set to kick off on June 16. The final event in the Ragdale Ring series is scheduled for Sept. 18.

For more information about the Ragdale Ring competition, visit .

Vedyun Mishra G’21

Vedyun Mishra G’21, a graduate student in the School of Architecture, has been selected for Metropolis Magazine’s Future100, an elite group of architecture and interior architecture students from the U.S. and Canada.

The inaugural award recognizes the top 100 graduating students in North America who, as emerging leaders, are interpreting and reimagining the fields of architecture and interior architecture.

Selected from a diverse pool of nearly 300 candidates, Mishra is one of only 50 architecture students to receive the honor, selected based on the creativity, rigor, skill and professionalism exhibited by his portfolio and nomination entry.

“We were blown away by the quality of work you and your peers submitted, and we felt that you represent a bright future for our industry—one of beautiful, thoughtful, innovative, sustainable and inclusive design,” said Avinash Rajagopal, editor in chief of the magazine, in the award letter.

Mishra was nominated by Paul Crovella, assistant professor of forest and natural resources management at SUNY-ESF, and Daekwon Park and Fei Wang, assistant professors in the School of Architecture.

His contains a number of projects that explore modularity as a way of addressing pressing social challenges. In Recondition, a veteran support facility, Mishra looks at using principles of evidence-based design and universal design to conceptualize a new type of assisted living community for service members and their families who have been affected by the repercussions of war and deployment.

And in JAN Connect, a prototype idea submitted to UnBox2017—an international competition that challenged participants to model public spaces out of recycled shipping containers—Mishra and his partner created an 8-foot by 8-foot module system to amalgamate various public utilities for underserved districts such as a space crunch metropolitan like Delhi, India.

A rendering of Ancient Hammam bath house and wellness center, designed by Vedyun Mishra G’21.

“Vedyun is no doubt a great student and an incredible collaborator,” says Wang. “He is a hard worker and more importantly, a critical thinker that has a strong passion for sustainability and a real-world design sense of architecture.”

In addition to the prestigious Metropolis Future100 honor, during his time in the School of Architecture, Mishra was named a winner in this year’s JUMP into STEM?online building science competition, served as architectural lead for the joint 黑料不打烊/SUNY-ESF Solar Decathlon Design Challenge team in 2019-2020, was chosen to give a talk on the power of inclusive architecture at the student-run conference this month and, most recently, received a Graduate Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work.

“I am earnestly grateful for the recognition I have received for my work. I always try to champion the thoughts of inclusivity and sustainability through my work and receiving this recognition definitely gives me encouragement to carry on this journey to build a more responsible world,” says Mishra.

After graduation, Mishra plans to join a firm that echoes his vision and allows him to contribute to the built environment through his research and design.

“I have been sincerely impressed by Vedyun’s leadership qualities and communication skills,” says Park. “Coupled with his proactive, confident and conscientious personality, I have no doubt that he will continue to grow as a thoughtful, competent and creative designer and leader.”

To view the full Future100 list, visit .

J. Fran?ois Gabriel

Former 黑料不打烊 architecture Professor J. Fran?ois Gabriel died March 26 at age 91.

A native of France, Gabriel earned diplomas at the Collège des Arts Appliques in 1948 and ?cole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1965, where he developed a great respect for classical architecture.

From 1977 to 2003, Gabriel taught architectural design at the School of Architecture. A staunch Classicist, his studio teachings often included learning the Orders, Classical plans and ink and wash rendering techniques.

At the same time, Gabriel was fascinated by polyhedral space frame structures of the mid-20th century. He dedicated his career to bucking the “cube tradition” and looking for creative, aesthetic alternatives to vertical walls and their 90-degree points of contact. Gabriel’s research over the years explored both the theoretical and practical approaches to designing buildings based on polyhedral shapes, which he argued can “satisfy the essential demands of buildings: solidity, beauty and convenience.”

Gabriel was the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, and edited several books, including “” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1997). In the book’s preface, he writes, “We use the cube as if it were the only acceptable model for our living spaces and, in doing so, we ignore countless other forms that might lead to more efficient, more beautiful, more economical and certainly less worn-out environments. Why do we do it?”

In 2002, Gabriel was presented with a Pioneers’ Award by the Space Structures Research Centre at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, during the fifth International Conference on Space Structures, where he served as a member of the conference’s international organizing committee and presented the paper “Space Frames and Classical Architecture.” He was a member of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures, and he cofounded its Structural Morphology Working Group.

Before coming to 黑料不打烊, Gabriel taught and lectured at a number of schools, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, California Polytechnic State University and the University of Notre Dame and, as a registered architect in France, served as a designer in several practices.

In addition to his work as a teacher and researcher, Gabriel was a prolific artist in his own right. His paintings have been exhibited in Paris, Central New York and the French Library and Cultural Center in Boston.

“Professor Gabriel’s interests shared a precise and “correct” geometry that seemed to speak to his unapologetic European temperament,” says Lawrence Davis, associate professor and undergraduate chair in the School of Architecture. “He enjoyed painting, classical music and vacations in the French countryside where he eventually retired to a stone farmhouse he restored. I enjoyed his wit and will not forget the smile beneath his charming mustache.”

“Meeting Francois for the first time, I was struck by his nattiness. He was the only faculty member who wore a bowtie. After getting to know him, I realized that his sartorial choices followed his architectural sensibilities; classical, refined, and very Beaux Arts,” says School of Architecture Professor Emeritus Randall Korman. “At the time, the school was transitioning to an exclusively modernist curriculum, but Fran?ois stuck to his guns and eventually developing a following among the students. His resistance to the architectural monoculture was eventually validated by the diversity that now characterizes the school.”

A celebration of Gabriel’s life is being planned by his wife, Laura A. Martin.

As the city confronts new housing and economic opportunities for the neighborhoods adjacent to the highway, experts and audience members will consider questions about public policy and mixed income communities, re-renewal, the relationship between public space and private development, and how good design contributes to the success of neighborhoods and residents.

Forum participants include Lanessa Chaplin, Esq., assistant director for the New York Civil Liberties Union; Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones professor of American studies in the Department of History at Harvard University; Lawrence Vale, associate dean and Ford professor of urban design and planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and John Washington, organizer and political educator at People’s Action. Kishi Ducre, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion and associate professor in the Department of African American Studies at 黑料不打烊 will moderate the discussion.

This is the first of three planned events addressing housing issues in 黑料不打烊 constructed to create a dialogue among and between residents, local leaders and national experts on the history and impact of urban revitalization projects.

To register for the “Charting Renewal” public forum, visit .

I-81 and Pioneer Homes | Photo Credit: Lawrence Davis

is a partnership between the School of Architecture and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The partners hope their collaboration will help ensure that inclusive policy and design are at the forefront of challenges facing cities in the United States and around the world. The goal of the City Scripts symposia is to create an ongoing, interdisciplinary and applied dialogue that reaches beyond the university and influences both policy and design.

The “Charting Renewal” forum is supported by The Kresge Foundation’s American Cities Program, the 黑料不打烊 Collaboration for Unprecedented Success and Excellence (CUSE) grant program, the at the , the School of Architecture, and 黑料不打烊. It is organized by School of Architecture Associate Professors Elizabeth Kamell and Lawrence Davis, undergraduate chair; and Maxwell School Professors Carol Faulkner, associate dean, and Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

For more information, contact Elizabeth Kamell at ekamell@syr.edu.

On view through May 31, 2021, ““—the fourth installment of the Issues in Contemporary Architecture series—examines contemporary architecture in the context of how systemic racism has fostered violent histories of discrimination and injustice in the United States.

Sekou Cooke. “We Outchea Hip Hop Fabrications and Public Space.” 2020. Digital drawings, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist. The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Each project in the exhibition proposes an intervention in one of 10 cities, from the front porches of Miami and the bayous of New Orleans to the freeways of Oakland and 黑料不打烊, and celebrates the ways individuals and communities across the country have mobilized Black cultural spaces, forms and practices as sites of imagination, liberation, resistance, care and refusal.

“We Outchea: Hip-Hop Fabrications and Public Space,” Cooke’s hip?-hop inflected commentary on low-income housing, remixes the history of a 黑料不打烊 housing project to help a community reclaim public space.

As the Interstate Highway System in the United States was developed in the mid-20th century, land was systematically devalued and Black citizens were cut off from accessing the more affluent areas of American cities. In “We Outchea,” Cooke analyzes the ways in which city and state governments’ right of eminent domain was used to displace a Black community in 黑料不打烊 for the purposes of building Interstate-81.

Cooke’s proposal focuses on the site of Pioneer Homes, one of the first public housing projects in New York State, located adjacent to the 15th Ward, which was once a vibrant hub for Black-owned businesses and single-family homes, but became the result of a state-supported slum clearance initiative to make way for Interstate-81.

Research into the demolition of the old 15th Ward in the 1960s, the 1940s Pioneer Homes housing project in 黑料不打烊’s South Side, and the current Blueprint 15 project approach to tearing down Pioneer Homes and two other 黑料不打烊 housing projects adjacent to the Interstate revealed to Cooke a multi-textured, multi-layered built history within a very concentrated area of the city and, more importantly, the continued displacement of Black residents and devaluation of their communities.

“We Outchea” takes all of those layers of history and samples them, remixing them into something new, turning a development—projected to be a typically banal internally-focused housing project—into an externally-focused image of public space for the Black community.

Installation view of “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Feb. 27-May 31, 2021. ? 2021 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Robert Gerhardt

Informed by hip-hop, Cooke’s project samples and collages photographs and structures from the area’s past. A model of a large section of concrete stoop—a fixture that has a long legacy of importance to Black people in urban environments—attached to a base of plywood layers, symbolizes a community response to the division caused by the construction of 黑料不打烊’s Interstate.

“The wood areas are the new proposal for mixed-income housing and the orange areas are spaces for commerce, for public interaction,” says Cooke.

By incorporating images of previous residents amid the fa?ades of Cooke’s proposed buildings, “We Outchea” visualizes the potential of architecture and urbanism to re-center Black culture.

“Asserting one’s ownership of public space is a really important mode of self-care,” says Cooke. “We are able to form community despite oppression, despite marginalization.”

“We Outchea” stands as a preemptive critique of Blueprint 15 and similar approaches that erase low-income communities from urban environments. Instead of accepting the assumptions of Blueprint 15 or attempting to fix its deficiencies, Cooke’s proposal defiantly asserts, “This time we shall not be moved!”

In addition to contributing to the exhibition, Cooke, along with the other featured architects, designers and artists—Emanuel Admassu, Germane Barnes, J. Yolande Daniels, Felecia Davis, Mario Gooden, Walter Hood, Olalekan Jeyifous, V. Mitch McEwen and Amanda Williams—independently decided to form the (BRC), dedicated to providing funding, design and intellectual support to the ongoing and incomplete project of emancipation for the African Diaspora.

The BRC, now incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, endeavors to not only address the disparity of Black architects in the profession and the profound lack of Black architects among exhibition histories nationwide, but also to advocate, support and amplify the ideas and works of emerging architects and designers.

“The most important aspect of this entire exhibition process for me has been the formation of the BRC,” says Cooke. “The organization’s mere existence indicates the power to shift conversations from the speculative work presented to the generative work the group hopes to support.”

“Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America” is organized by Sean Anderson, associate curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, and Mabel O. Wilson, Nancy and George E. Rupp Professor, Columbia University, with Arièle Dionne-Krosnick, former curatorial assistant, and Anna Burckhardt, curatorial assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

For more information on the exhibition or to reserve a timed ticket for admission to the MoMA, visit .

Election to the AIA’s College of Fellows is one of the highest individual honors the Institute bestows on members. Out of a total AIA membership of more than 94,000, only three percent carry this distinction.

The elevation to fellowship is conferred on architects with at least 10 years of AIA membership and demonstrated influence in at least one of the following nomination categories: elevated the aesthetic, scientific, and practical efficiency of the profession; promoted the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of architectural education, training or practice; coordinated the building industry and the profession of architecture through leadership in the AIA or other related professional organizations; or advanced the living standards of people through an improved environment.

Fellows are selected by a seven-member Jury of Fellows. This year’s jury included Chair Nancy Rogo Trainer, FAIA, Drexel University; Mary Johnston, FAIA, Johnston Architects, LLC; Rebecca Lewis, FAIA, DSGW Architects; Steven Spurlock, FAIA, Quinn Evans Architects; RK Stewart, FAIA, RK Stewart Consultants; Allison Williams, FAIA, AGWms_studio; and Anna Wu, FAIA, University of North Carolina.

This year, 102 member-architects from across the country were elevated to Fellows.

“We congratulate these alumni on the occasion of being elevated to the prestigious AIA College of Fellows,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Such recognition is a testament to their dedication to the profession and to their singular achievements as practicing architects, and also to the education they received at the 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture and to all the faculty with whom they studied.”

Sherif Anis

Sherif W. Anis, FAIA, NCARB, RIBA is the director of design and planning at , executive director and past president at AIA Middle East and director at AIA International Region. He is an architectural generalist with 31 years’ diverse experience in the United States, United Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Since 2007, Anis has been actively involved in projects in both Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. With a keen focus on design and design management, he has a proven track record of developing innovative, cost effective designs in architecture, interior design and urban planning. Anis’ high-profile project portfolio consists of large, mixed-use commercial/residential projects, corporate headquarters, hotels, university campuses and buildings, extensive multi-use developments, major educational projects and contemporary residences; all of which incorporate qualities that make projects successful, attractive, sustainable and livable.

An award-winning and published designer, he is a regular speaker, panelist and chairperson at regional conferences and for design award juries. Anis has been ranked No. 68 in the ‘Power 100’ list of most influential people in the GCC’s construction industry. A founding member of the American Institute of Architects’ Middle East Board of Directors, he is the chapter’s executive director and has served as treasurer, secretary, vice president and president.

Anis bridges social and professional gaps internationally through leadership characterized by passionate advocacy for cross-culturalism and inclusion. His co-founding of AIA Middle East and activism at the global scale support architects who practice abroad.

Jayesh Hariyani

Jayesh Hariyani, FAIA is chairman and managing director at , a multidisciplinary design firm based in Ahmedabad, India. With six locations across the globe, the INI team has won many accolades for innovative and integrated design solutions driven by sustainable design principles.

Hariyani’s portfolio includes the master plan for the Kedarnath redevelopment project; planning of Ahmedabad’s Central Business District-East, Town Planning Scheme of future smart city, Dholera SIR; planning of the World Bank-funded Visakhapatnam beachfront development; Rajkot Smart City master plan; regional plans for iconic sites in India such as Somnath and Mahabalipuram; India’s largest Aquatic Gallery at Gujarat Science City; and the master plan for redevelopment of Eden Gardens cricket stadium.

Prior to moving back to India, Hariyani practiced in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates for more than 16 years as a partner serving on the board of directors at the international design firm, Burt Hill. Some notable projects he worked on while at Burt Hill include Doherty Hall at Carnegie Mellon University, the Physical Sciences Building at Cornell University and the Institute of Molecular Medicine Research building at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Apart from his designs, Hariyani is an executive board member of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), advisory board member of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is chair or co-chair for many CII-IGBC technical committees including Green Campus Rating, Green Cities Rating, Net Zero Energy Rating, Green Villages Rating, Green Hill Habitats and Hill Town Rating.

Alice Raucher

Alice J. Raucher, FAIA AIA, LEED AP is architect for the (UVA), where she is the symbolic custodian of Thomas Jefferson’s design legacy, directing the architecture, planning and landscape design of the university’s grounds. In addition to being the chief steward of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Jefferson’s original college, Raucher oversees a dynamic and expanding campus embedded in the city of Charlottesville and surrounded by Albemarle County, and navigates a complex and highly political landscape as a true collaborator and team builder. In her previous role as senior architect and chair of the design steering team at Yale University, Raucher oversaw the largest expansion of the college in a generation, as well as the renovation of two of the most iconic masterpieces of modern architecture. At Yale, and now at UVA, she is a strong advocate for design excellence, accessibility, resilience, equity and sustainability.

Prior to joining Yale University, Raucher held senior positions at notable architecture firms based in New York City and managed several significant restoration and renovation projects, including preparations for the centennial celebration of Carnegie Hall and the renovation of Union Theological Seminary. She also held faculty positions at New York Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Design and 黑料不打烊 School of Architecture, including serving as director of the School’s Florence Program in Italy.

Raucher is a registered architect in Virginia and holds NCARB certification. She is also a member of the Association of University Architects and holds Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

Hilary Sample [Image credit: Michael Vahrenwald]

Sample recently published (MIT Press, 2016) and has taught at Columbia GSAPP, Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), Yale School of Architecture and the University of Toronto. Sample has held the John G. Williams Teaching Chair at the University of Arkansas and the Reyner Banham Chair at the State University of Buffalo.

MOS undertakes projects diverse in scale and type, spanning throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Recent projects include the Petite ?cole in France, a public pavilion for teaching design to children (2019); Laboratorio de Vivienda in Mexico, a housing-focused education center (2018); Krabbesholm School in Denmark, a complex of four art studios (2012); and a photographer’s studio (2020). A collective affordable housing residence in Washington, D.C. is scheduled for completion in 2022.

The work of MOS is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Frances Loeb Library and Columbia University’s Butler Library.

Sample, along with Michael Meredith, is a recipient of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum’s National Design Award in Architecture (2015) and the United States Artists Award (2020).

For more information on College of Fellows or to view the complete list of newly elevated architect fellows, visit .

From Jan. 28–29, 19 students from 11 teams from across the county participated in a two-day virtual event, hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), designed to replicate the experiences they would have during an on-site competition.

Trisha Gupta G’21

Each team had 10 minutes to present their project to a team of judges—drawn from the building science community—who evaluated the presentations based on their technical, innovation and diversity merits, as well as to a virtual audience comprised of professors, classmates and families of the competitors.

Trisha Gupta ’21 (M.S.) and Vedyun Mishra ’21 (M.S.), both master’s degree students in the School of Architecture, were judged one of the four winning teams for their project, “Enabling the Proliferation of Energy Auditing.”

“We are very proud of Trisha and Vedyun for their outstanding achievement,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “This deserved recognition is not only the result of their hard work but also of the collaboration between SUNY-ESF and the ‘Design Energy Futures’ M.S. in Architecture program at the School of Architecture.”

Vedyun Mishra G’21

This year’s competition, jointly managed by NREL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), asked students to research, collaborate and develop possible solutions for three key issues facing the building science industry: advanced building construction methods, building energy audits for residential or commercial buildings, and grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEB).

Completed as an independent project for the graduate-level Sustainable Energy Systems for Buildings course (CME 505) at SUNY-ESF, Gupta and Mishra responded to the prompt “to develop technical solutions to expedite energy audits or develop a simplified, yet effective, energy audit methodology, by finding ways to reduce time and cost compared to current audit practices.”

Guided by faculty advisor Paul Crovella, assistant professor of forest and natural resources management at SUNY-ESF, the team’s project addressed the need for accurate and cost-effective residential building energy audits by looking at how the use of drones, infrared camera technology and machine learning could help evolve and automate the process.

“We are proposing an innovative solution to combine the power of using different but interconnected technologies to harness the true potential of energy auditing for the future,” says Mishra.

As winners of the final round of the competition, Gupta and Mishra received paid 10-week summer internship offers at ORNL and NREL, respectively, to work on projects related to net zero buildings and renewable energy.

“I’m looking forward to my journey post-graduation with the hope that I can contribute to a better and sustainable world,” says Gupta.

Since 2018, the “JUMP into STEM” (which stands for Join the discussion, Unveil innovation, Make connections, Promote tech-to-market) competition has inspired students from diverse backgrounds and an interdisciplinary mix of majors to address real-world building science issues using creative problem-solving skills.

The 2020–21 program year had the largest field of student projects to date. A total of 49 ideas were submitted from 144 students representing 29 different colleges and universities.

JUMP’s long-term goal is to increase the diversity of building science professionals so that many perspectives contribute to the clean energy transition.

For a complete list of winners and to learn more about “JUMP into STEM,” visit .

Lori A. Brown (Photo by Peter Bennetts)

Lori A. Brown, professor in the School of Architecture, is among the eight selected winners to receive a 2021 Emerging Voices award from .

Each year, the award spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada and Mexico with distinct design “voices” that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design and urbanism.

Since 1982, the awards have helped launch the careers of more than 200 North American-based architects. Past winners include Steven Holl (1982), Deborah Berke (1993), Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi (1997), Jeanne Gang (2006), Kate Orff (2012) and Bryan C. Lee Jr. and Sue Mobley (2019).

The invite-only, two-stage review from approximately 50 entrants brings together the best of the best in design. This year’s Emerging Voices winners were selected by an eight-person jury of design professionals including Daniel Barber, Philadelphia; Milton S.F. Curry, Los Angeles; Mimi Hoang, New York; Paul Lewis, New York; Rozana Montiel, Mexico City; Ronald Rael, Berkeley, California; Lola Sheppard, Toronto; and Rosalyne Shieh, New York.

The jury reviewed significant bodies of realized work and considered accomplishments within design and academia. The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape and the built environment.

“Cognizant of the limitations of seductive images that are often foregrounded in portfolios, the jury carefully weighed all elements of the submissions, identifying eight individuals and firms engaged in a robust architecture imbued with inventive approaches to social, racial and economic equity, material invention, and ecological benefits,” said Paul Lewis, jury member and president of the Architectural League, in a statement.

In addition to teaching at 黑料不打烊, Brown is an architect, educator and scholar. She is president of , which she co-founded in 2012; principal of lab practices, a research and design firm founded in 2005; and serves as the School of Architecture’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Her interdisciplinary practice draws on geography, art, law, and women’s and gender studies “to bring the work of architecture more substantially into social, political and institutional arenas,” with the goal of “transforming spatial structures to promote equity and inclusivity.”

In tandem with this effort, Brown strives to create more exposure and engagement for women in the discipline by exploring issues of social justice, gender, privilege and patronage. Her recent projects include ; ; and .

“Professor Brown is among our most active and engaged faculty and her practice, which leverages design to challenge and reimagine existing social conditions and relations, is important not only in its own right but also because it serves as an example for our students and for the academy and profession at large,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture.

As part of the Emerging Voices award distinction, honorees are invited to present exceptional and challenging work to their peers and the greater design community through a series of virtual lectures taking place on consecutive Thursday evenings from March 11 through April 1.

Each moderated event, sponsored by The Architectural League of New York, will showcase two awardees. Brown will lecture on April 1 at 6 p.m. ET as part of the series. Advance registration is required.

“I am honored to be selected by the Architectural League as one of the selected Emerging Voices this year,” says Brown. “It’s exciting to be part of such an amazing group and I look forward to a series of provocative conversations.”

Visit for additional details on the upcoming online lecture series and to learn more about all of the winners’ work.

The School of Architecture is also offering third-year undergraduate architecture students living in China the chance to enroll in one of two residential visiting critic studios, located in Beijing and Shanghai, being taught by some of China’s leading young architect-designers.

Here are the Spring 2021 visiting critics:

Liang Wang (Boghosian Fellow 2020–21)

Liang Wang

Architect and urban designer Liang Wang will teach the visiting critic studio, “The Superblock for Almost Everything: Re-imagining Domestic and Collective Living in the Age of Enclosure,” which will primarily engage the Superblock—an urban typology that originated as a spatial rationalization with an underlying social vision of collectiveness and equity, and one that was later largely appropriated by the mass industrialization and sophisticated forms of capitalist development, segregation and enclosure. By interrogating the concept of the Superblock in the re-imagination of both domestic and collective living of our time and the near future, students will work on interlinked conceptual projects at their respective operative scales: the domestic boundaries of one’s own room and the communal (re)productions of architecture and its urban block. Students’ responses will be framed by the long-lasting relationship between the discursive lineage of domestic and collective living spaces and the capitalist modes of socio-spatial production and informed by the drastically changing constituencies of living and working brought by the global pandemic. This studio charts the Superblock not only as a conceptual abstraction for multi-scalar, socio-spatial organizations, but also as a project of the city that embodies political and cultural imaginations. It represents the attempt, both literally and metaphorically, to speculate alternative forms, relationships and practices in constructing the commons of our city today—one that is more just, inclusive and creative.

Wang came to 黑料不打烊 Architecture in fall 2020 as the school’s fifth Harry der Boghosian Fellow. Before joining 黑料不打烊, he was a doctor of design candidate and previously a teaching fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), where his scholarship and teaching concerned history and theory of urban form, space and politics of the superblock development, as well as architecture and the idea of the city in East Asia. Wang completed his master’s of architecture in urban design degree with distinction from Harvard GSD. He also holds a master’s of architecture degree from Rice University and a bachelor’s of architecture degree from Harbin Institute of Technology in China. In addition to his academic experiences, Wang is the co-founder of Commons Office, a creative think tank and a research-minded design practice based in Boston and Shanghai. Prior to founding Commons Office, he practiced architecture internationally at Herzog & de Meuron in Basel; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in New York; Bjarke Ingels Group in Copenhagen; WW Architecture in Houston; and Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects in Shanghai.

Wang’s fellowship research will culminate in the form of an online symposium, “Superblock and the Idea of the City.”

Karolina Czeczek and Adam Frampton (Only If)

Karolina Czeczek and Adam Frampton will teach the visiting critic studio, “Beyond the 98th Meridian,” which set in the sparsely populated, semi-arid Great Plains region of the United States will revisit the radical and controversial 1987 proposal of the Buffalo Commons imagined by Deborah and Frank Popper to create the world’s largest ecological park.

Adam Frampton and Karolina Czeczek

The Buffalo Commons entails a territory where land is de-privatized and re-wilded following overgrazing, the failure of industrial agriculture and the exhaustion of soil and water resources. In order to speculate on the future landscape, geographic footprint and architecture of human occupation (or non-occupation) in this rural territory in a changing climate, the studio will examine existing architectural instances and landscapes produced at intersections between artificial and natural systems within the region. Working through a sequence of scales of design, the studio will critically investigate the relative autonomy or expanded field of the disciplines of architecture, urbanism and landscape architecture. In this investigation, and in the consideration of possibilities for interdisciplinary translations of techniques, forms and materials, the studio will envision design practices for a new form of nature.

Czeczek is an architect and principal of , a New York City-based design practice for architecture and urbanism. She is currently a critic at the Yale University School of Architecture and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Czeczek has previously taught as a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, and as an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Kentucky College of Design. She is a Fulbright Scholar who holds two master’s degrees in architecture and urban design from Yale University and the Cracow University of Technology and is a recipient of the Winchester Travel Fellowship—the highest award given annually to a graduate across all Yale School of Architecture programs. Czeczek’s independent research on Warsaw’s public pools and proposal to revitalize Skra Sports Complex was a finalist for the 2015 “Praktyka” scholarship program for young architects in Poland. She previously worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) from 2010-13 in Rotterdam and Hong Kong, where she was involved in architectural and urban scale projects in the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, China, Egypt and Morocco.

Frampton is an architect and principal of . Since 2013, he has been an adjunct assistant professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University (GSAPP) and, in 2020, he taught as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Kentucky College of Design. Frampton is the co-author of “” (2012), which maps Hong Kong’s three-dimensional networks of pedestrian circulation and public space. His work and research have been exhibited in the 12th, 14th and 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Center for Architecture and the Van Alen Institute in New York City. Previously, Frampton worked as an associate at OMA from 2006-13 in Rotterdam and Hong Kong, where he was involved in more than 20 projects and responsible for leading teams producing architectural and urban designs in China, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and India. Most significantly, Frampton worked on OMA’s competition-winning design of the Taipei Performing Arts Center from 2008–13 and led several phases of its design and construction. He holds a master’s of architecture degree from Princeton University and is a registered architect in the United States and the Netherlands.

Czeczek and Frampton will give an online public lecture on .

Cory Henry (Atelier Cory Henry)

Cory Henry

Cory Henry will teach the visiting critic studio, “Systems of Reality: Design from the Rural,” which explores race, place and community development in one of the poorest and most segregated cities in the United States, Clarksdale, Mississippi. Located in the Mississippi Delta, Clarksdale was once a center of wealth in the region, aggregating the labors of the thousands of people who picked cotton, built houses and conducted the economic, civic and social life of the community. However, this wealth was concentrated in the hands of some and off limits to others. The vestiges of these discriminatory practices remain severely impactful on the community today. The Mississippi Delta suffers from an overall lack of resources, which contributes to its high poverty and low health conditions. However, the region is rich in culture, history and will of its people. Students will begin the studio with an exploratory-research phase, which includes discussions and interviews with Clarksdale residents, nonprofit leaders, journalists and researchers of the city. The voices of the community will inform design speculations in the second phase of the studio where students will? ambitiously create a program and design a community center to engage the built and social fabric of Clarksdale. To be located on the site of the old Clarksdale hospital, which had a policy of not treating Black people in need of medical care, the center will seek to enhance and empower its residents.

As a Los Angeles-based educator and practitioner, Henry is the director of the eponymous interdisciplinary research and design practice, . Prior to founding Atelier Cory Henry, he worked at several renowned architecture firms, including Michael Graves and Associates. With over 15 years of professional practice experience, Henry has contributed to award-winning designs in residential, commercial, institutional and urban planning projects spanning three continents. His background has led to an interdisciplinary approach to design through an integration of visual arts, architecture and urban design. Henry has taught architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Penn State University and University of Southern California, is affiliate faculty at the University of Oklahoma, and was recently awarded the 2020 Kea Distinguished Professorship at the University of Maryland. He earned a master’s in architecture from Cornell University and a bachelor’s in architecture from Drexel University, and has also conducted research studies in new media, immersive environments and emergent technologies at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Henry will engage in a conversation with Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture, on .

Max Kuo (ALLTHATISSOLID)

Max Kuo

Max Kuo will teach the visiting critic studio, “The Secret Life of Democratic Architecture,” which examines the origins of democratic form-making to understand architecture’s relationship to political power. An icon of our nation’s deep contradictions, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is an architectural experiment which had invented numerous ways to dress up the evils of slavery in the aspirational cloaks of a democratic Palladian vernacular. In this studio, students will renovate the campus of Monticello by contributing to a new artist-residency committed to the re-imagining of the historical legacy and contemporary life of the 18th-century plantation. To dismantle the oppressive logics of Jefferson’s Palladian architecture, they will engage in phased research and design exploring several topics, including the revolutionary origins of neo-classicism and today’s post-internet aesthetics, and pursue the design of architectural thingness, a formal insurgency whereby defamiliarized objects disrupt the systems of normalization endemic to the machinations of power. In this wide-ranging investigation, students will study the anachronistic and intricate relationships between disciplinary innovation and the constituent politics they are situated within. By subverting the techniques of segregation and secrecy found throughout Jefferson’s architectural works, this studio posits that new modes of collective inhabitation are possible through the amplification of architecture’s formal qualities.

Kuo is a founding partner of the studio , with offices in Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur. Since 2013, he has been a design critic in architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has also taught studios at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tongji University and numerous universities throughout Seoul, South Korea. Kuo’s recent writings and design work explore modernism in the context of digital networks and both their creative and paradoxical impact on architecture and the built environment. He has been published in architectural journals such as Pidgin (Princeton), Thresholds (MIT), MAS Context (Chicago) and Pool (UCLA). His forthcoming essay in Log will explore new spatio-temporal frameworks of post-digital culture where architectural novelty privileges the unpredictable behaviors of familiar forms. Kuo’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Beijing and Seoul. In 2003, he was an artist-in residence at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Studies Program. And in 2016, Kuo was the Heinz Fellow in Architecture at The MacDowell Colony and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. Kuo earned his master of architecture degree from the Architecture and Urban Design program at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received the Welton Beckett Fellowship. He previously practiced in the offices of Reiser + Umemoto and Fernando Romero Enterprise.

Kuo will give an online public lecture on .

Li Han and Hu Yan (Drawing Architecture Studio)

Li Han and Hu Yan

Li Han and Hu Yan will teach the Beijing-based visiting critic studio, “Copied in Beijing: An Adventure of Architectural Drawing and Maquette,” which will explore the Shanzhai architecture that is found everywhere in China. While Shanzhai—the Chinese word for copycatting—is often mentioned together with plagiarism, replica, vulgarity and cheapness, it is also related to learning, borrowing, reference and analogy. This studio will examine Shanzhai from a positive angle, focusing on the concept as a highly efficient design strategy and engine for creating topics, generating flow and gaining attention. Students will begin the studio by surveying the areas in Beijing where the most diversified vernacular constructions (hutong and old residential neighborhoods) exist and discover the original Beijing architectural characteristics, ambience and charisma. They will learn from those seemingly ragged but imaginative architecture, while concerning themselves with the content of architecture itself—form, material and ambience—but not endless social phenomena and political subjects. Students will examine the subtle relationship between Shanzhai and analogy, learning from the reality while, at the same time, exploring the depths of history. In the process to create Shangzhai architecture, students will re-examine imagery and maquette from an artist’s point of view. Under the guidance of Han and Yan, who will assume the role of curators, students will act as artists in residence and create architecture-related “artwork” by re-examining imagery and maquette from an artist’s point of view as their final projects. The studio will end with a professional exhibition in a Beijing art gallery.

Han and Yan are the co-founders of (DAS), a Beijing-based creative platform that specializes in architectural drawing, architectural design and urban studies. DAS has exhibited widely in China and abroad, including the Chinese and Japan pavilions of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, The 7th Shenzhen/Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Architecture in Comic-Strip Form in Oslo and many others. Their works are the winning pieces of both the overall prize and top choice in the Digital Drawing category of the World Architecture Festival’s Architecture Drawing Prize in 2018 and The RIBA Journal’s Eye Line Drawing Competition in 2016 and are also in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Pingshan Art Museum in Shenzhen, China. DAS’ publications include A Little Bit of Beijing, A Little Bit of Beijing · Dashilar, The Joy of Architectural Drawing, Hutong Mushroom, Apartment Blossom and the Chinese translation of Atlas of Novel Tectonics. Han is a National Class 1 Registered Architect (P.R.C.) in China. He received a bachelor’s of architecture degree from Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, and a master’s of architecture degree from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Yan received a bachelor’s of fine arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Han and Yan will give an online public lecture on .

Yuanrong Ma (GEIJOENG?)

Yuanrong Ma

Yuanrong Ma, along with , founding partner and branding designer of URSIDE Design and URSIDE Hotel Shanghai, will teach the Shanghai-based visiting critic studio, “BRANDSCAPE: Symbiosis of Contemporary Fashion and Architecture,” which will critically examine the role of architecture as a constructive branding device. ?While the retail landscape has been subject to a dramatic and ongoing transformation over the past few decades—with the shop window shrinking to the size of a screen—the fashion industry, particularly the luxury segment, has progressively employed the proximity of architecture as part of its new marketing strategies. By engaging in “high culture” though flagship boutiques, runway stages and campaign backdrops, leading high fashion brands have enhanced their global images.

The convergent geographies of fashion and architecture, though each occupy mutually exclusive intellectual ground, engage vast arrays of social practices and different forms of visual material and culture that collapse the distinctions between art and commerce. Such synthesis enriches the ongoing discussion on consumerism and cultural production, offers insights as well as critiques into our urban environments, and may transform the way in which we envision the built form. Within an existing structure on either physical or virtual sites, students will develop a total environment for brand reinforcement—an immersive wrapper for staged fashion presentations, spatial merchandising or other commodified experiences—much in the same way as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). These new “brandscapes” will aim to reinvent the retail typologies and reshape conceptions of shopping into a cultural endeavor, through which to recast a more progressive politics of consumption.

Ma is a licensed architect registered in New York state, the art director at GEIJOENG?, the creative director at United Xpanded and a certified yoga instructor (RYT500) currently based in Shanghai, China. Her architectural and interior projects have received numerous design awards, including the AIA Scholastic Award from American Institute of Architects, and have been featured in the Venice Architecture Biennale and World Architecture Festival, as well as in publications such as a + u magazine, Architectural Journal, Wallpaper, Dezeen and designboom. Ma’s installation works have been displayed at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai Exhibition Center, Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, and National Exhibition and Convention Center, among others. Her academic works have been published in David Adjaye: Authoring: Re-placing Art and Architecture and Mansilla + Tunon: From Rules to Constraints. Ma holds a master of architecture degree from Princeton University, a Bachelor of architecture degree from Tongji University and has studied at Cardiff University in United Kingdom, Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland and Queensland University of Technology in Australia. She has been a curator and critic at The University of Hong Kong’s Shanghai Study Centre. Before returning to China to start her own practice, Ma previously worked at KPF and David Chipperfield Architects.

Ma will give an online public lecture on .

Under the , School of Architecture faculty and students have produced numerous regional, urban, landscape and architectural projects dating back to April 2017, when China announced the establishment of Xiong’an New Area—a self-sufficient and sustainable city to serve as a development hub for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei economic triangle. However, this past year the school elevated its collaboration to another level.

Guided by School of Architecture Assistant Teaching Professor Fei Wang, 13 students worked on the master plan, architecture landmarks and installations for a new public cultural district in the city of Xiong’an.

Led by Shenzhen Institute of Building Research (IBR) and its director, Qing Ye, a multidisciplinary team, including School of Architecture students, was invited to follow the city’s master plan of “ecology in priority and green development” and collaborate on the design of a new public cultural district along Luosa Street, one of the two main streets in the center of Xiong’an.

Like most third-tier cities in China, Luosa Street in Rongcheng County lacked identity in terms of the urban context, architectural forms and street scape. To take advantage of the unsettled urban spaces and introduce public arts into the community culture, the “Harmony Life (漫生活)” street renovation project was created.

The name “Harmony Life” is rich with meaning. “Harmony” symbolizes a public art system centered around love and inclusiveness, while “Life” refers to a green and low-carbon lifestyle starting from the heart that highlights the regional attributes and cultural character of Xiong’an.

Divided into six major areas—enjoy, rest, fashion, taste, dwell and meander— the new community-oriented public space promotes a lifestyle upgrade for local residents by encouraging cultural, artistic, educational and sports activities.

Guided by School of Architecture Assistant Teaching Professor Fei Wang, director of China programs, 13 students worked on the master plan, architecture landmarks (double helix tower, two shipping container community centers and recycling wall) and installations (mobile bookstore, arrow-like bench and lotus chair) for the project. Nan Wang, School of Architecture graphic design instructor in China, produced the overall branding and graphic design that provide a strong identity to the street, the district and, eventually, the city.

Within the mile-long district are dynamic outdoor squares for gathering, recreational spaces for children, and even collective stalls and markets showcasing classic and creative cuisines, which come together to form an all-age-friendly environment. New media art installations, such as eight scenes of Rongcheng transformed into reliefs and colorful paintings, integrate art into life and enhance a sense of belonging for citizens.

Double helix tower in the new public cultural district in Xiong’an

While the primary goal of the “Harmony Life” project was aimed at enhancing the connection and communication between the city and its residents, Yao Pei, deputy general manager of IBR and general manager of Xiong’an Headquarters, speculates the new district will also bring about significant changes to urban construction methods and social governance, as well as contribute to a profound quality of life and happiness transformation for its citizens and the Xiong’anese identity.

“In collaboration with IBR, 黑料不打烊 Architecture has created a unique, transdisciplinary model integrating research and design, academics and practice, and more importantly the city and people,” says Wang.

“Of the many projects the School of Architecture has worked on in Xiong’an New Area, which I have visited many times, this is the most impressive,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture. “Though I am not able to travel to China right now, I am very anxious to visit to see the results of our faculty and student work.”

The 黑料不打烊 students who contributed to designing the “Harmony Life” district include Qingyang Yu ’16 (B.Arch.) G’20 (M.S.), Wentao Zeng G’20 (M.S.), Yixuan Xin G’20 (M.S.), Tianyi Long G’20 (M.S.), Ching-Hui Wang G’20 (M.S.), Yilu Zhang G’20 (M.Arch.), Minglu Wei ’19 (B.Arch.), Furui Sun ’19 (B.Arch.), Ying Zuo ’19 (B.Arch.), Tyler Yucheng Han ’21 (B.Arch.), Rui Li ’21 (B.Arch.), Fei Hu ’21 (B.Arch.) and Junran Tao ’20 (B.Arch.).

The fabrication of the cardboard structure replicates a robotic concrete prefabrication system that APTUM, along with —the research arm of CEMEX, a global concrete manufacturer—has been developing for the design and development of novel architectural forms and elements through the exploration of CEMEX’s concrete technologies.

The origins of the folded pavilion project date back to 2015 when Larsen and Hubeli worked with CEMEX Global R&D in Switzerland to organize a where School of Architecture students visited local manufacturers in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland to learn about the importance of bridging the gap between design and materiality.

Back in 黑料不打烊, the study abroad students used the knowledge they gained from the class to design and construct a “” built with CEMEX specialty lightweight and high-strength concrete, while focusing on the constraints of construction and how they inevitably arise in response to the properties of a material (concrete), its weight and the tectonics of a constructed object.

In 2019, APTUM continued their collaboration with CEMEX by starting a residency at AutoDesk BUILD (Building, Innovation, Learning and Design) Space in Boston where research assistants, Michael Aiardo ’21 (M.Arch.) and John Mikesh ’19 (B.Arch.), began studying the use of advanced concrete technology as a catalyst for design innovation, including working on the folded concrete project.

Due to the pandemic, the group had to postpone efforts to fabricate the concrete elements in Boston and shifted their focus to building a full-scale mockup of the pavilion in 黑料不打烊 to test the folding geometry, the sequence from digital form making to fabrication output, as well as the assembly sequence of the entire pavilion.

Aiardo, with the help of research assistant, Timothy Tamulonis ’21 (B.Arch.), took the lead on fabricating and assembling the pavilion mockup. Made from corrugated cardboard that resembles the thickness of CEMEX’s high-strength Resilia concrete, 4-by-8-foot sheets were cut using the school’s CNC router and folded together by hand to simulate how the individual elements would be produced in concrete. After exploring a variety of possible options to adhere the elements to each other, vinyl fasteners were used to connect the pieces.

“We wanted to build the mockup here at full-scale to check for inconsistencies in the digital model, fix problems and test ideas with the cardboard prior to casting the elements in concrete when it becomes more challenging to make changes,” says Larsen.

The innovative fabrication technique used for the folded pavilion is made possible with CEMEX’s Resilia Folding technology, which provides the necessary material manipulation characteristics during the concrete folding while fresh, and the needed ultra-high strength and ductility when hardening, allowing complex shapes to be made simpler, thinner and stronger, while reducing material consumption with considerably less formwork.

APTUM’s research is funded through a series of CEMEX Global R&D sponsored research grants that supported the design of the pavilion in concrete and the residency at the AutoDesk BUILD Space in Boston. The fabrication of the cardboard study was made possible through a Faculty Funding Grant awarded by the School of Architecture.

In addition to their work with CEMEX, Larsen and Hubeli are also partnering with the concrete block industry and the Upstate New York MCAA (Mason Contractors Association of America) to explore potentials for concrete masonry units (CMUs) to be a more proliferate load bearing construction method in the residential market.

“Intersection of the Uncontained”

A team of fifth-year School of Architecture students have won the grand prize at this year’s (BIADW)—an intensive academic program intended to encourage rigorous research and ideas creation of architecture major students from around the world—for their project, “,” which explores ways to facilitate and empower social justice movements during the time of the pandemic.

Held annually during the summer since 2003, the BIADW competition is offered by the and invites students to investigate a wide array of creative architectural and urban design approaches in the context of the 21st-century urban culture.

The workshop, which is typically held over a period of one week at a university in South Korea, was modified into a three-month long online competition this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Responding to the theme, “,” teams consisting of one guiding professor and three students were asked to create human spaces of dwelling, meeting and solidarity in the “new normal” after COVID-19 by designing socio-environmental scenarios that generate safer spaces for social interactions.

Guided by Daekwon Park, assistant professor in the School of Architecture, the 黑料不打烊 student team of Luca McLaughlin ’21 (B.Arch.), Xingyao Wang ’21 (B.Arch.) and Brianna Serrano ’21 (B.Arch.) selected —a public housing project in Central Harlem, in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, as the site for their proposal.

Historically known as the epicenter of African American culture in America, Central Harlem was not only one of the neighborhoods in New York City severely affected by the pandemic, but it also became one of the largest protest areas for the Black Lives Matter movement. Residents displayed the power of the street through peaceful protests, but such activities became more difficult and dangerous during the pandemic when social distancing was encouraged as a necessary measure to ensure personal and communal safety against the spread of the virus.

Recognizing that Harlem was not a place for reinventing the home office or creating scenarios that provided quarantining or social distancing, the School of Architecture team decided to focus on designing spaces that allowed residents to safely and actively engage in their community in ways that prioritized both their voices and their lives.

“We felt that this workshop would not only allow us to educate ourselves about the racial and socioeconomic disparities happening in our own country, but also create a tool that brought international attention to these issues,” says McLaughlin.

In order to tackle their project’s three main goals—safety, prevention and politics—the team produced a catalog of vertical and horizontal design interventions that challenged the normative views on current cityscapes and addressed physical issues of the site including lack of ventilation, absence of safe outdoor interaction caused by missing balconies and the nonexistence of social distancing parameters on the ground.

Through an interdependent network of fa?ade interventions, roof and ground overlay and street connections that helped merge the two sides of the neighborhood, the team wove together a new unified fabric at the “.”

“We pushed the boundaries of stay-at-home orders and allowed people to stand up and step out,” says Serrano.

After undergoing a series of critiques and revisions, the 黑料不打烊 team’s project was selected by the jurors to receive the grand prize, presented by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

“My students and I had many meaningful discussions about how the pandemic is disproportionately impacting communities of color in the United States,” says Park. “We learned so much about the rich history of Harlem and became inspired by the people who have shaped the neighborhood through the years.”

McLaughlin, Wang and Serrano have chosen to donate their prize winnings to the Harlem-based program of , whose mission of providing academic support, mentoring, enrichment and tuition assistance for higher education to young people from low-income communities, aligns with the team’s desire to use their voice and resources to support the Central Harlem community.

“Drops of water, when gathered, can be formed into a river,” says Wang. “We sincerely hope that our efforts will help.”

To view a video of the team’s winning submission, visit .