Spring 2022 Lecture Series
With speakers hailing from across the globe, The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture’s Spring 2022 lecture series represents an exciting variety of contemporary voices and international perspectives ranging from Vietnam to Mexico. Starting Wednesday, January 26, and continuing throughout the semester, a broad-cross section of practitioners and representatives from the academy will present lectures that address some of the built environment’s most urgent issues including climate change and sustainability, community engagement and accessibility, and beyond.
Featuring a new, dynamic lineup of speakers each semester, the School of Architecture’s lecture series supports the school’s commitment to providing opportunities for the lively and open exchange of ideas outside the classroom. Guest lecturers in the series include: Jing Liu, Miroslava Brooks, Maxi Spina and Jia Gu, Susan Jones, Igor Marjanović, Anne Holtrop, Võ Trọng Nghĩa, Kutan Ayata and Michael Young, Alan Organschi, Lonneke Gordijn, Fuensanta Nieto, and Salvador Macías Corona and Magui Peredo Arenas.
Lectures scheduled for January 2022 will take place exclusively online. Most other lectures in the series will include both online and in-person components unless noted otherwise. All lectures are free and open to the public, with live streams available on the Texas Architecture YouTube channel. All in-person lectures will take place in the Goldsmith Lecture Hall (310 Inner Campus Drive, Austin, TX 78712, Room 3.120), with the exception of Estudio Macías Peredo, which will take place in Jessen Auditorium in Homer Rainey Hall (200 W 21st St, Austin, TX 78712)
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26 AT 12:30 PM
“Radical Re-housing”
Jing Liu, SO-IL, New York City
Virtual
Jing Liu has been practicing for more than 15 years working on a wide range of projects both in the U.S. and abroad. Her projects range from artistic collaborations with contemporary choreographers and visual artists to master plans and major public realm design in major cities around the world. She believes strongly that design should and can be accessible to all, and that architecture offers us an open platform to nurture new forms of interaction. To that end, Liu sees community engagement and collaboration across disciplines central to her role as the design lead. Liu’s lecture “Radical Re-housing” will cover past, current, and future research and projects on the state of human habitation.
This lecture is made possible by funding from the Ruth Carter Stevenson Regents Chair in the Art of Architecture.
MONDAY, JANUARY 31 AT 12:30 PM
"Obsessions, Obstacles, Opportunities"
Miroslava Brooks, FORMA, New York City
Virtual
Miroslava Brooks is co-founder and principal for FORMA, and a faculty member at both the Yale School of Architecture and at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. She is a registered architect licensed in Connecticut and New York, with previous experience working at Eisenman Architects, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, and Jerome Scott Architects. FORMA is a full-service architecture firm based in New York City. Founded in 2018, it is led by Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz, whose overlapping interests in form and its capacity to enrich our daily experiences fuel the firm’s work. FORMA is committed to developing projects with architectural clarity and conceptual rigor, aiming for a harmonious combination of order and whimsy.
This lecture is made possible by funding from the Eugene McDermott Centennial Visiting Professorship.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 AT 12:30 PM
Maxi Spina and Jia Yi Gu, Spinagu, Los Angeles
In-Person & Virtual
Spinagu is a culturally-engaged architecture and design studio founded by Jia Yi Gu and Maxi Spina, with offices in Los Angeles and Rosario, Argentina. Spinagu designs thoughtful architecture that elevates the everyday while speculating on contemporary ideas and processes, and their work takes the form of buildings, objects, exhibitions, and texts. Through research and experimentation, their approach foregrounds materials, form, and technical craft while exploring the link between ideas, aesthetics, and values. They are currently working on, thinking about, and writing about the uses of color in houses, self-initiated development models, and the role of institutions in architecture.
This lecture is made possible by funding from the Kwallek Endowed Chair in Design.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7 AT 12:30 PM
“Disruptive Ecologies”
Susan Jones, atelierjones, Seattle
In-Person & Virtual
Susan Jones is a Seattle architect and founder of atelierjones. She is driving new pathways within architecture, advancing new lower-carbon, mass timber systems by designing and building prototypes at multiple scales, girded by her leadership in multiple international collaborations to create change at scale and ensure rigor on multiple levels. Her solely woman-owned architectural firm, atelierjones, designs mass timber prefabricated single-family houses and urban infill residential as well as large, mass timber middle-income residential buildings which specifically advance new building codes to allow lower carbon construction. In her lecture, “Disruptive Ecologies” Jones will talk about the decade-long search for sustainable design strategies, culminating in the disruptive lower-carbon mass timber, as seen through the broader ecological lens of the forest.
This lecture is supported by the Softwood Lumber Board, an industry-funded initiative established to promote the benefits and uses of softwood lumber products in outdoor, residential, and non-residential construction.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9 AT 12:30 PM
Igor Marjanović, Rice Architecture, Houston
In-Person & Virtual
Igor Marjanović is the William Ward Watkin Dean and Professor at Rice Architecture. As an architect, scholar, educator, and curator, he is committed to architecture as a critical facet of our multicultural world, fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion as the foundation of both social transformation and academic distinction. Marjanović’s research integrates the teaching of studio and theory with historical scholarship on architectural pedagogy, practice, and identity formation, examining the role of drawings, exhibitions, and publications in the emergence of international architectural culture. In his teaching, Marjanović fuses together design and theory, with a particular passion for drawing as a powerful tool to imagine beautiful buildings and more just societies.
This lecture is made possible by the Herbert M. Greene Centennial Lectureship in Architecture.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14 AT 12:30 PM
“Site, Matter, Gesture”
Anne Holtrop, Studio Anne Holtrop, Amsterdam, Muharraq
Virtual
Anne Holtrop started his practice in 2009. In 2015, the first two major buildings Museum Fort Vechten and the National Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain were completed. Recently realized projects include the Customs House in Manama, operational as the main post office; and the Qaysariya Suq and Green Corner Building in Muharraq. The studio has completed new stores worldwide for Maison Margiela with flagship stores in London, Paris, Osaka, and Shanghai, and it is currently working on the completion of UNESCO-listed heritage buildings in Bahrain: Murad Boutique Hotel and Siyadi Pearl Museum. A monograph, Site, Matter, Gesture, was published by El Croquis about the practice and its continuous research, the subject of this lecture.
This lecture is made possible by the Wolfe and Janet Jessen Centennial Lectureship in Architecture.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21 AT 7:00 PM
Võ Trọng Nghĩa, Võ Trọng Nghĩa Architects, Ho Chi Minh City
Virtual, 7:00 p.m.
Founded in 2006 by Võ Trọng Nghĩa, Võ Trọng Nghĩa Architects is a leading architectural practice in Vietnam with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Based in Ho Chi Minh City, VTN Architects infuses its work with lushly planted walls, hanging vines, structure-piercing trees, weathered stones, and sunken landscapes. It also incorporates traditional Vietnamese building techniques, like complex bamboo trusses, perforated blocks, cooling water systems, shaded terraces, and thatched roofs. All these efforts are infused with a resolute vision: the creation of Green Architecture that merges nature, local vernacular, and—through modern materials and methods—contemporary design. The motto of VTN is “Greening the City” which VTN considers the most effective method for a Vietnamese city to become a sustainable city with happiness.
This lecture is made possible by the Karl Kamrath Lectureship in Architecture.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23 AT 12:30 PM
Kutan Ayata and Michael Young, Young & Ayata, New York
In-Person & Virtual
Michael Young and Kutan Ayata formed a partnership in New York in 2008 to explore the conceptual and aesthetic possibilities of architecture and urbanism. The practice is dedicated to both built commissions and experimental research. The practice views the reality of contemporary building as a provocation for architectural form, material, and technology. In following these trajectories, it is necessary to understand architecture in its historical processes. Both principals teach and view the educational experience as crucial to the continual development of architectural ideas. Ayata is an Associate Professor and the Vice-Chair in the Department of Architecture and Urbanism at UCLA, where he also serves as the Director of the Master of Architecture Program; and Young is an Assistant Professor at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union.
This lecture is made possible by the Brightman/York Endowed Lecture Series in Interior Design.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2 AT 12:30 PM
“Building the Regenerative City”
Alan Organschi, Gray Organschi Architecture, New Haven
In-Person & Virtual
Alan Organschi is a principal and partner at Gray Organschi Architecture, an architectural practice in New Haven, Connecticut recognized internationally for its integration of design, construction, and environmental research. In April 2021, Mr. Organschi was appointed Director of the Innovation Labs at the Bauhaus Earth, a global interdisciplinary initiative that seeks to transform the building sector from a major source of anthropogenic environmental and social impact into a regenerative and ecologically sensitive means to meet the housing and infrastructural needs of an urbanizing global population. Mr. Organschi continues as a senior member of the faculty at the Yale School of Architecture where he has taught architectural design and building technology for two decades.
This lecture is generously supported by the Softwood Lumber Board, an industry-funded initiative established to promote the benefits and uses of softwood lumber products in outdoor, residential, and non-residential construction.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30 AT 12:30 PM
Lonneke Gordijin, studio DRIFT, Amsterdam
In-Person & Virtual
Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded studio DRIFT in 2007. With a multi-disciplinary team of 64, they work on experiential sculptures, installations, and performances. DRIFT manifests the phenomena and hidden properties of nature with the use of technology in order to learn from the Earth’s underlying mechanisms and to re-establish our connection to it. With both depth and simplicity, DRIFT’s works of art illuminate parallels between man-made and natural structures through deconstructive, interactive, and innovative processes. The artists raise fundamental questions about what life is and explore a positive scenario for the future.
This lecture is made possible by the Emily Summers Fund for Craft & Artisanship in Interior Design.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6 AT 12:30 PM
“Art, City, Landscape”
Fuensanta Nieto, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Madrid, Berlin
In-Person & Virtual
Fuensanta Nieto has worked as an architect since graduating from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning at Columbia University in New York in 1983. She is a founding partner of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and a professor at the Universidad Europea de Madrid. From 1986 to 1991 she was co-director of the architectural journal ARQUITECTURA, published by the Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid. Nieto lectures on architecture and participates in juries and symposia at various institutions around the world. Her lecture “Art, City, Landscape” will present the ideas, projects, and works of Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos as a dialogue between art, city, and landscape.
This lecture is made possible by the Bluford Walter Crain Centennial Endowed Lectureship
FRIDAY, APRIL 22 AT 12:30 PM
"Shaping a Practice"
Salvador Macías Corona and Magui Peredo Arenas, Estudio Macías Peredo, Guadalajara
In-Person & Virtual
Salvador Macías Corona and Magui Peredo Arenas founded Guadalajara-based Estudio Macías Peredo in 2012 with a focus on design and construction, embracing a critical regionalism in which the craftsman is part of the building process. The firm has designed residential, commercial, and institutional projects across Mexico that combine the local and the global to create a timeless architecture that makes the vernacular contemporary while exposing handcrafted materials. Estudio Macías Peredo pursues a way of creating that allows the hand-worker to participate in the building process and looks for strategies where anticipation and planning facilitate improvisation and the experimentation of craft.
This lecture is made possible by the Wolfe and Janet Jessen Centennial Lectureship in Architecture.