Spring 2023 Public Programming
In addition to the lectures, the school will host several exhibitions and symposia: “Architecture After AI” (January 30–February 24), with a companion symposium on February 3; the exhibition “For Whites: Contextualizing Race and Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin” (March 6–April 14), organized by Assistant Professor Tara A. Dudley, who will give a gallery talk April 5; and the Meadows Symposium “Transgressive Practices to Transformative Policies: Landscape Change Fast & Slow” (February 24), organized by Assistant Professor Maggie Hansen.
All events are free and open to the public and, unless otherwise noted, will take place in person in the Goldsmith Lecture Hall, with recordings available on the Texas Architecture YouTube channel following the live events. Please visit our event calendar for the most up-to-date information.
Wednesday, January 18, 5:00 p.m.
Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu, Oyler Wu Collaborative
Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu established the architecture and design firm Oyler Wu Collaborative in Los Angeles in 2004. The firm is recognized for its experimentation in design, material research, and fabrication, and has won numerous awards. Oyler Wu Collaborative approaches architecture with a critical and rigorous intent that challenges the typical vision of the built environment. The office relies on the constant exchange between large architectural proposals and small architectural installations. Both principals are members of the design faculty at SCI-Arc, and they have previously taught at various other institutions such as Harvard GSD, Pratt Institute, and Columbia GSAPP.
Monday, January 23, 5:00 p.m., Jessen Auditorium (live event only)
“The Long Arc”
Tod Williams, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects
Tod Williams is a Founding Partner of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners. Their practice is known for its humanistic approach to architecture, primarily for institutional clients such as museums, schools, and nonprofits. While the work has grown in scale, the foundational principles of the practice remain intact: “to serve, to make good marks on the earth, to acknowledge the work comes from not just two hands, but many hands, and, fundamentally, architecture is an act of profound optimism.” With over five decades of experience, Williams will share how his earliest experiences, relationships, and explorations continue to influence the work today—with a special focus on the design for the Obama Presidential Center, currently under construction on the South Side of Chicago.
Wednesday, February 8, 12:30 p.m.
“Generalities and Specificities”
Michael Hsu, Michael Hsu Office of Architecture
Michael Hsu Office of Architecture serves a broad audience while specializing in materiality, detail, and design. The studio approaches everyday architecture and high-design projects with a wide range of perspectives. In addition to offering architecture and interiors, the firm integrates branding, art curation, and landscape design services. This lecture will explore the firm’s approach across a range of projects and will touch on the future plans of the studio, including its newly developed R&D team, established to ensure the firm continues to push design forward.
Friday, February 10, 12:30 p.m.
Alex Schweder, Performance Architecture
Alex Schweder works with what he calls “Performance Architecture” through exhibitions that explore the relationships between subjectivity and space. Architecture both gives cues for how we are to behave, and offers itself as a prop for us to form and perform our identities. The term, and ensuing practice, conceptualizes such an understanding of architecture. Schweder’s work along these lines has been exhibited and collected internationally, including at the Museum of Modern art, the Tate Britain, Performa 17, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Monday, February 13, 12:30 p.m.
“Post-Physical Architecture”
Alex Josephson, PARTISANS
PARTISANS is an award-winning Toronto-based architecture studio that specializes in the integration of design and technology, invention and programming, culture, and creative services. Co-founded by Alex Josephson and Pooya Baktash, the studio is a diverse team of architects, researchers, storytellers, entrepreneurs, builders, and cultural enthusiasts devoted to a cause: smart, high-performance design that strives to make the impossible probable. Born in Toronto, Josephson studied architecture at the University of Waterloo and in Rome. In this lecture he will explore technology, design, and post-physical architecture.
Wednesday, March 8, 5:00 p.m.
“Amplified Urbanism”
Lorcan O’Herlihy, Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects
Lorcan O’Herlihy is an internationally renowned architect and urban designer with offices in Los Angeles and Detroit. Enacting a powerful alliance of inventive designs with vigorous social ideals, O’Herlihy’s work prospers whether it is supportive affordable housing in South Los Angeles, working with grassroots neighborhood advocates in Detroit, or designing cultural institutions like Chapman University Dance School. In addition to building more than 100 projects across three continents, Lorcan has been published in more than 20 countries and recognized with 150-plus national and international awards. In his lecture “Amplified Urbanism,” O’Herlihy will present several projects that address the housing crisis.
Monday, March 27, 12:30 p.m.
“Flows, Rushes, Slows”
Ross Altheimer and Maura Rockcastle, TEN x TEN Studio
As the field of landscape architecture evolves to combat the issues of our time—climate change and just futures—how we practice matters. Through design research, experimental methods of design process and ideation, and provocative questioning, TEN x TEN challenges the normative environment of professional practice through process-oriented ways of working, engaging, and seeing landscape. Our agency as landscape architects to address the issues of our time is grounded in part by our ability to challenge the critical foundations of the design process itself and to practice modes of discovery as a generative act.
Wednesday, March 29, 5:00 p.m., Jessen Auditorium (live event only)
Jorge Pardo, Jorge Pardo
Jorge Pardo’s work explores the intersection of contemporary painting, design, sculpture, and architecture. Employing a broad palette of vibrant colors, eclectic patterns, and natural and industrial materials, his works range from murals to home furnishings to collages to larger-than-life fabrications. He often transforms familiar objects into artworks with multiple meanings and purposes. Working on small and monumental scales, Pardo also treats entire public spaces as vast canvases. He engages viewers with works that produce great visual delight while questioning distinctions between fine art and design.
Monday, April 3, 12:30 p.m.
“Sing, Goddess”
Karel Klein
Sing, Goddess: These two words begin The Iliad—that ancient, epic poem famously attributed to the Greek poet Homer—evoking the assistance of the Muses to aid in the creation of Homer’s art. This invocation points to the idea that humans require something unknown from the outside for inspiration. In this lecture, Klein will explore how AI imaging technologies influence and augment human perception and imagination, drawing on older models of creativity to position AI as an external agent of creativity—a mechanized Muse perhaps. Klein is an architect and educator who since 2016 has worked with various AI technologies. With these tools, she is interested in the re-enchantment of the architectural body.