Tekena's research focuses on how aesthetic devices move between the discursive spaces of arts and architecture. He is the founder of TEKENA KOKO OFFICE, a design practice that works on projects that vary between arts, architecture, and landscape architecture. He has previously taught at USC and runs a transient gallery called HOTEL.
The Materials Lab concluded the ‘Materializing Design’ series for 2021-2022 as students to participated in a two-part workshop. This two-part workshop consisted of a Creative Formwork Demonstration followed by a Casting Party!
In Part One on the workshop, Materials Lab staff led an in-person demonstration covering formwork construction for cast objects at the model scale. Participants were able to using a variety of common materials in creative ways to construct formwork to cast objects in Part Two of the workshop.
This series, held roughly every other Friday during the fall and spring semesters, brings faculty, staff, and students together for an informal and inquisitive discussion about ideas relating to architecture and its history, theory, practice, and future.
This two-day symposium will bring together some of the most prominent Mexican names in adaptive reuse projects presenting and discussing the rescue of cultural heritage in Mexico with a contemporary approach. The goal is to open the discussion and generate new questions from different perspectives. The participants will center their questions around how Mexican built heritage can be revitalized addressing the needs of the twenty-first century without losing its integrity and cultural value.
This series, held roughly every other Friday during the fall and spring semesters, brings faculty, staff, and students together for an informal and inquisitive discussion about ideas relating to architecture and its history, theory, practice, and future.
The Material’s Lab continued the ‘Materializing Design’ series with an in-person demonstration from Michael Phalan at the Build Lab to learn basic model building techniques manipulating foam on a hot wire cutter. Located in the Goldsmith basement, the Build Lab has a variety of model-making and fabrication tools at the disposal of UTSOA students.
