Past Speakers

Spring 2020

LAWRENCE SCARPA, BROOKS + SCARPA ARCHITECTS, LOS ANGELES

A sense of Place: Why do we remember buildings, locations and experiences? Even a place visited in our childhood can conjure emotions that make an impact on us through the memories they create. Lawrence Scarpa will explain the creative process that aspires to make a lasting impression out of even a brief encounter.

Lawrence Scarpa has garnered international acclaim for the creative use of conventional materials in unique and unexpected ways. He is also considered a pioneer and leader in the field of sustainable design. He is the recipient of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Award in Architecture and was also awarded the State of California and National The American Institute of Architects Architecture Firm Award. Over the last ten years, Mr. Scarpa’s firm has received more than one hundred major design awards, including 22 National AIA Awards, Record Houses, Record Interiors, the Rudy Bruner Prize, five AIA Committee on the Environment “Top Ten Green Building” Awards and the World Habitat Award, one of ten firms selected worldwide. He has also received the lifetime achievement awards from Interior Design Magazine and the AIA California Council.

PAUL O ROBINSON, UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA, FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, SLOVENIA

Site Castings concerns two aspects of the 2018/19 body of work and forthcoming installations executed in Venice, Italy. The lecture first considers the constructs of surface and its relation to content: the causal arbiter of surface, and the artifice of perception. Herewith is posited the idea that place is contemporaneously understood as surface, where temporal artifacts are reimagined by the continual appropriation of its image. These modes of interpretation are critiqued first through language—specifically poetry—and the presence and transformation of evidentiary—forensically excavated—artifacts that induce inventive paths to three-dimensional narrative environments.

DAVID FIERABEND, GROUNDSWELL DESIGN GROUP INC, 
ROBERT MCCARTER, RUTH + NORMAN MOORE PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS

Robert McCarter is a practicing architect, author, and Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis since 2007. He has previously taught at the University of Florida from 1991-2007, where he was founding Director of the School of Architecture; at Columbia University from 1986-1991; and at three other institutions. During his 34 years in academia, including 17 years in leadership roles at three institutions, McCarter has taught at least one design studio every semester, and he has taught more than 1,800 students. He has had his own architectural practice since 1982, in New York, Florida and St. Louis, with 25 realized buildings.

He is the author of twenty-two published books to date, including Place Matters: The Architecture of WG Clark (2019); Grafton Architects (2018); The Work of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects: Economy as Ethic (2017); The Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture (2016); Marcel Breuer (2016); Steven Holl (2015); Aldo van Eyck (2015); Herman Hertzberger (2015); Local Architecture (with Brian MacKay-Lyons, 2015); Alvar Aalto (2014); Carlo Scarpa (2013); Understanding Architecture: A Primer on Architecture as Experience (with Juhani Pallasmaa, 2012); Wiel Arets: Autobiographical References (2012); Frank Lloyd Wright: Critical Lives (2006); Louis I. Kahn (2005); On and By Frank Lloyd Wright: A Primer on Architectural Principles (2005); William Morgan, Architect (2002); and Frank Lloyd Wright (1997).

Among other awards and honors, the curators of the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture selected McCarter as one of 71 International Exhibitors, and his exhibit in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini was entitled “Freespace in Place: Four Unrealized Modern Architectural Designs for Venice; Carlo Scarpa’s Quattro progetti per Venezia Revisited;” and he was named one of the “Ten Best Architecture Teachers in the US” by Architect magazine in December 2009.

SHEILA KENNEDY, KVA KENNEDY + VIOLICH ARCHITECTURE, MASSACHUSETTS 

Fall 2019

Masashi Sogabe, Milangumi Arch, Yokohama

Masashi Sogabe was born in Fukuoka in 1962. After graduating from the Graduate School of Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1988, he worked for Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects until 1994. He served as Assistant Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1994 -1995, as Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Arts from 2001 - 2006, and has been a Professor at Kanagawa University since 2006.

He designed a wide variety of architecture such as Toyota Group Pavilion at the Aichi Expo ( temporary building ) that received a Good Design Award in 2006, and “mAAch ecute Kanda Manseibashi”a multi-use shopping complex located in a former train station ( renovation ) that won an AIJ prize in 2015.

He has been doing several architectural projects with students of KU, like as the area revitalization project at Minamicho in Tokushima, and the new Winery building project in Omishima island that is currently under construction and planned to be completed by the harvest season of this year.

His particular interest is effective use of existing resources including vacant houses, waste materials, surrounding environment, local histories and so on.

 

Olaf Drehsen, JSWD Architects, Koln

The Cologne-based firm JSWD Architekten founded in year 2000. The four partners Olaf Drehsen,
Jürgen Steffens and the brothers Konstantin and Frederik Jaspert are leading an office with more
than 150 employed architects from about 30 nations. The partners started on their architectural
careers as RWTH students in Aachen. Günter Behnisch, Schuster Architects as well as Volkwin Marg (gmp) influenced their further professional development, followed by teaching posts and the establishment of the firm. In the last several years, JSWD has realized many projects in Germany and increasingly in other European countries, for the most part following successfully entered competitions.

JSWD finds further architectural, technical and intellectual inspiration in cooperative ventures with other architectural firms in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, USA and China while maintaining a collaborative exchange in the realization of joint construction projects.

JSWD's architecture is characterized by a dense synthesis of shapes, functionality and select materials. These three elements are inseparable and assume an equal, playful bond with all other requirements of the construction task. The resulting buildings reveal the continuous pursuit of conceptual formal clarity. Working with a limited range of clearly defined elements, the firm creates unambiguous hierarchies inside its buildings and in open spaces. The identity of each design evolves from the specific situation and the aspiration to reflect the user’s own image in corporate architecture.

 

Claire Weisz, WXY Architecture & Urban Design, NYC

Claire Weisz FAIA is a founding partner of WXY, whose work as an architect and urbanist focuses on innovative approaches to public space, structures, and cities. The firm, globally recognized for its place-based approach to architecture, urban design, and planning, has played a vital role in design thinking around resiliency. Among their award-winning projects are SeaGlass Carousel, the new Rockaway Boardwalk, the Spring Street Garage and Salt Shed. WXY was named AIA-NYS Firm of the Year in 2016 and 2019’s Fast Company’s: World’s Most Innovative Architecture Firms. Claire was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2017, and was recently awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018. She co-founded The Design Trust for Public Space with Andrea Woodner and has taught and lectured widely, including Yale University, MIT and in 2017 was Portman Critic at Atlanta’s Georgia Institute of Technology. She sits on many advisory groups and boards including the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Overseas Operations (OBO) Industry Advisory Group and Women.NYC and has served on design juries, both nationally and internationally, including the 2018 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, Azure Design Awards; the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC Housing Design Competition and the P/A Awards in 2019. Claire holds a BArch with Honors from the University of Toronto, and an M.Arch from Yale University.

 

David Leven and Stella Betts, Levenbetts, NYC

David Leven is a principal at LEVENBETTS. David received a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate
University and a Master of Architecture from Yale University. He also studied at the Institute for
Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. Currently David is a full-time Professor at Parsons
the New School for Design. From 2008 – 2011, David was the Director of the Graduate
Architecture Program at Parsons. David was recently elevated to the College of Fellows of the
American Institute of Architects.

LEVENBETTS is an award winning New York City-based architecture practice that challenges
expectations of site, program and type. The practice integrates civic and institutional spaces
of learning, the public realm as well as single-family houses into precisely detailed yet
informal buildings that actualize the modern project of openness, light and abstraction.
LEVENBETTS has received both national and international recognition including ten AIA New
York Chapter Awards, two AIA NY State Awards, two Chicago Athenaeum Awards, seven
Society of Registered Architects Awards, Emerging Voices 2009 and Architectural Record Design
Vanguard 2003. A monograph of the first ten years of the practice was published in 2009 by
Princeton Architectural Press. LEVENBETTS is currently working on a book of their houses.

 

Liam Young, Architect & Film Director, Sci-Arch (los angeles) & architectural association, london

Liam Young is a speculative architect and director who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. He is cofounder of Tomorrows Thoughts Today, an urban futures think tank, exploring the local and global implications of new technologies and Unknown Fields, a nomadic research studio that travels on expeditions to chronicle these emerging conditions as they occur on the ground. His worldbuilding for the film and television industries has been acclaimed in both mainstream and architectural media, including the BBC, NBC, Wired, Guardian, Time Magazine and New Scientist, he is a BAFTA nominated producer and his work has been collected by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum and MAAS in Sydney. He has published several books including the recent Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post Anthropocene and has taught internationally at the Architectural Association, Princeton University and now runs the ground breaking Masters in Fiction and Entertainment at Sci Arc in Los Angles. Liam's narrative approach sits between documentary and fiction as he focuses on projects that aim to reveal the invisible connections and systems that make the modern world work. Liam now manages his time between exploring distant landscapes and visualising the future worlds he extrapolates from them.

 

Spring 2019

Steffen Nijhuis, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands | Landscape Interfaces

Regional Design at the Intersection of Landscape, City and Water

Societal and environmental issues require that we rethink the planning and design of landscape, cities, and infrastructure. This lecture puts forward an integrative and multiscale design approach for flood control, urban development and eoclogy. Cases from the Netherlands exemplify how urban planners, landscape architects, engineers, and ecologists collaborate for social-ecological inclusive urban futures and water safety.

Jan Wampler, MIT/USF | Architecture for All

Jan Wampler is Professor of Architecture, Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he has taught architecture and urban design since 1970. He directed MIT's Undergraduate Design Program, redesigning the curriculum to position MIT at the forefront of four-year architecture programs. He received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has been a Visiting Professor at University of California/Berkeley, California State University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of South Florida, University of Sydney, Tsinghua University and other architecture schools in China and the U.S.

Jan Wampler is the Principal of a practice that designs projects in the US and internationally. Recent work includes Hope for Haiti; a design for a self-sustainable village, design of two new cities in China, urban design in Tangshan, China and buildings in Chinese cities including a Museum of Ancient Asian Art and a Community Center. His articles and buildings have appeared in Progressive Architecture. La Puntilla, Boston Architecture, A&U, "Thinking the City" Exhibition and Space and Society. He is the author of All Their Own, People and the Places They Build and Notes for Young Architects-Search on the Journey.

Andy Byrnes, The Construction Zone, Phoenix, AZ | Process + Practice

Andy Byrnes, the founder of the firm The Construction Zone in Phoenix, AZ, gives a lecture about his architectural work. Known especially for innovative concrete and rammed earth fabrication, The Construction Zone aspires to make buildings that are good for the planet.

Chana Sumpalung, Architects 49, Bangkok | Time Space Order of Individual

Chana Sumpalung is a lead designer at Architects 49 in Bangkok, one of the most widely recognized architecture firms in Southeast Asia. Within the firm, Sumpalung specializes in residential design. His modern well-crafted designs take advantage of the tropical setting of Thailand and are grounded in the material and cultural history of the region. He completed his graduate studies in the US and worked at the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco before returning to Architects 49 in 2001.

AJ Pires, Alloy Development, NYC | Better Development

Pires is a founding member of Alloy Development, a real estate development company based in Brooklyn, NY. At Alloy, AJ manages the acquisition, capitalization, design, construction and disposition of projects that seek to promote thoughtful design and add value to the built environment of New York City.

AJ Pires received a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College and a Masters of Architecture and Certificate in Real Estate from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught and lectured in the fields of real estate development and design at Syracuse University, Columbia University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Parsons and Pratt.

Anne Marie Duvall Decker, Duvall Decker, Mississsippi | Public Work - Architecture as Instrument

The work of Duvall Decker Architects explores a hopeful proposition in the work of an expanded practice that includes architectural design, community planning, real estate development, and building care. Anne Decker, as the design principal, sees this group of endeavors as an integration of creative work to make and maintain meaningful public environments. Anne Decker was inducted as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2017, New York’s Architectural League recognized Duvall Decker as one of seven Emerging Voices among firms across the US.

Johanna Hurme, 5468796 Architecture, Winnipeg | Better Development

Johanna Hurme is an architect and founding partner of Winnipeg-based 5468796 Architecture. In the past 11 years, the firm has achieved national and international recognition, including three Governor General’s Medals in Architecture from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. The Houston-based Rice Design Alliance recently stated that they "truly believe 5468796 to be one of the most talented young design firms worldwide."

Johanna Hurme has taught design at the University of Manitoba’s FAUM, the University Toronto Daniels Faculty of Architecture, the University of Montreal, and lectures at universities across North America. In 2017, she was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada and was shortlisted for the International Moira Gemmill prize for Emerging Architecture. Johanna has most recently been appointed Visiting Professor-Morgenstern Chair at the Faculty of Architecture, Chicago IIT.

Fall 2018

Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects, los angeles

The principal architect of LA firm Morphosis, Thom Mayne, was the recipient of the 2005 Pritzker Prize and the 2013 AIA Gold Medal. He is known for his experimental architectural forms, often applying them to significant institutional buildings such as the New York's Cooper Union building, the Emerson College in Los Angeles and the Bill and Melinda Gates Hall at Cornell University.

Carrie Strickland of Works Progress Architecture, Portland

Works Progress Architecture is an innovative architectural design studio with offices in Portland and Los Angeles. Formed in 2005, W.PA has established a design approach rooted in clear conceptual responses to each projects site, program, and environmental requirements. W.PA's approach integrates extensive experience across a wide spectrum of project types, producing evocative and conceptually clear designs, threading a line between specificity and self-evident expression.

They have embraced a methodology that operates within the dimension of traditional architecture and a shared human experience. The simplest of gestures can describe the most ambitious of structures. W.PA continues the search for an expression based on a common denominator, a collective sensory empathy. They believe that there is a meaningful truth held within collective understanding.

W.PA advocates for simplicity in the face of ever evolving complexity, for quiet amid the cacophony of the newest. When a simple but comprehensive analogous construct evolves from an architectural program and is portrayed candidly, it can convey a deeper cultural and universally humanistic meaning.

Fran Leadon, AIA

USF SACD presents a lecture by Fran Leadon, an architect, and co-author of the fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City. A native of Gainesville, Florida, he teaches at the City College of New York.

Alan Maskin of Olson Kundig, Seattle

Olson Kundig is a full-service design firm whose work includes residences (often for art collectors), museums and exhibition design, hospitality projects, commercial design, academic buildings, interior design, landscape design, and places of worship.

The firm is led by five owners—Jim Olson, Tom Kundig, Kirsten R. Murray, Alan Maskin, and Kevin Kudo-King—who are supported by 11 principals, 15 associates and a staff of approximately 140 in the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood of downtown Seattle. The firm opened a workspace in New York in 2014 to better serve its expanding roster of East Coast and international clients. The in-house interiors studio, founded in 2000, provides a full range of services, including material selection, custom furniture design, and purchasing capabilities. The landscape design studio provides in-house design services dedicated to artfully integrating nature and the built environment.

The firm began its creative existence in 1966 with the architect Jim Olson, whose work at that time centered on explorations of the relationship between dwellings and the landscapes they inhabit. Olson started the firm based on the essential ideas that buildings can serve as a bridge between nature, culture, histories, and people, and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people's lives.

Joe Minicozzi of Urban3, Asheville

Joseph Minicozzi, AICP is the principal of Urban3, LLC, a consulting company of downtown Asheville real estate developer Public Interest Projects. Prior to creating Urban3, he served as the Executive Director for the Asheville Downtown Association.

Before moving to Asheville, he was the primary administrator of the Form Based Code for downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Joe's cross-training in city planning in the public and private sectors, as well as private sector real estate finance, has allowed him to develop award-winning analytic tools that have garnered national attention in Planetizen, The Wall Street Journal, Planning, New Urban News, Realtor, Atlantic Cities and the Center for Clean Air Policy's Growing Wealthier report. Joe is a sought-after lecturer on city planning issues. His work has been featured at the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Planning Association, the International Association of Assessing Officers, and New Partners for SmartGrowth conferences as a paradigm shift for thinking about development patterns.

Joe is a founding member of the Asheville Design Center, a non-profit community design center dedicated to creating livable communities across all of Western North Carolina. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from University of Miami and Masters in Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University.

Urban3 analyzes the relationship between building design and tax production across the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Our method simplifies complex information to include everyone in real conversations about community growth.

Spring 2018

Ryan Swanson of the Urban Conga

Ryan Swanson, founder and executive director of The Urban Conga, presents a lecture titled "Playable Cities." In his lecture he will talk about the work produced by his award-winning design firm, which promotes community activity and social interaction through play. The firm achieves this by creating interactive public interventions and immersive environments that spark creativity, exploration and free-choice learning. During Ryan's thesis at the USF School of Architecture & Community Design, he conceived the concept of The Urban Conga with two other colleagues, and soon after graduating he quit his job to pursue the concept as a company. Now the firm's award-winning work has been featured in The Atlantic, PBS, Fast Company, Geek wire and more. The firm has won the International Architizer A+Award the last two years in a row for their unique playable outdoor public furniture pieces.

Ryan is currently working with group of International Creative Producers doing labs in both Bristol, UK and Tokyo, Japan to produce work around the world that will help promote more playable cities. He was also selected as a finalist for the Young Guns Award, an award held in New York celebrating innovative creatives around the world under the age of 30.

Adam Frampton and Karolina Czeczek of Only If Architects, nyc

The USF SACD Spring 2018 lecture series presents Adam Frampton and Karolina Czeczek of Only If, a New York City-based design practice for architecture and urbanism founded in 2013. Only If is engaged in a range of design work from interiors to housing, to larger-scale urban design, research, and speculation. Only If is currently designing two residential projects set for completion in 2019; a narrow single-family house and an 84-unit affordable senior housing project, both located in Brooklyn, New York. Approaching any project, Only If seeks to focus on the fundamental questions and potentials. The ambition of this process is to create clarity and distill simplicity within often-complex circumstances and constraints. Rather than imposing additional regimes of complexity, we believe the role of the designer is to envision simple gestures and forms that impose structure, coherence, and identity.

In 2016, Only If was named part of PIN-UP Magazine's New Power Generation and was awarded the Interior Emerging Practice of the Year by the World Interior News. Only If's projects have been featured in the New Yorker, Architectural Digest, Frame, Azure, and the Architect's Newspaper. Only If's work is currently exhibited at the 2017 Chicago Biennial and will be featured at upcoming 2017 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (UABB) in Shenzhen.

Adam Snow Frampton

Adam Snow Frampton, AIA is the Principal of Only If, a New York City-based design practice for architecture and urbanism. Adam Frampton is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University GSAPP and co-author of Cities without Ground (2012). He previously worked for seven years as an Associate at OMA in Rotterdam and Hong Kong. He holds an M.Arch from Princeton University and is a registered architect in the Netherlands and the United States.

Karolina Czeczek

Karolina Czeczek is an architect who has been instrumental in the design of Only If's key projects. She previously worked at OMA in Rotterdam and Hong Kong from 2010 through 2013. She holds an M.Arch from Yale University and the Cracow University of Technology and is a registered architect in the Netherlands. She is a Fulbright Scholar and recipient of 2015 Yale's Winchester Travel Fellowship with research travel through South America.

Jake Brillhart of brillhart architecture, miami, FL

The USF SACD Spring 2018 lecture series presents Jacob Brillhart of Brillhart Architecture, a design office based in Miami, FL. Work ranges from residential and commercial projects to design-build endeavors, exhibitions, interiors, furniture and other speculative research projects. Interpretations of vernacular building principles and emphasis on composition and construction logic are the common themes that link the firm's projects together. Often, the structure is the architecture, and sense of atmosphere is derived through the use of materials and a deep connection to the landscape.

The firm has been honored with national and international design awards, and work has been featured in publications around the world. Honors include 2015 House of Year (Architect's Newspaper); local and state AIA awards and international competition winnings. In 2015, the firm was selected as one of five finalists for MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program. Work has been featured in The New York Times, Wallpaper, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, Dwell, The Wall Street Journal, Architect and Architectural Review, among other publications. Brillhart's furniture designs and watercolor paintings have also been exhibited throughout Miami.

Mark Sanderson of DIGSAU, Philadelphia

The USF SACD Spring 2018 lecture series presents Mark Sanderson, Principal and Founding Partner of DIGSAU, a Philadelphia-based studio practicing contemporary architecture, urbanism, and environmental design. Sanderson will present a lecture titled "Building Walls: Meaning and Mass."

With a commitment to their core values of design excellence, experimentation, and attentiveness to the material culture, DIGSAU's work builds enthusiasm in others for the hard work of design required to create meaningful places that empower and inspire people to be more creative, productive, and fulfilled. Founded in 2007, the office operates as an open studio, with a staff of twenty individuals from diverse backgrounds. Since its inception, the firm has been recognized with over thirty AIA design awards and in 2013 was named one of North America's "Emerging Voices" by the Architectural League of New York. The Pennsylvania chapter of The American Institute of Architects recently honored DIGSAU as the fifth recipient of the Firm Award. This award is granted annually to a selected firm whose efforts have consistently produced distinguished architecture for a period of at least 10 years.

In a built environment where authenticity is increasingly scarce, DIGSAU's work focuses on architecture's capacity to communicate via its materials and explores innovative ways that the craft of building can connect people to the experience of place, history, and time. As a designer, Mark Sanderson combines an ability to capture conceptual clarity with an acute attention to detail. His thoughtful use of materials and consistent pursuit of innovative construction techniques create a direct link between the design process and built form. Sanderson is a Registered Architect and is a LEED-Accredited Professional. Sanderson has taught design studios and served as a guest critic and lecturer at numerous design schools.

David Dowell of el doraco, inc., kansas city, mo

USF SACD presents a lecture by David Dowell, a principal architect at el dorado, inc., in Kansas City, MO.

David Dowell, AIA, is a partner at el dorado and founder of the Design+Make Studio at Kansas State University. Both are enormously optimistic, interwoven endeavors, focused on architecture as a tool to cultivate dignified common ground. David and his partners at el dorado believe that good design is possible anywhere, for anyone, and that well-crafted buildings still matter. David's work spans a broad range of typologies – from bridges to houses, academic facilities to streetscapes, cultural buildings to master plans. With students, he recently completed an affordable housing duplex, and an environmental education facility in the Kansas Flint Hills, the most endangered ecosystem in North America. All of his work involves some degree of hands-on self-performance in implementation, ranging from fabrication of select details to wholesale oversight of design and construction.

Peter Wilson of Bolles + Wilson

Australian-born architect Peter Wilson, of Bolles + Wilson Architects, presents a lecture at the University of South Florida's School of Architecture & Community Design. Bolles+Wilson is an architecture firm established by Julia Bolles and Peter Wilson, both Architectural Association (AA) graduates. Established in London, the firm moved to Münster, Germany after winning the design competition for the Münster City Library. Other major works include the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam (2001) and the Helmond City Library (2010). To learn more visit http://bolles-wilson.com/.