Graduate Student Lecture Series
Graduate Student Lectures
David Thomas: 4.27.17
This talk aims to explore the imperatives of and directives for the construction of architectural ecosystems attentive, sensitive, and responsive to the deep-rooted psychological, social, cultural, and environmental needs, requirements, and conventions of people who have faced the ultimate of existential threats and of the locales that, despite their overwhelming ruin, hold the promise of healing and recovery.
Chaim Emanuel: 4.26.17
As Miss Chanadler Bong can attest, the "boy vs. girl*" fight from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. is one of the most memorable and eminently quotable story arcs of the '90s sitcom. Using this enduringly popular back and forth narrative, we explore spatial power dynamics in contemporary domestic American homes, and what evolving home trends can tell us about evolving dynamics and relationships within American families.
*note "boy" and "girl" are terms the characters use to refer to themselves
Graduate Student Lecture: Sarah Muzammil Aziz: 4.20.17
Even as national borders are becoming increasingly formalized, in contrast, cities are becoming franchised: globally-uniform spatial products comprised of the same interchangeable kit of parts. This homogenization often exacerbates the bureaucracy surrounding building procedures, resulting in the erasure of layers of culture and identity. How can we render visible again the ways that humans leave traces and transform their environments and contexts?
Graduate Student Lecture: Emma Jane Camilleri: 4.13.17
Current social conditions and political uncertainty call for a new type of “memorial” in which experiential emersion becomes essential and integrates itself into the community of the passerby. By utilizing the existing building stock of historically collective spaces, churches, to host new forms of collective gatherings, these new “memorials” provide communities the opportunity to remember the past, vocalize concerns of the present, and utilize discussion to move to a different future.
Graduate Student Lecture: Ronel Constantin: 4.12.17
Can we uncover a narrative of the public sphere by investigating its corners as points of convergence? Should we as architects propose the basic physical and organizational structures that can be leveraged for new spatial conditions and new possibilities with ambient planning? Analysis of a series of corners reveals their political qualities and presents how local regulations shape the architecture and the city as a whole. A complete comparative analysis of the perceived curated corners versus un-curated corners of Chicago opens new opportunities.
Graduate Student Lecture: Maya Jay Varadaraj: 3.30.17
The lecture is about how objects define human behaviour focusing on Maya's current project Khandayati. Khandayati, meaning “to break” in Sanskrit, is a visual statement that responds to the violence towards women in India. The project brings to light the tradition of wearing glass bangles as a gesture and an object that condones and normalizes the oppression of women.
Graduate Student Lecture: Joyce Safe Lee: 3.16.17
Within an emerging artificial practice, articulated by collaboration, material research, and design observations, Joyce is a textile artist and multi-dimensional designer with a current interest in adapting herself in positions of engaging socially and synthesizing all forms of knowledge. By utilizing bio-materials, collaboration, data, textile technologies, environmental details, and personal understanding, she travels through complex dimensions and devises several possibilities spatially within materials.
Graduate Student Lecture: Eugenia Macchia and Veronica Perez: 4.28.16
Metropolitan cities flourish with cultural diversity due to expanding arrival of migrant populations. How can a city decrease social polarization and create the conditions for a dynamic community? Bogota is a city currently dealing with new fluxes of low-income students accessing university studies. It offers great opportunities to research such cultural collisions. After deep study to understand behaviors and needs of this newly arrived young generation from their natural habitat to the city, this work proposes strategies for urban infill aimed to informally welcome the new students and to mitigate cultural contrasts of the local resident population with socially inclusive mixes.
Graduate Student Lecture: Norman Teague: 4.11.16
Norman Teague is a Chicago based designer and educator who focuses on projects and pedagogy that address the complexity of urbanism. He specializes in product design, custom furniture, objects, spaces and public art that delivers a personal touch and unique aesthetic details. Teague’s past projects have included fashion, performances, community exchange programs and specially designed retail spaces. Teague works in a afrique modern aesthetic to deliver objects, shared moments and spaces that explore simplicity, honesty and cleverness to relate to the culture of the client and/or community. Teague plans to launch his design studio on the Southside of Chicago with hopes to further build and expose to patrons to art & design fields. In this lecture, Teague will discuss his design practice, pedagogy, and thoughts around how design can and has addressed immediate problems here and around the world.
Graduate Student Lecture: Sergey Dunaev: 4.6.16
Chicago is subject to the future stresses associated with energy scarcity, climate change, and other environmental shocks. This lecture highlights the first results of designing a methodology for creating a resilient supertall building typology. Resilient design is priority factor because, although we are still at the level of choice, we are quickly moving to the point where it is not about choice but survival.
