SPRING 2010 LECTURES
Wednesday, February 10, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Intro by Hsinming Fung
According to Michel Rojkind Halpert, principal of Mexico City-based Rojkind Architectos, to risk contamination of the mind from the ideas of others is a means to bigger thinking. In this lecture, he speaks to the challenges of building during this time of economic crisis, stressing the strategy necessary to get things accomplished in different environments.
Among projects presented:
Project: R432 TowerAuthor: Rojkind Arquitectos (Michel Rojkind)
Status: Design stage
Completion date: 2012
Location: Reforma, Mexico
Project: Tori Tori RestaurantAuthor: Rojkind Arquitectos (Michel Rojkind) & Esrawe Studio (Hector Estrawe)
Status: Under construction
Completion date: 2010
Location: Polanco, Mexico
Project: Nestle Application GroupAuthor: Rojkind Arquitectos (Michel Rojkind)
Status: Built
Completion date: 2009
Location: Queretaro, Mexico
Michel Rojkind was born in Mexico City where he studied architecture and urban planning at the Universidad Iberoamericana. After working on his own for several years, he teamed up with Isaac Broid and Miquel Adria to establish Adria+Broid+Rojkind (1998-2002).
Rojkind is a member of the SCI-Arc Future Initiatives Network - a global peer-based academic research council dedicated to supporting the Future Initiatives program's academic mission.
With the idea of exploring new challenges that address contemporary society, to design compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality, and to connect at a deeper level with the intricacies of each project, he established an independent firm, Rojkind Arquitectos (2002), recognized by Architectural Record in 2005 as one of the ten best "Design Vanguard" firms. In December, Halpert was listed among "Faces to Watch in 2010" by the Los Angeles Times. He is a regular contributor to many architecture and design publications, and has been short-listed for several large-scale projects in Dubai, China, Kuwait, Canada, Singapore and Spain.
Event co-hosted by the LA Forum and SCI-Arc Student Union
Friday, February 12, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Reception to follow
Meet the Nelsons, the sixth volume of the Forum Pamphlet Series, documents "The Nelsons," Wes Jones's notorious comic strip that appeared in ANY Magazine (Architecture New York) from 1994 to 2001.
At once a critical send-up of 1990s architectural discourse and a masterfully executed homage to the traditions and techniques of comic book art, "The Nelsons" addresses themes ranging from the legacy of the machine aesthetic to the challenges of virtuality to key disciplinary personalities such as Buckminster Fuller and Manfredo Tafuri. Each strip combines insider knowledge and healthy skepticism with a sly wit rarely encountered in serious architectural discourse.
This book brings together every frame of "The Nelsons" in a single volume and features bonus texts by Jones himself, ANY editor Cynthia Davidson, and former LA Forum president Mohamed Sharif.
Faculty Talk: Matthew Melnyk - mySpace
Friday, February 12, 1pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Intro by Tom Wiscombe
Matthew Melnyk is a professional engineer and founding member of the Los Angeles office of Buro Happold Consulting Engineers, an international multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy that opened its doors in Los Angeles in 2006. He has 10 years of professional experience focused largely on stadium and long-span roof design, seismic analysis and design, non-linear form-finding and structural optimization. He holds both a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering (1999) and a Master of Science in Structural Engineering and Mechanics of Materials (2002) from the University of California at Berkeley.
Since moving to Los Angeles, Matthew has worked with a many local architecture and design firms including Eric Owen Moss, Michael Maltzan, Morphosis, Roto Architects, Pugh + Scarpa, Barton Myers, EMERGENT, OylerYu and Ball-Nogues.
Matthew has been a faculty member in the Applied Studies Department at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) since the fall of 2006. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Structures, Materials and Applications and Tectonics. His background in Structural Engineer coupled with a keen interest in Architecture and Design have led him to pursue research that examines collaborative design between architects and engineers, parametric modeling and design optimization strategies, and exploiting material and fabrication sensibilities in design.
As a venue for research and collaboration, he has participated in many of the recent SCI-Arc gallery installations including 'Dragonfly' (2007) with Tom Wiscombe of Emergent, 'Live Wire' (2008) with Dwayne Olyer and Jenny Wu of OylerWu Collaborative, 'Voussoir Cloud' (2008) with Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott of IwamotoScottArchitecture (ISAR), 'A Styrofoam Lover with (E)motions of Concrete' (2009) with Suzanne Zottl, and 'If Not Now, When?' (2009) with Eric Owen Moss.
Wednesday, February 17, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Intro by Eric Owen Moss
Michael Sorkin is Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, New York, and Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at CCNY.
The Michael Sorkin Studio is devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the city and in green architecture.
Previous to his current post at CCNY, Sorkin was the Professor and Director of the Institute for Urbanism at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Sorkin was the architectural critic of the Village Voice and is currently contributing editor for Architectural Record. His forthcoming books are Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, Eutopia, All Over the Map, and Project New Orleans. He is also president of The Institute for Urban Design.
Wednesday, February 24, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Monica Ponce de LeonPrincipal, Office dA, Boston/New York/Ann Arbor
Dean, Taubman College, University of Michigan
Office dA is best known in Los Angeles for its leading green design of the ARCO sustainable gas station at the south east corner of Olympic and Robertson Boulevards.
Ponce de Leon is currently the Dean of Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and was previously Professor and Director of the digital lab at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her firm has received 12 progressive architecture awards, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards, among many others.
Photo credit: Eric Staundenmaier Photography
Wednesday, March 3, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Born on the 23rd of July 1933 between water and wine/Water: inaccessable / mysterious / gravitational
Wine: open / reflective / weightless
Water / locus / mother (Lienz / East-Tyrol)
Wine / anti-locus / father (Girlan / South – Tyrol)
Most significant memory during childhood:
The entire sky covered by a metallic sheet of warplanes
(Later confirmed by Marinetti)
Later: merciless conqueror of the uppermost tree-line /
Even later: rock- obsesses wanderer of vertical space /
First sub- conscious lesson in Architecture:
Cracks / edges / chimeneys / overhangs / battling fear /
Presentiment of love for a tree-less desert landscape /
Dream of an infinite horizon
Everything else could be re-read in official curriculum vitae
ON ARCHITECTUREA drawing for me is a "model" that oscillates between the idea and the physical or built reality of architecture. It is not a step towards this reality and in this respect it is autonomous. However, for me there must be the anticipation of the physical reality and its commemoration of the idea. In this sense, an architectural drawing can never be rendered. On the contrary, it has to be constructed so that it reveals the idea of the syntactic form through the medium of lines. In much the same way it has to anticipate the sensuality of the material through the layering of colour.
More specifically, architecture can only be understood as a polarity between geometric and physiological space or as a collision between the ideal and matter, and while the ideal represents the notion of infinity or, let us say, the eternal, matter can be regarded as the symbolic representation of the body - its presence and its absence. To put it in other words, while man's conceptual powers aspire to the infinite, his body is essentially fragile, temporal, a corpus which will be laid waste, like material itself, by the unremitting action of time. If there remains any hope for recreating the iconic in the modern world, then surely this will only come from reinterpretation of the archetypal existence of man; that is to say, new icons cannot possibly be established on the basis of motifs drawn or transposed from the lost historical epochs. New icons will either come from recognition of our intrisic ontological limits or they will not arise at all.
Friday, March 5, 2010
5pm, in the W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Work in Progress: A Post-midterm Discussion
Eric Owen Moss, Hsinming Fung and Chris Genik with distinguished faculty Michael Rotondi, Jeffrey Kipnis, Hernan Diaz Alonso
Wednesday, March 10, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
IDEA Office (IO) works on design at all scales, ranging from graphic design to installations and industrial design, to architecture and urban planning. The firm (formerly COA, 1986-2009) was launched in 2009 in Los Angeles by architects Eric A. Kahn and Russell N. Thomsen, who are also senior design faculty at SCI-Arc.
Recent works include a permanent installation at Walt Disney Concert Hall and a new building at West Los Angeles College. The work of IO has been published in numerous journals and books, and a monograph of the work of COA was published in 1998 as part of the Contemporary World Architects series. The work is also part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Faculty Talk: Nathan Bishop - Sitings
Friday, March 12, 1pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Nathan Bishop received his Bachelor's in Architecture from Northeastern University and continued his studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his Masters in Architecture. He has taught design studios at Harvard GSD, Rhode Island School of Design, Northeastern University, and most recently, at SCI-Arc.
In parallel with his academic career, Nathan has practiced architecture and urban design on the east and west coasts. After practicing with Boston-based firms such as Machado & Silvetti, Office dA, and Smart Architecture, Nathan started his own firm in 2005 and completed several projects in the Boston area. He moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to work with Koning Eizenberg as an Associate.
He has led design efforts on many competitions, international exhibitions and projects, and several architectural and urban scale projects around the country. Recent notable projects with Koning Eizenberg include a competition and exhibition for the New School for Architecture, Building, and Planning at the University of Melbourne and an exhibition and publication for the Uneternal City Urbanism Beyond Rome at the 2008 Venice Biennale.
Nathan's independent work has been exhibited and published in Image and Meaning at MIT international exhibit and publication, Harvard GSD Studio Works, and RISD Work in Progress among others.
Nathan's work focuses on studying how space relates to social and cultural practices while studying methods of representation in architecture. His work often relies on unconventional methods of representation to view spatial relationships in a way that opens pathways for new architectural and urban possibilities.
Wednesday, March 17, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Using the newest tools and the oldest of techniques, Commonwealth is a furniture, art, and design studio based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Commonwealth was founded in 2005 by Zoe Coombes and David Boira, and their practice is grounded in new technologies as they relate to material experiment.
Their works have been showcased in galleries in Europe, America and the Middle East, and the studio has been commissioned by such clients as Issey Miyake, Warp Records, the Maxalot Gallery, and film director Timothy Saccenti.
Wednesday, March 24, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Michael Kubo traces the influence of architectural publishing as an operative device, through an examination of books produced by architects and critics in the past century. In this history, publishing reveals itself as an alternative form of practice, parallel to and frequently more agile than other forms of production more typically understood as architectural.
Kubo is a writer and editor currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture at MIT. His research focuses on topics such as history of publishing as a strategic form of architectural practice and the Cold War architecture of the RAND Corporation. He is the co-author of The Function of Ornament; other recent editorial projects include Kazys Varnelis's The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles and Sanford Kwinter's Far From Equilibrium.
Faculty Talk: Stephen Slaughter - Conditions of Collaboration: PHAT and Watts
Friday, March 26, 1pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Stephen Slaughter has been living, teaching and working in Los Angeles, California since 1995. After graduating with a Masters in Architecture from Ohio State University, and working in Thom Mayne's studio—Morphosis, Slaughter has worked in close collaboration with a number of highly respected and influential architects including Gary Bates (Space Lab), Wes Jones (Jones, Partners: Architecture) and George Yu (Design Office/George Yu Architects).
PHAT, a four man, multi-disciplinary design collaborative he co-founded with Nathaniel Belcher, pursues exhibition work and has shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem; ArchiLab in Orleans, France; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Slaughter's most recent endeavor as Project Coordinator and Design Architect for the Watts House Project—a collaborative art work in the shape of a neighborhood redevelopment project—pairs him with artist Tanya Aguiniga in the pursuit of renovating a single family residence in the shadows of the Watts Towers.
Wednesday, March 31, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Eric Avila received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of California at Berkeley. Since 1997, he has taught Chicano Studies and History at U.C.L.A. and was promoted to associate professor in 2004. He is the author of Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles, published by the University of California Press in 2004. He recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, in the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, where he began research for a second book project, entitled The Folklore of the Freeway: A Cultural History of Highway Construction.
By the 1920s, Downtown Los Angeles had become the "Great Gatsby of American cities," a magnet for Southern California's political, commercial, and cultural capital. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however, tempered this exuberance. By the 1940s, at the outset of the postwar suburban boom, Downtown L.A. had become the paragon of the Noir city: dark, dangerous, and distant from the periphery of suburban wealth. Avila revisits the predicament of Downtown L.A. during the post-World War II period, emphasizing the role of the culture - high and low - in the effort to recover its lost vitality and how the tension between the center and the periphery exemplifies the postwar urban history in the U.S.
Faculty Talk: John Bohn - So far... so what?
Friday, April 2, 1pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
John Bohn is president of JBohn Associates. His work focuses on exploring traditional, contemporary and emerging building materials, technologies and systems in order to produce meaningful readings of complexity in geometry, structure, surface and space. Bohn worked at Arata Isozaki & Associates in Tokyo on projects such as the Center of Science and Industry, Nara Concert Hall, the Gumna Astronomical Observatory and various international competitions. After working as an apprentice carpenter in Seattle, he opened his own design/build firm in 1998.
Most recently, Bohn has been teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Syracuse University, and the California College of the Arts. In Los Angeles, John worked as a consultant at Daly Genik Architects in Santa Monica on projects such as the Harvard University Art Museum, Santa Monica Parks and the Lawrence House renovation.
www.jbohn.comWednesday, April 7, 7pm
W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
Known for exploring the ways in which architectural mass can produce distinct sensations, davidclovers brings together the practices of David Erdman and Clover Lee. Their work moves between design platforms and scales of operation, between urban design, interiors and product design. In 2009, davidclovers relocated from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, immersing the studio into an actively maturing Southeast Asian design culture.
David Erdman has been a thesis advisor at SCI-Arc and a member of the design faculty at UCLA. In 2010, Erdmann will be a Visiting Professor at Hong Kong University and Rice University. In this lecture, Erdman illustrates how the current projects of davidclovers both redefine and relate to the terms mass production and mass media.
Juan Azulay and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss discuss 