Mira Henry + Matthew Au: Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests

Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests
Publisher: Princeton SoA; 1st edition (2023)

Gathering: Ongoing Work by Current Interests is an unfolding portrait of the Los Angeles-based architecture and design practice Current Interests, led by Matthew Au and Mira Henry. Organized around a collection of buildings and material systems developed by Current Interests over the past five years, the book brings together images, drawings, and descriptive reflections to invoke a richly layered set of conversations that ground the duo’s collaborative process. With gathering as a framework, Current Interests argue for a design practice defined by ongoing acts of material construction that contend with the lived conditions of the built environment. Curtains, tables, facades, and urban blocks share space and are equally handled with technical specificity and poetic care. At the book’s center is an immersive visual essay and text by Au and Henry on the practice of collecting and photographing the microhistories of LA’s unknown architectures. Accompanying contributions include an introduction by Mónica Ponce de León, along with timely essays by Sylvia Lavin and Victor J. Jones.

Current Interests is a Los Angeles-based architectural design studio founded by Matthew Au and Mira Henry. As a creative collaboration, Current Interests’s built work is grounded in notions of material specificity, color relationships, assembly details, and an engagement in critical cultural thinking. Matthew and Mira are design faculty at SCI-Arc and have visiting faculty appointments at Princeton University and Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Au’s academic work is deeply influenced by the history of conceptual art practice as he examines the spaces and tools of production, and the lines of communication that connect the worlds of design and building. He holds a Bachelor of Art and Art History from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Henry’s formal research and writing focus on architecture, race, and materiality. She is the recipient of the 2019 Architectural League Prize, Henry Adams AIA Award, and Archiprix International Gold Medal. Henry holds a Bachelor of Art History from the University of Chicago and a Master of Architecture from University of California, Los Angeles.