Lecture: Oh, Ambient Demons: Architecture, Antiquity, and the Avant Garde: The Ubiquitous Indigenous Speaker: Marcos Novak, Director, TransLAB, Media Arts and Technology Program, University of California, Santa Barbara November 19, 2016 (Saturday) 18:30-20:00
Professor Marcos Novak is the founding director of the transLAB at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is affiliated with the AlloSphere and CNSI (the California NanoSystems Institute).
He is a researcher, artist, theorist, and transarchitect. In 2000, he represented Greece at the Venice Biennale, where his works have been exhibited several more times since. His projects have also appeared in prominent museums, galleries, and collections in many countries. He serves on the scientific committees and advisory boards of several international journals and conferences.
His projects, theoretical essays, and interviews have been translated into over twenty languages, have appeared in over 70 countries, and have, and have become the topics of conferences and symposia. He lectures, teachers, and exhibits worldwide.
Lecture: This Building Likes Me Speaker: John Wardle November 15, 2016 (Tuesday) 18:30-20:00
John Wardle, one of Australia’s leading architects, explores the ways buildings weave together landscape, history, memory, and materials. John Wardle Architects (JWA) has gained a reputation for creating buildings that connect to their surroundings in subtle yet powerful ways. The work ranges across scales: from small-scale domestic dwellings, to large commercial projects and major university buildings, most recently, Melbourne’s Conservatorium of Music. Collaboration is ingrained in the those of the Melbourne-based office, a spirit that extends to working closely with builders and craftsmen in the realization of their projects. Materiality and intense detail are constant interests, both for their aesthetic and experiential qualities and for the values they embody, as Wardle writes: “The care shown in how materials are employed, tells a story about the value that a community places in its built environment.”
This lecture coincides with the launch of This Building Likes Me – John Wardle Architects, published by Thames Hudson
Princeton University School of Architecture hosted a joint workshop in New York with visitors from the University of Tokyo between October 28 and November 6. The workshop is part of a strategic partnership program between Princeton and UTokyo, and was initiated by Princeton Professor Jesse Reiser and University of Tokyo Associate Professor Yusuke Obuchi. The aim of the workshop is to create opportunities to exchange architectural knowledge between cultures and universities.
The first workshop in this initiative was held in 2016 in Tokyo. Participants had the chance to meet and engage in discussions with master Japanese architects such as Fumihiko Maki, Arata Isozaki, and Hiroshi Hara. The October workshop represented the US-hosted portion of the partnership, and the content focused on Steven Holl, Bernard Tschumi, and Thom Mayne. Five students from the University of Tokyo participated (two PhD, one master, and two undergraduate). Each student received seminal essays written by each focus architect, and then had an opportunity to discuss them in a preparatory seminar before visiting the architects’ offices and conducting interviews. Students also visited buildings in New York and Princeton designed by the architects.
