The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Liat Margolis.

NIPpaysage will take you on a guided tour of various projects located along Montreal’s rail system. Symbols of both large and small scale urban revitalization featured projects are linked together through an extensive green and industrial corridor that shape the city experience.

Since its inception in 2001 by 5 Université de Montréal graduates (Mathieu Casavant, France Cormier, Josée Labelle, Michel Langevin, Mélanie Mignault), NIPpaysage is a leader of a new wave of landscape architects. The team counts currently 14 collaborators.
 
The meaning behind the firm’s name refers to the inherent identity of all project sites. NIPpaysage’s design process is defined as a collective approach valued by multiple viewpoints. This openness leads to sound choices and creates meaningful environments. Eager to provide a renewed vision of the profession, NIP’s works combine a powerful conceptual basis, an approach sensitive to functionality and sustainability issues.

Image: Grand Quai du Port de Montréal,  project completed in collaboration with Provencher Roy Architectes in 2018.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Adrian Phiffer.

Eiri Ota with Irene Gardpoit founded the multidisciplinary architecture studio UUfie in 2009.  The practice celebrates experimentation, diversity, and site-specific — often inspired by nature — and aims to create “experiences of transition” in all of its work.

Every project is unique, yet unified by working in a highly participatory and collaborative method, with clients, engineers, fabricators, and specialist consultants all contributing from the beginning of a project to completion.  While continuing to push for innovation and experimentation, the studio addresses the specific features and potential of a particular situation, embracing them into the project while responding to the requirements of the program.

Standout architectural projects include Ports 1961 Shanghai; Printemps Haussmann Verticalité; and Lake Cottage, a two-story family home along the lake that references of being in a tree house.  Notable furniture and object designs include Yin-Yang; Echo; Whiteout; and Peacock, a set of chairs embodying the frozen moment of the plumage of their namesake.

The studio's work is recognised with numerous awards including the American Architecture Prize and OAA Design Excellence Award.  In 2017, UUfie received the esteemed Design Vanguard from Architectural Record which showcased emerging architects from around the world.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.
 
Introduction by Mauricio Quirós Pacheco.

Pat Hanson (Partner BFA MArch OAA AAA FRAIC) is a founding partner of gh3*. Under her leadership, the firm has established a reputation for design integrity across a range of building typologies and through all scales of practice. She is the architect of institutional, infrastructural and residential projects that create meaningful connections between architecture and landscape within the urban realm. Exemplary projects include the internationally-recognized June Callwood Park in Toronto, the Trinity College Quadrangle at the University of Toronto, and the Governor General's Medal-awarded projects Borden Park Pavilion in Edmonton and the Boathouse Studio on Stoney Lake, Ontario.

Hanson is an expert communicator of compelling design visions that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. She is a strong and insightful advocate for the potential for built form to rise above the merely functional, to integrate the pragmatic with the poetic, and to achieve an aesthetic impact that brings pleasure to everyday uses. For over 30 years, she has led clients and interdisciplinary design teams through complex programs, negotiating extensive public consultation processes to achieve internationally-recognized, award-winning projects, whether at the scale of infrastructure or the sheltering of a community programme.

Hanson currently serves on the Toronto Waterfront Design Review Panel, and is a senior advisor for Building Equality in Architecture Toronto (BEAT), which supports diversity and women in the design fields. She has lectured on the work of gh3* in Europe and North America, and has taught at University of Toronto and University of Waterloo. In 2016, Pat was recognized by the international arcVision Prize for Women and Architecture.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Alissa North.

Atlantic Canada’s dramatic landscapes, rich histories, and quaint communities provide both unique opportunities and constraints for the disciplines of landscape architecture, architecture, and planning. Matthew will discuss recent work of Halifax-based firm, Ekistics, to demonstrate projects that use contemporary design to reveal and celebrate the rich histories and unique sites found around the east coast. Three projects will highlight the specificity of the Atlantic Canadian context at different scales: Destination Borden-Carleton Master Plan, Fort Needham Memorial Park, and the new Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Center.

Matthew Brown is a practicing landscape architect and planner in Atlantic Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies – Planning from the University of Waterloo, a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Toronto, and a Master of Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where he graduated with distinction.

As a proud Newfoundlander, his connection to the east coast is exemplified through his research on the capacity of landscape and ecology to act as catalyst in economic diversification and coastal rural regeneration. His research has won awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, as well as a research fellowship from Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Professionally, Matthew spent the first seven years of practice working as an Associate with the award-winning firm of Stimson Associates, before returning to Atlantic Canada to practice as a Senior Landscape Architect with Ekistics in 2017.

Matthew has taught landscape design studios at Northeastern Universities School of Architecture, and has been an invited critic at Harvard University, Northeastern University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Massachusetts, Boston Architectural College, Dalhousie University, University of Toronto, and the University of Waterloo.

Note: This Midday Talk will take place on a Tuesday (most other Midday Talks happen on Wednesdays).

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Introduction by Wei-Han Vivian Lee.

BairBalliet is a joint design venture invested in architectural research in the form of both speculative and built projects. As designers, they reference the current world around them, lean on a long history of precedents, and imagine what lies ahead in the form of drawings, models, objects, films, and physically constructed spaces. This talk will focus on recent work produced in the office, specifically a body of work titled Loud Lines which imagines new three-dimensional possibilities for what is conventionally considered two-dimensional.

Kelly Bair is co-founder of BairBalliet and principal of Central Standard Office of Design. She is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture. Bair is a graduate of University of Colorado at Boulder (Bachelor of Environmental Design) and the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design (Master of Architecture).

Bair is a co-founder of Possible Mediums, a collaborative with Kristy Balliet, Adam Fure and Kyle Miller, fellow Midwestern architects and educators interested in shaking up the context and format in which architecture is taught, produced, and engaged

BairBalliet's work has been exhibited internationally in the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale and in various locations around the United States including New York (Museum of Modern Art as part of the PS1 Young Architects Program 2018)), Los Angeles (The Architecture & Design Museum), Detroit (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), Chicago (The Night Gallery) and Pittsburgh (Miller Gallery/Carnegie Mellon University).

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

In this talk, Gena Wirth will discuss SCAPE’s method for designing and implementing living infrastructure using two case studies: Living Breakwaters and Public Sediment. Planned for the neighborhood of Tottenville, Staten Island, the Living Breakwaters project links in-water infrastructure with on-shore education and outreach, to help increase awareness of risk, enhance ecologies, and bring local school curriculum to the waterfront. Public Sediment is the SCAPE-led team in the Rebuild By Design Bay Area Challenge to develop solutions to subsidence and sea level rise in the region. The proposal aims to design with mud, connecting the uplands and the lowlands into a productive and resilient ecological system.

Gena is the Design Principal at SCAPE. Trained in landscape architecture, urban planning and horticulture, Gena draws from her interdisciplinary training to create ecologically rich and culturally relevant landscapes from the infrastructural scale to the site level. Gena leads the design on several significant projects in the office.
 
Gena was on the original Oyster-tecture team and was the Project Manager for SCAPE’s involvement in SIRR, studying large-scale harbor-wide strategies for coastal protection measures that will be utilized in preparation for the next Superstorm. She was also the Project Manager for SCAPE’s winning Rebuild By Design proposal, Living Breakwaters, a climate change resiliency strategy for the South Shore of Staten Island.
 
Gena holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Master of Urban Planning with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture from the University of Delaware.

Image: SCAPE

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

Jason Siebenmorgen will discuss current landscape architecture projects at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.  A series of case studies will focus on the design and construction of urban public spaces as well as the practical challenges of intensive use, varying horticultural practices and long term maintenance.

Jason Siebenmorgen is Associate Principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA), a landscape architecture firm based in New York City.  At MVVA, Jason leads the planting design and its implementation in projects ranging from courtyard gardens to large scale public parks. One of his focus areas and passions is how planting in public spaces is becoming increasingly rich—informed by both natural and urban ecologies—rendering park spaces both more diverse and more resilient.  At MVVA, Jason’s current projects include Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, New York, A Gathering Place for Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Waterloo Park in Austin, Texas, and continuing work at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York.
 
Jason is the recipient of the 2016 Garden Club of America Rome Prize. As a resident at the American Academy in Rome, he investigated the evolving role of plants in both historic and contemporary Italian gardens, bridging his interest in fine arts, horticulture, and landscape architecture.
 
A graduate of the sculpture department of the Kansas City Art Institute, Jason earned a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Jason lives and works in New York City and the Catskills.

Image: Pier 6 Flower Field, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn NY

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

In this lecture, Jonathan Shaughnessy will examine intersections between the local and the transnational in relation to three exhibitions for which he has been a curator: Art Metropole: The Top 100 (2006-2008), that was on view at the NGC before traveling to venues in Sherbrooke, QC, Halifax, and Toronto; Turbulent Landings: The 2017 NGC Canadian Biennial, at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2017); and the 2017 Canadian Biennial, on view in Ottawa through March 18. From his perspective as a curator working in a national collecting institution, Shaughnessy will consider the emergence of the “Global Contemporary” as an increasingly used – while not entirely unproblematic – category for the contextualization and understanding of the work of art today. 

Jonathan Shaughnessy is Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, at the National Gallery of Canada. His exhibitions include the 2017 Canadian Biennial; Human Scale (2016); 100 Years Today (2014-15); Points of Departure: Vera Frenkel at MOCA, Toronto (formerly MOCCA), Misled by Nature: Contemporary Art and the Baroque (2012-2014) at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, and MOCA; Builders: Canadian Biennial 2012; and Louise Bourgeois: 1911-2010. Shaughnessy has written on the work of many Canadian and international artists including Cai Guo-Qiang, Carsten Höller, Kristan Horton, and Lois Andison, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. He is presently pursuing his PhD at the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Arts and Culture (ICSLAC), Carleton University, where his research interests include Canadian and international contemporary art production and its institutional collection as related to issues of globalization, transnationalism, and diaspora.  

Image: Nick Cave, Soundsuit (detail), 2015. NGC/MBAC, Ottawa. © Nick Cave, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo: NGC/MBAC

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

In this lecture, Thom Moran will trace his career since graduate school. He will talk about how he has worked across loose, multi-disciplinary collaborations as well as more focused design practices. He will detail current work by his practices, Thing Thing and T+E+A+M, as well as the ongoing research project Post Rock. The tone will be "confessional" in that he will share details about exactly how he pulled off each project, even the not so glamorous parts. Throughout the presentation Thom will welcome questions about anything.

Thom Moran is an American architect, designer, and educator. He joined the University of Michigan’s Taubman College as the 2009 – 2010 Muschenheim Fellow and is currently an assistant professor. Thom holds a Master of Architecture from Yale and a BS in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His work has been exhibited at the Center for Architecture, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Hong Kong Shenzen Bi-City Biennial, the St. Etienne Design Biennial, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, California College of the Arts and the Venice Biennale (2012 and 2016). He received the 2015 Architectural League Prize and was one of Architectural Record’s Firms to Watch. Thom is a principal at the architecture practice T+E+A+M and co-founded the Detroit-based design practice Thing Thing.

The Midday Talks lecture series is coordinated by Assistant Professor Wei-Han Vivian Lee and is part of the Exploring Design Practice undergraduate course. These lectures are open to the public and registration is not required.

The Detroit-based architecture and design studio Akoaki, founded by Anya Sirota and Jean Louis Farges, is invested in amplifying architecture’s agency as a mechanism of social and urban transformation. Though historically aligned with a range of utopian and politically engaged practices, the methods Akoaki explores depart from both speculative representational conventions and the instrumentalized benevolence of architecture’s recent “social turn”. Alternately, the practice synthesizes aesthetics, social enterprise, and event planning in what can be described as a set of architectural interventions, pop actions, situational prototypes, and parties. Outwardly playful, each effort tests and critically re-evaluated architecture’s capacity to sponsor activity, to sustain cultural heritage, to advocate for disinvested neighborhoods, and, most fundamentally, to participate in public discourse. The talk will highlight the studio’s recent projects in Detroit, where working beyond traditional models of patronage, Akoaki experimentally re-situates architecture in the realm of planning and equitable urban re-development.

Anya Sirota is an interdisciplinary designer and educator. As principal of the Detroit-based studio Akoaki, Sirota works at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and art. Her projects exploring socio-spatial strategies for urban activation have received recognition in international exhibitions and publications. Prior to earning a master of architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Sirota worked as a documentary filmmaker in New York City. She is currently on faculty at the University of Michigan where she teaches design studios and directs the Taubman College ArcPrep program.