August 27, 2024 Fall Lectures and Exhibits Series Lineup

This fall, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s College of Architecture and Design welcomes an impressive lineup of designers, artists and professionals in our 2024 Lectures and Exhibits Series.

Surface Mining — A Sequel, Anthony Titus, September 9

Surface Mining — A Sequel will focus upon the structure of Anthony’s transdisciplinary practice of art and architecture. He will speak about a selection of exhibitions, projects, and teaching pedagogy that spans the past decade, emphasizing the processes and procedures and the final product of the works.

Anthony is looking to explore and discover new possibilities between the spaces of architecture, sculpture and painting. The conversation and exchange between these disciplines serves as a rich space of opportunity to enhance and expand our current understanding of space, form, color, and structure as participants in a larger cultural landscape.

 

JSa: Practice and Recent Work, Javier Sánchez, HFAIA, September 23

JSa is a Mexican architecture studio founded in 1996 by Javier Sánchez, with urban acupuncture as a vision to conceive comprehensive architectural interventions that contribute towards the continuous rehabilitation of the urban fabric.

Today, partners Aisha Ballesteros and Benedikt Fahlbusch —alongside Sánchez— are the core of the practice. And together lead a team headquartered in Mexico City, and a secondary studio in Lima, Peru led by Irvine Torres.

Stemming from the French tradition of the atelier, the team approaches design as a collective process, immersed in a continuous cycle of research, urban approximation, architectural project and adaptability to the ever-evolving social, urban and environmental challenges. With this conviction as premise, the studio gained early recognition with a series of seminal projects that together prompted the renewal of downtown Mexico City at the turn of the century.

Throughout the past three decades, JSa has realized over 180 projects in Mexico, South America and Europe. Encompassing five cross-complementary axes around: the recovery of heritage and promotion of culture; the conception of unique hospitality and dining experiences; the design of versatile community and workspaces; the integration of sustainable solutions; and the continuous exploration of housing as the foundation of the urban ecosystem.

 

Architecture. Research. Office., Kim Yao, FAIA, September 24

In conjunction with the fall 2024 publication of the monograph Architecture. Research. Office., Principal Kim Yao will present the design of the practice as a project in itself. “Architecture” is the firm’s ultimate objective, which for ARO means creating beautifully crafted work that benefits people; “research” grounds its methodology and informs its approach; and “office” reflects the idea that creating architecture in support of people starts with the community and culture of the firm itself. Key projects completed over the past three decades, representing the firm’s diverse body of work, will be the means to describe the principles that guide ARO’s work, the firm’s methodology and its culture.

Yao’s lecture will be held off-campus in collaboration with AIA East Tennessee at 11:50 a.m.–1 p.m. at the Foundry On the Fair Site.

 

Future Sensitive, Lucy McRae, October 28

In 20 to 40 years’ time, technologies such as CRISPR will transform humanity and redefine many of society’s structures. When humans are born outside of the body in labs, who will shape these reproductive habitats– and for what purpose?

Calling forth these likely futures, we explore new and interdisciplinary avenues for architecture and design through a process of narrative prototyping: provoking impossible questions and exploring ways in which science fiction can spark real-world discourse.

Incubating a mind state that trusts the unknown, Lucy develops methods for pioneering new aesthetics, new stories, and new ways of being together in the world.

 

Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley, November 3–December 4

Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley features speculative design proposals from internationally recognized architects and design research practices, each addressing the theme of regenerative regional futures for the Tennessee Valley. This exhibit presents commissioned projects that respond to the region’s history of large-scale public works initiatives, offering thought-provoking visions that weave together architecture, environment, and society.

The exhibition will be held in the Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture. Regional Globalism in the Tennessee Valley is curated by School of Archiecture’s Assistant Professor Micah Rutenberg.

 

The Urn and the Chamber Pot, Mark Lee, November 18

Mark Lee is a founding partner of Johnston Marklee, based in Los Angeles. Since its establishment in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 50 major awards. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee are diverse in scale and type, spanning fourteen countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent projects include the permanent home for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program (ISP) at Roy Lichtenstein Studio in New York’s Greenwich Village; the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, Texas; the UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, California; and a renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Current projects include the residential towers, Ray Nashville, in Tennessee, and Ray Phoenix, in Arizona; a renovation of the UCLA Reverend James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center in Los Angeles; and the interior architecture and museology within the Kunstmuseum Hauptbau in Basel Switzerland, in collaboration with Christ & Gantenbein.

Support for the College of Architecture and Design’s lecture series is championed by the Robert B. Church III Memorial Lecture Fund.

Unless otherwise noted, lectures are held at 5:30 p.m. in McCarty Auditorium, room 109, in the Art + Architecture Building.