Lecture: Jennifer Akerman

Join us for a public lecture by Jennifer Akerman, University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design, on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019.

Akerman’s lecture, titled “Towards an Everyday Critical Practice,” will discuss her research and work in conjunction with teaching architectural design. She will expand on her idea of the everyday critical practice, which encompasses work that addresses cultural issues, uses intentional design methods and embeds a critical agenda wherever possible. Akerman believes that buildings can function more resiliently when connected with their environment and ecologies, minimizing the negative impacts on their climate, watershed and dependent flora and fauna. Working in this way, buildings engage complex social questions and encourage recognition and response from people who use them. In “Towards an Everyday Critical Practice,” Akerman will present a sampling of architecture projects that embody the everyday critical practice, including the recently completed Education Center for Knoxville’s Beardsley Community Farm.

Akerman is an assistant professor and the 2019-2021 James Johnson Dudley Faculty Scholar at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s College of Architecture and Design. She teaches architectural design studio and other courses that explore living architecture, materiality, construction and special topics of professional practice. She is a licensed architect with a professional focus on exploring relationships between culture and materiality.

This lecture is funded by the Robert B. Church Memorial Lecture fund.

Unless otherwise noted, lectures begin at 5:30 p.m. in Rm. 109/McCarty Auditorium in the Art + Architecture Building, 1715 Volunteer Blvd. All are welcome.