Architect William E. Massie to Present 'Surface' Lecture Feb. 13

Image courtesy William Massie

Big Belt House in Montana.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – William E. Massie will present a lecture at 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design lecture series.

Massie is the 2017 John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Fay Jones School. An accomplished architect and designer, he is the Architect-in-Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

In his lecture, titled "Surface," Massie will chronicle the notion of "surface" through historical examples as well as those found in his work. He will discuss working in design and construction through digital fabrication, the relationship of design-build and how it reinforces design in general, and the professional challenges of design and construction.

Massie received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Architectural Studies from Parsons School of Design and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. Upon graduation, he worked for Robertson and McAnulty Architects and James Stewart Polshek and Partners. He started his own company in 1993 while also accepting a teaching position in the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University, where we was appointed as the Coordinator for Building Technologies Research.

Massie is best known for his work in digital design and fabrication, and his buildings feature innovative yet sustainable design. His Big Belt House in Montana and his House for a Photographer won a Progressive Architecture Award from Architecture magazine in 2000 and 2002, respectively. Preceding that, he won back-to-back Progressive Architecture Research awards for "Augmented Reality in Architectural Construction" and "Virtual Model to Actual Construct: A Direct Link to Computer-Generated Formwork."

In 2003, a scale model of Big Belt House was added to the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Massie was also the winner of that museum's Young Architects Program competition in 2002 for his project Playa Urbana/Urban Beach. In the same year, his work was shown in the Shanghai Biennale, where he also digitally fabricated a temporary entrance to the museum. His work has also been exhibited at several universities and cultural institutions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Massie received the 2011 Arts and Letters Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, one of the country's highest recognitions of artistic merit. At the time, James Polshek, a member of the selection committee, commended Massie as a "free-spirited constructivist inventor who has expanded the architectural canvas."

After serving as associate professor of architecture at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, Massie became the Architect-In-Residence and Head of the Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2005. He also previously held teaching positions at Lawrence Technological University, Parsons School of Design, Montana State University and Columbia University.

During his career, Massie has lectured and served as visiting critic at countless universities and schools of architecture in North America and has served as a juror on many AIA annual awards. He has mentored dozens of graduates who have gone on to shape the field of architecture and design. In 2008, he also debuted the American House 08, the first in a series of 10 prefabricated houses, designed and constructed entirely in Massie's studio using his skills in computer-based fabrication technology for production. The home was installed on Cranbrook's campus over the summer of 2008 and featured in Dwell magazine.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The public is invited to attend this lecture. Admission is free, with limited seating.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or fayjones.uark.edu.