Verda Alexander to Present 'The Invisible Workplace' Lecture on March 31

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AOL's West Coast Headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. (Image courtesy Studio O+A)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Verda Alexander will present a lecture titled “The Invisible Workplace: Design for How We Work (and Think)” at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 31, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture lecture series.

Alexander is the co-founder and principal of Studio O+A, an interiors firm in San Francisco that specializes in workplace design. From its beginnings more than 23 years ago O+A has been at the forefront of new thinking about how design shapes the way we all work and live. Alexander’s experience as a visual artist has been a big part of that new thinking. In both fine art and design, her work emphasizes experimentation and narrative as it relates to architecture. Her projects include unique work environments at PayPal, Facebook and MTV, as well as experimental pop-up installations in San Francisco and Charleston, S.C.

Her work has appeared in design publications all over the world, in The New York Times, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2011, Alexander and Studio O+A co-founder, Primo Orpilla, were named Designers of the Year by Contract magazine. The firm’s design for Facebook received the International Interior Design Association’s 2010 Northern California Honor Award and was a finalist in Frame magazine’s 2009 Great Indoors Awards. The firm’s AOL West Coast Headquarters won the 2011 FX Design Award in London for Best Workspace Environment.

As a visual artist, Alexander has worked in a variety of media. Her work has appeared in galleries throughout the Bay Area, at the San Jose Museum of Art and at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art.

Alexander has lectured in San Francisco, Chicago, London, Savannah, Georgia and Monterrey, Mexico among other places. Most recently, she and Orpilla taught a course in workplace design at IE University in Madrid, Spain.

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

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