Architect Kevin Daly to Present 'City of Voids' Lecture on Oct. 12

Photo by Iwan Baan

Broadway Housing provides low-income families who work on the west side of Los Angeles with affordable housing that is both environmentally and economically sustainable. (Image courtesy of Kevin Daly Architects)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Kevin Daly will present a lecture titled "City of Voids" at 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, 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 and Design lecture series.

Kevin Daly, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, is the founder of Kevin Daly Architects in Santa Monica, California. The design firm and his lecture focus on public projects in Los Angeles, primarily buildings for education and affordable housing. His is a teaching practice: the design process and the material research associated with each project influences and is influenced by teaching in the graduate program at University of California, Los Angeles. 

Designers in practice in contemporary Los Angeles work in a city that is extensively, yet carelessly, constructed. The limitless grid of the city is woven of a fabric of holes and breaks. There is little open space, so working in Los Angeles involves a practice of site reclamation and urban reconsideration.

Focused research in material and building technology is a critical aspect of each project in the office. Designers seek opportunities for innovation and experimentation in conventional construction practice; a willingness to embrace, but improvise within, convention is a necessity in the design and construction of public buildings. They recognized the freedom possible through intervention in established practice rather than outright invention; they emphasize collaboration with experts and tradespeople as a source of inspiration.

For more than 20 years, Daly has pursued an architecture that delves into the paradoxes of the urban condition and the consequences of intervention. Projects by Daly express his belief in an architecture that is performative on every level: environmentally, structurally, economically and aesthetically. Bolstered by abundant research, he has demonstrated the benefits of advanced, unconventional building technology in works that are consistently recognized in publications and awards, and range from public schools, custom residences and university buildings to affordable housing.

His recent buildings and projects include the UCLA Basketball Training Facility; the Miami Design District Retail in Miami; the Robertson Recreation Center in Los Angeles; Highland Park Arts Center for the city of Los Angeles; and Student Housing for the University of California, Santa Barbara.

His Broadway Housing project in Los Angeles was recognized with a 2015 national AIA Honor Award, a 2014 Westside Urban Forum Award, a 2013 AIA Social Impact Design Award and a 2013 American Architecture Award, and it was selected by The Architect's Newspaper in 2014 as a Building of the Year (in a three-way tie). Other awards for his work include a 2010 national AIA Honor Award and 2008 American Architecture Award, both for Camino Nuevo High School, and a 2015 Westside Urban Forum Award for the Ostin Music Center at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.

Daly received a Master of Architecture from Rice University and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of California in Berkeley. He is a board member of the Los Angeles Chapter of the AIA.

He is on the design faculty at UCLA and has served on juries or lectured at institutions internationally, including Stanford University, Cornell University, Rice University, Southern California Institute of Architecture, the Architectural League of New York, the University of Texas at Austin and the Rhode Island School of Design.

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

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