Architect Andrea Leers to Present 'Material Matters' Lecture on April 3

Photo courtesy of Leers Weinzapfel Associates.

The Ohio State University East Regional Chilled Water Plant, in Columbus, Ohio.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Andrea Leers will present a lecture at 5 p.m. Monday, April 3, 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.

Leers is the principal and co-founder of Leers Weinzapfel Associates of Boston, Massachusetts. 

In her lecture, titled "Material Matters," Leers will address how material is at the heart of the architectural imagination. It is the matter, stuff and substance from which a thing is or can be made — something you can feel, see and relate to. It can also be information, data or palpable ideas — as in, "There is much good material here to consider." Finally, it can denote significance, relevance and importance — as in, "The storm caused material damage." In all these senses, material is fundamental to our design thinking —material matters.

Material is the principal means by which we make a general concept specific to its purpose and place. Material is critical for bonding architecture to the human experience, to joining it to the surrounding ensemble, and for generating meaning and significance.

This lecture will explore a diverse group of recent projects that are bound together by a common attitude about the exploration of material. Each project reveals how material research, selection and detailing build on the properties of materials to meet sustainable goals, to respond to context and to evoke a compelling emotional impact.

The work of Leers Weinzapfel Associates lies at the intersection of architecture, urban design and infrastructure, and it is notable for its inventiveness in dramatically complex projects. Leers is an internationally recognized leader in urban and campus design, as well as building for civic institutions.  

The firm's award-winning projects include the Ohio State University East Regional Chilled Water Plant, the Museum of Medical History and Innovation at Mass General Hospital, the Expansion of the Harvard Science Center, the University of Pennsylvania Chiller Plant, and the Taunton Trial Court. The firm has received more than 85 awards design awards. In 2007, the firm was awarded the AIA Firm Award -the first and only women-led firm selected for the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm. In 2015, ARCHITECT magazine included the firm in its list of Top 50 architecture firms in the country, with ranking of ninth overall and fifth in sustainable design. A monograph on the firm's work, Made to Measure: the Work of Leers Weinzapfel Associates, was published in 2011 by Princeton Architectural Press.

Leers is former director of the Master in Urban Design Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design from 2001-11. Previously, she taught at Yale University's School of Architecture, the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts, the University of Virginia School of Architec­ture and Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2007, Leers was invited to be Chaire des Amériques at the Sorbonne (Univer­sité de Paris). She was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome, and her several national grants include a NEA/Japan U.S. Friendship Commission Design Arts Fellowship in 1982. She holds an undergraduate degree in art history from Wellesley College and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts.

This is the Warren Segraves lecture, sponsored by Modus Studio. 

This lecture is approved for HSW continuing education credits through the American Institute of Architects and through the American Society of Landscape Architects.

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

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