Architect Pascale Sablan to Present 'I Was Asked to Stand' Lecture Online on April 5

Image courtesy of Pascale Sablan

Aerial view of the Milot, Haiti Vocational School Campus, designed by architect Pascale Sablan.

Pascale Sablan will present the virtual lecture "I Was Asked to Stand" at 4 p.m., Monday, April 5, as part of the spring lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.

Sablan, LEED AP, is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects. She is the founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment, LLC, which has positioned itself to uniquely address the inequitable disparities in architecture by providing a holistic platform aimed to support numerous stages of the architecture pipeline. To impact the culture, Beyond the Built Environment elevates the identities and contributions of women and diverse designers through exhibitions, curated lectures and documentaries that testify to the provided value of their built work and its spatial impact. She is also an associate at Adjaye Associates.

The Fay Jones School's spring lecture series is presented in collaboration with Places Journal, an internationally respected online journal of architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism, and the University of Arkansas Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The series is also made possible in part by a gift from Ken and Liz Allen of Fayetteville, part of an overall set of commitments the Allens have made to the school's programs and initiatives in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Registration for the lecture is available on Zoom.

In her lecture, "I Was Asked to Stand," Sablan will offer a unique discussion that empowers the audience to engage in the dismantling of injustice by highlighting the disparity of lack of representation, documentation and acknowledgment of the great works of diverse designers and architects — particularly women and people of color.

She will speak to the past: the historical infrastructure of oppression; the present: the programs and initiatives that fight for justice; and the future: aspirations for collaborations to achieve a world and built environment eradicated of racism, sexism and all forms of oppression.

Sablan, who has more than 14 years of experience, has been on the Adjaye Associates team for a variety of mixed-use, commercial, cultural and residential projects in the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, Azerbaijan, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. Most notably, she's worked on the Bronx Point Project, which includes 540 residential units, a community facility and the first brick and mortar Universal Hip Hop Museum.

Sablan is the 315th living African American female architect in the United States to attain her architectural license.

Sablan curated "SAY IT LOUD" exhibitions at the AIA New York Center for Architecture Gallery, SXSW Conference 2019, A'19 AIA Conference on Architecture, and NOMA 2018 Unbounded conference, which were all paired with relevant programming speaking to the mission.

The "SAY IT LOUD — United Nations Visitors Centre" exhibition created a tremendous opportunity for exposure and echoed a call to action to the leaders of the world. After her speech at the opening of the exhibition, the United Nations offered to transform the exhibition into posters - translated into eight languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and Kiswahili) - and distributed them to their information centers worldwide. The "SAY IT LOUD - United Nations" exhibition has been displayed in Bujumbura, Burundi; Geneva, Switzerland; Harare, Zimbabwe; Lagos, Nigeria; Lome, Togo; Nairobi, Kenya; New Delhi, India; Minsk, Belarus; and Yaounde, Cameroon.

Sablan has been recognized for her contributions to the industry with several awards, including the 2021 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award for her advocacy efforts. She was named to the AIA College of Fellows, the youngest African American to receive that honor. She was featured in the Council of Tall Building and Urban Habitat research paper, in the same company as Jeanne Gang and Zaha Hadid.

To engage the culture, Sablan has given lectures at institutions such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the United Nations Visitor Centre. She has lectured at universities and colleges across the United States, including Columbia University, Georgia Technical College, Harvard University, Tuskegee University, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design | The New School, Madison Area Technical College and California Polytechnic State University.

Sablan is on the AIA New York Board of Directors and is the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) national historian. In 2020, she was voted president-elect of the National Organization of Minority Architects, the fifth woman to hold this leadership position.

Sablan holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University.

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

This virtual lecture is open to the public. For details on watching the lecture, please visit the Fay Jones School's lecture page. To register for the entire lecture series, complete this form on Zoom.

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