Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design Presents Fall 2024 Lecture Series Lineup

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The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design will present lectures in September, October and November for its fall 2024 lecture series.

The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design announces its fall 2024 lecture series. Through these carefully selected presenters, the school continues to engage with the broad scope of issues, opportunities and challenges that society and the design disciplines confront today. The series includes a diverse array of local, national and international voices.

Brian Holland, assistant professor of architecture, coordinates the school's lecture series.

"With this semester's public lecture series, the Fay Jones School continues to survey the shifting territories of contemporary design practice. From landscapes to interiors, from buildings to cities, the work of design professionals and scholars takes many forms — all essential in the building of a more just, equitable, resilient and beautiful world," Holland said.

"Today our world is changing at an ever-accelerating pace, and this demands curiosity, commitment and compassion, as well as an agile yet principled approach to design practice," he continued. "The public conversations we convene through the lecture series provide each of us here in the school and in the broader academic and professional communities the opportunity to step back from the details of our daily work to find and keep sight of our larger purpose and inspiration."

The lecture series will take place in September, October and November and will be available through an online playlist following the completion of the series.

Most lectures begin at 4:30 p.m. (CST) in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall in Vol Walker Hall on the U of A campus. The lecture by Marlon Blackwell and Wesley Walls on Oct. 28 will begin at 12:30 p.m.

The full slate of lecturers is:

Sept. 11 — Matt Shaw

Shaw is a New York-based editor, columnist and author. His latest book, American Modern: Architecture, Community, Columbus, Indiana (Monacelli Press, 2024), details how architecture was used to build Columbus, Indiana. With a wealth of archival material, nearly 100 first-hand interviews and original photography by Iwan Baan, American Modern shows the story of Columbus, Indiana, and how its legacy is living on today. Shaw has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, e-flux, Artforum, The Architectural Review and Domus. His lecture is a Martha Dellinger Memorial Lecture, given by Sharon and Jim Parker.

Sept. 23 — Ellen Dunham-Jones

Dunham-Jones is a professor and the director of the Master of Science in Urban Design degree at the School of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an authority on sustainable suburban redevelopment and a leading urbanist. Author of over 100 articles, she is co-author with June Williamson of the retrofitting suburbia book series documenting successful retrofits of aging big box stores, malls and office parks into healthier and more sustainable places. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley, 2009, 2011) received a PROSE award as the best architecture and urban planning book of 2009 and has been featured in The New York Times, Time, Harvard Business Review, NPR, PBS, TED and other prominent venues. Her lecture is a Martha Dellinger Memorial Lecture, given by Sharon and Jim Parker.

Sept. 30 — Javier Sánchez, Hon. FAIA

Sánchez, Hon. FAIA, is a founding partner and director of JSa Arquitectura, in Mexico City, Mexico. JSa Arquitectura focuses on comprehensive architectural interventions that transcend the contemporary context and reinterpret the city's architectural legacy to contribute towards a continuous reconversion, rehabilitation and restoration of the urban fabric.⁠ Sánchez has more than 100 national and international awards, including the 2020 Gold Medal of the National Biennial of Mexican Architecture. His lecture is the Ernie Jacks Lecture, sponsored by Marlon Blackwell Architects.

Oct. 7 — Dana Cuff

Cuff is the founder and director of cityLAB in Los Angeles, California. She is also a professor at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, in Los Angeles, California. Cuff engages in spatial justice and cultural studies of architecture as a teacher, scholar, practitioner and activist. Her leadership in urban innovation is widely recognized both in the United States and abroad. Cuff authored Architectures of Spatial Justice (MIT Press, 2023), Architecture: The Story of Practice (MIT Press, 1989) and The Provisional City (MIT Press, 2000). She co-authored Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press, 2020) with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Todd Presner, Maite Zubiaurre and Jonathan Jae-an Crisman, and Architects' People (Oxford University Press, 1989) with Russell Ellis. She also co-edited Fast-Forward Urbanism (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011) with Roger Sherman. Her lecture is the June Biber Freeman Lecture in Architecture.

Oct. 21 — Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb

Diamantopoulou and Kolb are co-founders of New Affiliates in New York City. Diamantopoulou is also the director of Syracuse University's New York City Architecture Program, in New York City. Kolb is a lecturer at MIT School of Architecture and Planning in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Diamantopoulou and Kolb received the 2020 Architectural League of New York Prize. New Affiliates is an award-winning studio that focuses on matters of reuse within a context of material excess, particularly concerning current standards of practice. They have collaborated with various New York City government branches, including the sanitation and the parks and recreation departments. Their lecture is a Martha Dellinger Memorial Lecture, given by Sharon and Jim Parker.

Oct. 28 — Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, and Wesley Walls (12:30 p.m.)

Blackwell, FAIA, and Walls are both Arkansas-based, award-winning architects. Blackwell is the co-founder and principal of Marlon Blackwell Architects in Fayetteville. Blackwell is the 2020 AIA Gold Medalist. He is also Distinguished Professor and the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Marlon Blackwell Architects says that architecture can happen anywhere, at any scale and at any budget, and this belief inspires them to design award-winning, environmentally responsive projects. Walls is principal at Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects in Little Rock. Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects has extensive experience in corporate/commercial, healthcare, public, educational, residential, hospitality, master planning and renovation/adaptive reuse projects, with uncompromised commitment to both quality design and excellent value. Blackwell and Walls' lecture is the 2024 Dean's Lecture in Health and Wellness Design, in partnership with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

Nov. 4 — Sara Zewde

Zewde is founding principal at Studio Zewde, in New York City. She is also an assistant professor in practice of landscape architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zewde is a 2020 United States Artists Fellow. Zewde's practice and research focus on how the discipline of landscape architecture is tightly bound by precedents and typologies rooted in specific traditions that must be challenged. Her projects exemplify how sensitivities to culture, ecology and craft can serve as creative departures for expanding design traditions. Studio Zewde is part of a team designing Dia Beacon on the 32-acre site in upstate New York that is home to the Dia Art Foundation. Her lecture is a Verna C. Garvan Endowment Lecture.

Nov. 11 — Julie Bargmann

Bargmann is the founder and principal of D.I.R.T. Studio, in Charlottesville, Virginia. D.I.R.T. Studio is a critical design practice driven by a love for the landscape, fascination with site histories, concern for marginalized communities and an obsession with urban regeneration. Bargmann is also Professor Emerita of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bargmann's work was awarded the 2001 National Design Award by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Time, CNN and Newsweek have recognized Bargmann as leading the next generation in making a difference for design and the environment. In 2021, she was the inaugural recipient of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. Her lecture is a Verna C. Garvan Endowment Lecture.

More information about each of the speakers in this lecture series and details on how to access the lectures online can be found on the Fay Jones School website.