troy NEW YORK

Elena Manferdini graduated from the University of Civil Engineering (Bologna, Italy) and later received her master’s degree in architecture and urban design from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2004, she founded Atelier Manferdini, a design office in Los Angeles, California. The office is based on a multi-scale work methodology and embraces the philosophy that design can participate in a wide range of multidisciplinary developments that define our culture.

lecture: Elena MANFERDINI, “Unplugged.”
Wednesday, 10/16
6.00 pm / EMPAC Theater
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
110 8th Street
Troy, New York 12180

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london UNITED KINGDOM

Christopher KANE, Spring/Summer 2014 Menswear Collection.

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

The tri-annual magazine Log, which focuses on “observations on architecture and the contemporary city,” was first launched ten years ago by the Anyone project in New York as a reaction to—and especially a resistance to—the seductive power of the image in media today.

lecture: Cynthia DAVIDSON, “Image and Word: A Critical Context.”
Wednesday, 10/16
7.00 p.m. / W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
SCI-Arc Campus
960 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

[LIVE STREAM]

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london UNITED KINGDOM

Let us hope that from time to time the individual will give a little humanity to the masses, who one day will repay him with compound interest. — Walter BENJAMIN, “Experience and Poverty,” 1933.

Abstraction addresses the process of removal in order to reach the essential datum of things. In a design world increasingly dominated by organic and redundant forms, abstraction is likely to be one of the most unpopular concepts in the field of architectural theory.

lecture: Pier Vittorio AURELI, “A Brief History of Abstraction in Architecture: Design and the Administration of Life.”
Wednesday, 10/16
1.00 pm / Lecture Hall
Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES

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toronto CANADA

“The professionally accredited architecture degree needs an opt-out clause. Given the rapidly changing demands and potentials of the profession, it is time to reflect on a system whose ultimate goal is to prepare a host of students for a world that really doesn’t need that many people to design new buildings. Fewer graduates are ultimately getting licensed and, strangely enough, this is viewed as some sort of failure. . . .”

* image: “Project BlackBox,” a machine for creating heat-responsive polymer panels. Designed and built by AltN Research.

[EXCERPTED FROM FRESH PUNCHES ]

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

“Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype” includes an exhibition in the SCI-Arc Gallery and a public art installation in the Arts District’s Bloom Square, both aiming to demonstrate the fearless nature with which the late visionary architect and draftsman created. It is assembled by an exhibition team including SCI-Arc graduate programs chair Hernan Diaz Alonso, Christoph A. Kumpusch, and design faculty Dwayne Oyler and Alexis Rochas.

exhibition: “Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype,” with Hernan DIAZ ALONSO, Christoph A. KUMPUSCH, Dwayne OYLER, & Alexis ROCHAS.
Friday, 10/11–12/01
7.00 p.m. (opening reception & symposium) / SCI-Arc Gallery
960 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, California 90013

[LIVE STREAM]

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troy NEW YORK

“As digital technology and cultural change speed up the timeline and compress the pedagogical content of a typical academic semester, a rigorous analytical process often remains the foundation of design logic for the experimental synthesis of projects, scenarios, and actual proposals. Just as the casting and recasting of contemporary culture occur at an increasingly rapid pace, so the dismantling and reconstruction of the design process continue to be primary subject matter in undergraduate core design studios.”

* Z. FINE, “Surface Active Matrix,” Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Jeremy CARVALHO, instructor.

[EXCERPTED FROM FRESH PUNCHES ]

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Kevin MACK:

Standing Mind Over Matter
An array of shapes form complex relationships through selective random happenstance and deliberate design. The forms are entangled and weave in and out of each other in purposeful and irrational ways.The apparently organized structural system provides conflicting stimuli. Rules are established, but not adhered to. Identity and function appear determinable, but are not.

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london UNITED KINGDOM

Architecture finds itself having to cope with new social and cultural complexities that demand systems that are open, adaptive and participatory. As a response to models of accelerated urbanism that privilege top-down masterplanning the lecture will explore experimentation that examines a generative and time-based approach towards computational urbanism. . . .

lecture: Theodore SPYROPOULOS, “Adaptive Ecologies.”
Friday, 10/11
6.00 pm / Lecture Hall
Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES

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los angeles CALIFORNIA

Jason PAYNE speaks on his recent studios and seminars at UCLA A.UD; history, precedent, and “contamination”; the “affect” project and the return to formalism; and much more.

[CLICK FOR JASON PAYNE INTERVIEW]

* image courtesy the author. “Space Oddities: or, Variations on the Disco Ball,” Technology Seminar, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Assistant Professor Jason PAYNE, instructor.

[EXCERPTED FROM FRESH PUNCHES ]

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