Speakers
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International Speaker Biographies
Aaron Betsky
A prolific writer and editor with a dozen books and articles to his credit, Betsky is a former professor with the School of Architecture and Interior Design (now DAAP) at the University of Cincinnati and continues teaching and lecturing in the United States and abroad. His leadership of major institutions in the world of art and architecture includes serving as the Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam from 2001 to 2006 and as the Curator of Architecture and Design of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 1995-2001. In 1998 Betsky served on the architect selection committee for the internationally acclaimed new building of the Contemporary Arts Center. In August 2006 he was appointed Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. In 2008 Betsky was the Director of the 11th Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Tatiana Bilbao
Born in Mexico City in 1972, Tatiana graduated from Universidad Iberoamericana in 1996, in 1998 she won honorable mention for her career and also appreciation for the best thesis of the year. In 1999 Tatiana joined and co-founded LCM, pursuing a new direction in the architectural practice by generating unprecedented spaces, exploring uncharted geometries, and has achieved international reputation and built more than 45,000 square meters around the country.
In 2004 started Tatiana Bilbao/mx.a S.C. with projects in China and Spain, some others around Mexico. Also in 2004 she founded mxdf along with architects Derek Dellekamp, Arturo Ortiz and Michel Rojkind, an urban research center, attending the production o space, its occupation its defense and control in Mexico City. Since 2004 Tatiana has been a professor of design at the Universidad Iberoamericana.
Edwin Chan
Edwin Chan joined Fran O. Gehry & Associates after graduating from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in 1985. He has worked on many of the firm’s most significant projects, including the Nationale-Nederlanden Building in Prague, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, and the hotel at the Marques de Riscal Winery in El Ciego, Spain. Currently Mr. Chan is a Partner of the firm, collaborating with Frank Gehry on the design of a number of projects that includes an office building for Novartis International in Basel, Switzerland and the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation in Paris, France, and the Extension to the Philadelphia Museum of Arts. In addition, he also designed The Art of Motorcycle Exhibition for the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao and Las Vegas, the exhibition ‘Exquisite Pain’ for renowned French Artist Sophie Calle in Luxembourg, as well as collaborating with the Academy Award winning director William Friedkin on the set designs for the opera Ariadne Auf Naxos by Richard Strauss in Los Angeles. In 2008, Mr. Chan received the honor of ‘Chevalier d l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ from the Republic of France.
Winka Dubbeldam
Winka Dubbeldam is the principal of Archi-Tectonics, NYC, founded in 1994, and the Director of the Post-Professional Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She graduated as a Post-Graduate M-Arch2 from Columbia University [1992] and worked for Steven Holl Architects, Tschumi Architects, and Peter Eiseman Architects, all in NYC. Archi-Tectonics’ work ranges from residential to commercial, from real to virtual and is realized in urban designs, architectures, and installations. Along with the two Monographs, “Winka Dubbeldam, Architect” [1996, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam], and AT-INdex [2007, Princeton Press, NYC], the work has been published in a large number of International Periodicals. Exhibits range from Moma, NYC [1999, 2001] , Moca, LA, [2006] Venice Biennale, Italy [2002, 2004], and the Kunsthal, Rotterdam [1996]. Current projects under construction are: the 9-story 32,500sf residential Vestry building, the 32,000 LRH mixed-use Building in NYC, the 15-story 61,000sf American Loft tower, the 10,000sf Duane Spa, a 3000sf residence in Holland, and a 4000sf townhouse in Chelsea, NY. Winka received the “Emerging Voice” award [2001], and was the award winner in the IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Award [2006]. Archi-Tectonics recently won the Staten Island Proposal for an Eco neighborhood.
Sou Fujimoto
Through numerous projects for health-care institutions in my early stage of development, I conceptualized a loose and ambiguous order in architecture, simultaneously akin to a house and a city. The random plan seen in the Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, completed in 2006, epitomizes such attempts. Images conjured by, “The condition before a house and a city differentiated,” was inspired by the city of Tokyo itself. This notion was further developed since then, and currently, I am pursuing experiments in architecture to fuse the Natural and Artificial, a City and a House, Inside and Outside. Projects such as House N, House before House, Final Wooden House are indeed attempts to engender articulated forms to these ambiguous conditions. Presently, I am endeavoring to reconstitute architecture by these convictions through current projects much larger in scale, such as the Musashino Art University Library and an art museum planned in China.
Geoff Manaugh
Geoff Manaugh is the author of BLDGBLOG (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/) and a contributing editor at Dwell magazine. He has lectured on a variety of topics within the BLDGBLOG framework of “architectural conjecture, urban speculation, and landscape futures” at a long list of venues, from the University of Pennsylvania and the Bartlett School of Architecture to Storefront for Art and Architecture and the Center for Land Use Interpretation. Manaugh has been described as “the world’s greatest living practitioner of ‘architecture fiction’” by novelist Bruce Sterling and one of the 50 “most influential architects, designers, and thinkers” in the field today by Icon magazine. BLDGBLOG is one of the “100 Best Blogs” in the world according to the Times (February 2009); it was founded in 2004 and is visited by nearly 250,000 readers per month. Manaugh has written for Volume, Domus, Abitare, and Space & Culture, among others, and he has contributed essays to books by photographers David Maisel and Michael Wolf. The BLDGBLOG Book is forthcoming from Chronicle Books in summer 2009.
Studio Mumbai
Bijoy Jain was born in Mumbai, India in 1965. He received his M. Arch from Washington University in St. Louis, USA in 1990. He worked at Richard Meier and Partners in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1991, and formed Bijoy Jain + Associates in 1996 in Mumbai. Studio Mumbai was founded in 2005. The studio’s pursuit is to use the Indian landscape as a resource; to create spaces formed by local climatic conditions, materials and technologies. Recent works include private residences, an urban community space, biotech research centre and a retreat in the backwaters of south India.
Veronika Valk
Veronika Valk lives in Tallinn, Estonia and works as an architect in her practice Zizi&Yoyo. Veronika has constructed both public and private buildings, designed interiors and landscapes, won some 30 prizes at various competitions as well as published a number of critical essays on urban issues.
Born in 1976, Veronika has graduated from Tallinn Estonian Art Academy and Providence Rhode Island School of Design.
Architectural Projects (selection)
2009 – 2006: Creative Industries incubator ‘Kultuurikatel’ (Tallinn, Estonia)
2008: Estonian Film Foundation offices interior design (Tallinn, Estonia)
2006: Composer E. Tubin Memorial (Tartu, Estonia)
2005: High school Sports Centre (Suure-Jaani, Estonia)
2009 – 2002: Merirahu 69 and Merirahu 85 private villas
2001: Steiner Garden Reconstruction (Parnu, Estonia)
1999: City Centre Urban Regeneration (Rakvere, Estonia)
Peter Wilson
Born: Melbourne, Australia
1969–1971 University of Melbourne
1972–1974 Architectural Association London
1974 AA Diploma Prize
1974–1975 Teaching Assistant, AA London
1976–1979 Intermediate Unit Master, AA London
1980–1988 Diploma Unit Master, AA London
1994–1996 guest professor: Kunsthochschule Weißensee/Berlin
2006–2008 guest professor: Academia di Architettura Mendrisio
1980 THE WILSON PARTNERSHIP, London
1989 ARCHITEKTURBUERO BOLLES+WILSON, Muenster/Germany
2002 BOLLES+WILSON GmbH & Co. KG, Muenster/Germany
Peter Wilson has lectured world wide and has run studios at: Summer Academy Berlin (1988), Tokyo Workshop (1987/89), Berlage Academy Amsterdam (1994, 1995, 1997), Barcelona (1996), IAAS Venice (1997, 1998), NAI Rotterdam Summer Academy (1998), Syracuse University Florence.
Alejandro Zaera-Polo
Alejandro Zaera-Polo is a founding partner of Foreign Office Architects together with Farshid Moussavi, and currently occupies the Berlage Chair in the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands. Prior to this current role at the TU in Delft, he was Dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam for four years, until 2005. He has also been Unit Master at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, and a Visiting Professor at the University of California in LA, Columbia University in New York, Princeton University, the School of Architecture in Madrid and the Yokohama School of Architecture where he currently has an advisory role. He has also been an advisor to several committees, such as the Quality Commission for Architecture in Barcelona City and the advisory Committee for Urban Development of the City of Madrid and is a member of the Urban Age Think Tank of the London School of Economics.
He has been published extensively as a critic in professional magazines worldwide, El Croquis, Quaderns, A+U, Arch + and Harvard Design Magazine amongst them, and contributed to numerous publications, such as The Endless City curated by Ricky Burdett and Dejan Sudjic.
For a little insight into Alejandro Zaera-Polo's session you can read:
'The Politics of the Envelope - A Political Critique of Materialism'. You can also see and join a discussion about the article on Archinect. See discussion.
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is probably the greatest movie buff among contemporary philosophers and the greatest philosopher among movie buffs: he combines Descartes with Blade Runner, Schelling with The Flintstones, Karl Marx with Groucho Marx, and Jacques Lacan with virtually everything from Hitchcock to Stalinist musicals, from dazzling Sam Goldwyn’s quips to Morpheus’ prophesies in Matrix. He sees moving images as the royal road to ideological dimensions of today’s social and political phenomena – and that left no contemporary political, social od cultural phenomen unexplored. Žižek is currently the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London.
Australian Speakers
Australian speakers will be paired up with an international speaker for the Workshop sessions, where they will engage in conversation about a specific topic current in the Australian context. The conversation format sets up equivalence between the local and international speaker, while the more intimate format will encourage involvement from the floor.
Pia Ednie-Brown (with Veronika Valk)
Dr Pia Ednie-Brown is a senior lecturer and researcher in RMIT’s Architecture program and the Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL). Her research practice, Onomatopoeia, engages with diverse media and projects, spanning interactive architecture, sculpture and animation, theoretical analysis and creative writing. Her doctorate, The Aesthetics of Emergence, drew on the work of her practice and key examples of contemporary, experimental architecture. The thesis generated a model of composition related to contemporary design process, and its relations to emergence theory and innovation, aesthetics and ethics, embodiment and affect. In 2008 this doctorate was shortlisted with three others for the RIBA President’s Award for Research - Outstanding Thesis award.
She is currently undertaking an Australian Research Council Discovery project. This employs theoretical and design research activity to develop a model of innovation that accounts for aesthetic and ethical dimensions of innovation processes. The project engages design and art practices in navigating critical relations between biotechnologies, digital technologies, capitalism and innovation.
Richard Goodwin (with Edwin Chan)
Over 30 years of practice as an internationally exhibiting artist and architect, Goodwin has sustained a prolific and award winning, professional practice of art and architecture. His work ranges from freeway infrastructure to the gallery to “parasitic” architecture / public artworks. Goodwin established the Porosity Studio 1996 at the College of Fine Arts (UNSW) where he currently holds the position of professor. The studio enquires into a dynamic understanding of art, architecture and urban design: that the movement of people through the built environment and their patterns of inhabitation constitutes a layer of architecture.
Since 2004 the studios were run as intensive, international, multi-disciplinary workshops. In 2007, the British Council began sponsoring students from around the world to participate in a series of 3 Porosity Studios within the United Kingdom because of the quality of the work produced and diversity of networks established. In 2002 Goodwin was awarded the prestigious Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council. This research has been widely published and exhibited in galleries across Sydney and has influenced the way designers, architects, artists and even the emergency services understand the city. In 2008 Goodwin was awarded his PhD from the University of New South Wales. Goodwin’s practice continues to evolve and remain in the forefront of practice in art and architecture.
IPH (with Studio Mumbai)
In 1999 iredale pedersen hook architects was established by Adrian Iredale, Finn Pedersen and Martyn Hook in Perth and Melbourne. The architecture of iredale pedersen hook emerges from a landscape that is dominated by the horizon. In Australia the desert and the ocean operate as constant counterpoints to the occupation of land by built objects.
Adrian Iredale
Adrian Iredale is a director of iredale pedersen hook architects and Adjunct Professor Faculty of Built Environment, Art & Design Curtin University of Technology. He has worked in Berlin, Germany with Professor Manfred Schiedhelm creating new housing prototypes for up to 10,000 residents while researching the work of Hans Scharoun. Adrian has completed post graduate studies as an invited guest student at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste/ Stadelschule Frankfurt, Germany under Professor Peter Cook and the late Professor Enric Miralles and recently completed a Masters of Architecture by project by invitation at RMIT University under the supervision of Professor Leon van Schaik. He has guest lectured in Berlin, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Tokyo, Patras, Melbourne and Perth.
Finn Pedersen
Immediately following graduation Finn moved Broome where he lived for 5 years and practiced throughout the Kimberley and Pilbara Regions of far North Western Australia working primarily on housing projects and buildings for Aboriginal communities.
Finn understands the beautiful but harsh landscape of this part of the country and the extreme conditions that dictate occupation of this land. As a passionate environmentalist he is a founding member of Environs Kimberley Inc, a Broome based environment group promoting landscape preservation and sustainable development in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This work provides the background for his recently completed a Masters of Architecture by project by invitation at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) under the supervision of Professor Leon van Schaik, titled “Remotely Sustainable: Architecture of Necessity”.
Ingo Kumic (with Aaron Betsky)
Ingo Kumic is a strategist with 17 years experience in the planning of cities and managing and developing complex urban projects (spatial strategy/ policy). His core expertise is in urban regeneration, economic development, city marketing and communications and development partnerships.
He has worked with the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, NSW Landcom, NSW Department of Planning, NSW Department of State and Regional Development and South Sydney Development Corporation. Internationally he has worked with the European Commission, International Energy Agency, Greater London Authority, London Development Agency, French Ministry for Housing and Infrastructure, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
He has taught extensively having been a visiting lecturer/ critic in architecture, planning, urban design and development at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning University College London, the Architectural Association London, The University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney, and the University of New South Wales.
Adrian Lahoud (with Slavoj Žižek)
Adrian Lahoud is a senior lecturer and researcher at The University of Technology Sydney. His work focuses on the relationship between contemporary design techniques, urban conflict and spatial politics. His practice asabiyah has worked on a range of architectural and urban design projects both locally and internationally. Adrian regularly lectures and runs international workshops, most recently in London, Berlin, Beirut and Shenzhen. He is a member of the OCEAN design research network and is currently working on an issue of AD entitled post-traumatic urbanism.
http://post-traumaticurbanism.com/
www.ocean-designresearch.net
Carey Lyon (with Peter Wilson)
Carey Lyon is one of the founding Directors of the well known Australian design practice Lyons, and is an Adjunct Professor with the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University in Melbourne. His practice’s work was recognised in the year 2002 with the Victorian Architecture Medal and in 2001 by representing Australia at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Lyons work has been extensively published and exhibited in a range of national and international publications including the Phaidon World Atlas of Contemporary Architecture, the recent Modern Architecture A-Z by Taschen, the Beijing Biennale and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. Lyons work has been the recipient of numerous design awards, including the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU, Hume City Council Offices, Victoria University Multimedia Centre, and the Automotive Centre of Excellence at Melbourne’s Docklands. Lyons is committed to the integrated practice of sustainability design, and this has also been recognised by the 2005 and 2007 AIA National Awards for Sustainability.
Andrew MacKenzie (with Geoff Manaugh & Winka Dubbeldam)
Andrew Mackenzie is the Associate Publisher of Architectural Review Australia and (Inside) Australia Design Review. He has worked across the fields of architecture, art and design for over twenty years as an editor, curator, writer, documentary maker and artist. He participates widely in public discussion hosting numerous panel discussions and round tables across a range of subjects. Reflecting this, AR and (Inside) magazines have become increasingly involved in the discussion and debate surrounding the practice of architecture and design in Australia. He has written for a range of magazines both in Australia and Europe and has recently contributed to the forthcoming Phaidon global architectural survey 10x10_3 and is editor of a monograph on the new Melbourne Convention Centre, entitled The Private Life of Public Architecture.
Paul Minifie (with Alejandro Zaera-Polo)
Paul Minifie is an architect practising in Melbourne, where, with Jan van Schaik, he co-directs the office of Minifie Nixon Architects. He graduated from RMIT University in 1993, and prior to forming MNA worked for Ashton Raggatt McDougall.
MNA is a research-based practice producing both theoretical and constructed projects, have been widely published, exhibited and lectured upon. Built projects include the Centre for Ideas at VCA and the Australian Wildlife Health Centre, both awarded by the AIA.
Paul's works investigate connections between various emergent design methodologies and architectural concerns. Projects examine the constituents of the architectural design domains, and the strategies for, and consequences of, their traversal.
He has taught extensively, and is an Associate Professor at RMIT University's architecture program.
Shelley Penn (with Tatiana Bilbao)
Shelley Penn is a Melbourne-based architect whose work has been published, awarded, and exhibited nationally, and internationally. She has continually contributed to the advancement of architecture and the built environment through her small practice, and through writing, teaching and lecturing about architecture and design. Her work includes strategic design review and advice to government on numerous large scale developments and public places, and the design of projects at the intimate scale of residential architecture. Her practice is particularly concerned with the poetic capacity of architecture to enrich the human condition. She is a member of the Heritage Council of Victoria and the Architects Registration Board of Victoria. In December 2005 she was appointed as Associate Victorian Government Architect within the Office of the Victorian Government Architect (OVGA) in the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria. Her role with the OVGA is focussed on providing strategic advice to government about architecture and urban design, and on advocacy for better outcomes throughout Victoria’s built environment.
Allan Powell (with Sou Fujimoto)
Allan Powell Architects has long had an interest and in fact written about ‘interstitial spaces’ by which is meant the apparently unconsidered or left-over spaces between buildings which have been ‘plonked’ within a complex. To ‘plonk’ means to place with reasonable regard to sanitation and all physical and material factors while overlooking the spiritual or perhaps ‘architectural’ effect. Most spaces are salvageable and improve even when an intention to perceive or grasp the architectural problem is demonstrated, so subtle is perception. What becomes abject is the ‘look’ of lack of consideration or consciousness.
Projects include; Monash University, Clayton Campus, Performing Arts Precinct, RMIT TAFE – Stage A Building 94, VUT Urban Design Masterplan, Prince of Wales Hotel, The Latin Restaurant, Marchetti’s Tuscan Grille, Café di Stasio, The Society, The Albert Hotel – with IAG, Soho Apartments KL, The Regal and TarraWarra Museum of Art.
