ARCHITECTURE WILL BE TOPIC

The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design will host the virtual event “Piggybacking Practices: A Symposium on Architecture and Inequality” on March 15 and 22, via Zoom.

This online symposium will bring together several of North America’s most innovative architects, urban designers and scholars for a two-part conversation exploring “piggybacking practices” in relation to contemporary forms of inequality in the built environment.

Participants include the founders of Landing Studio, New Affiliates, Interboro, Ants of the Prairie, Clare Lyster Urbanism and Architecture, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, Lateral Office and cityLAB UCLA.

Brian Holland, an assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, organized the symposium, which is planned for two consecutive Mondays in March. Sessions will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. each day.

The March 15 session on “Tactics and Strategies” will examine common piggybacking tactics such as niche inhabitation, resource sharing, and waste stream capture, and ask how these tactics can be leveraged in support of larger strategic aims. Mason White and Lola Sheppard of Lateral Office, based in Toronto, Canada, will moderate the session. Panelists will include Clare Lyster of Clare Lyster Urbanism and Architecture, in Chicago; Dan Adams and Marie Law Adams of Landing Studio, in Somerville, Mass.; and Jaffer Kolb and Ivi Diamantopoulou of New Affiliates, in New York.

On March 22, the symposium will continue with the session titled “Ethics and Sensibilities.” This session will explore the emancipatory potentials of piggybacking practices in relation to the wider discourse around advocacy and activism in architecture and urban design. Dana Cuff of cityLAB UCLA, in Los Angeles, will moderate the session. Panelists will include Georgeen Theodore of Interboro, in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Joyce Hwang of Ants of the Prairie, in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, in San Diego, Calif. Cruz and Forman are also the John G. Williams Distinguished Visiting Professors in Architecture this semester in the Fay Jones School.

To register for the symposium, and for more details and bios of the participants go to the Fay Jones School website.

Information: (479) 5754704, fayjones.uark.edu or email mparks17@uark.edu.