2019 AIA Women’s Leadership Summit Thoughts: Reframe I spent my formative years in Iran, a traditionally patriarchal society on the verge of modernization. The country’s first western-style public university was established in early 20th century...Read More
Lisbon’s Azulejos I visited Lisbon recently and was quite taken with this hillside city that overlooks the Atlantic—its sidewalk cafes, narrow stone-lined streets, colorful palette and especially its distinct layering of tiles....Read More
A Legacy Build in Shiwahori-Mura Let me tell you a story: Almost two centuries ago, in a small village Northeast of today’s Hiroshima, Japan, a small, stalwart man toils away planning what will become the...Read More
Dutch at Werk: Designing with Water The Dutch have an elevated sense for planning and adapting to the will of the sea. With one third of The Netherlands located below sea level, the Dutch have been...Read More
Barcelona: City of Literature Barcelona’s narrow streets and fourteenth century stone walls contour numerous literary works, from Cervantes’ Don Quixote to Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and Goytisolo’s Marks of Identity. More recently Barcelona winds...Read More
Less is More. More with Less Lilian, for her scholarship, partnered with BuildOn, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the international education crisis by ensuring that children living in poverty can attend school. In 2017 she traveled...Read More
Public Architecture in the Deep South Spanish moss festoon aged oak, cresting into a deep vignette of antebellum grandeur. This is the one point perspective of Oak Alley from the Great River Road — a panorama...Read More
Circular City Week: New York Pressures on our waste management infrastructure have forced industries across sectors to address conventional sourcing and disposal within their supply chains. As an alternative, the circular economy emphasizes a closed...Read More
“Freespace” La Biennale di Venezia 16th International Architecture Exhibition This past July, I spent three days exploring the Venice Biennale, or La Biennale Architettura as it is officially called. For nearly six months, 63 participating countries and over 70...Read More
Make New History: A Vertical City for the Innovation Economy “Today, history represents neither an oppressive past that modernism tried to discard nor a retrograde mind-set against unbridled progress. Instead, at a time when there is too much information and...Read More
Empathy in the Built Environment Architecture is often conveyed as a highly technical practice dealing with complex geometry and difficult calculations. However, relationship building – between site and context, architect and client, community and space...Read More
Light + Space: Irwin’s Portals of Perception Dia:Beacon The early morning sky and the beat of the steel pull my gaze to the Hudson’s flat surface, the fawn landscape. It swishes by. I’m headed up to Beacon,...Read More
Marfa is a State of Mind. Art Mecca Step 1: Wander Having grown up the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains and having lived for a spell in Bolinas, I’ve always been drawn to weird far-flung places full of funky characters...Read More
Marfa is a State of Mind. Art Mecca Step 2: Imagine Marfa’s big economies have been cattle ranching, war and art. Fort DA Russell’s closure after the Second World War, followed by a devastating drought in the 1950’s, took their toll...Read More
Marfa is a State of Mind. Art Mecca Step 3: Immerse “It takes a great deal of time and thought to install work carefully. This should not always be thrown away. Most art is fragile and some should be placed and...Read More
Room for Thought: a Market Street Prototyping Festival installation How do we create more opportunities for both playful interaction and quiet introspection, in an increasingly dense urban landscape? Room for Thought synthesized these two objectives in the form of...Read More
Timelessness, Beauty and Poetry in Planning “The challenge—our challenge—is to produce for generations to come—not just for today or for fifty years hence—an efficient, flexible, and simple solution to the design of your Academy; and yet—and...Read More
WRNS Scholarship In 2015, WRNS Studio started an annual scholarship program to encourage and promote inspiration and critical thinking in design and architecture. Scholarships vary widely and support things like individual projects,...Read More
