OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

We are living in a time of rapid climate change, growing social inequity and increased inability to create affordable housing. Human settlements are increasingly inhospitable, their aesthetic quality is compromised by the lack of availability and ability to deal with the globally emerging settlement patterns as the hyper-city and the “light city” of infinite suburbia, compounded by an increasing hostility against development and by a growing presence of object buildings. Architects and urban designers are uniquely positioned to positively impact these issues and areas of concern.

These challenges will likely require a more open and inclusive attitude in considering the various aspects at stake and a change in how we conceive the education of an architect designing at the urban scale. The best human settlements are resilient, functional and beautiful. Today, the imperative of sustainability has evolved into complex system addressing environmental threats, social inequalities and affordable living. A new demand for high efficiency, supported by technological innovation is increasingly intertwined with a multiplication of needs and legitimate desires.

Although awareness of the value of quality urban form has been growing in recent decades, given the contemporary “context”, are current imperatives of more beautiful and welcoming habitats increasingly being considered just “frosting on the cake”, obscured by way more substantial “problems” and “solutions”? This colloquium is intended to focus on the nature of the present urban predicament, offering different opinions on this matter and how a curriculum in architecture/urban design should be shaped to address it. We will focus on how to prepare tomorrow’s architects and urban designers to address the “immediate issues of our age” from climate change to social inequity, affordable housing and technological innovation in a variety of physical contexts.

CEU accreditation provided by AIA Potomac Valley. (Submitted for AIA CES approval/Pending Review)

SCHEDULE

APRIL 5, 2019

4:30  Lecture - Daniel Solomon: Love Versus Hope

APRIL 6, 2019

9:30   SIGN-IN

9:45   Welcome, Agenda    Brian Kelly and Antonio Pietro Latini 

                      Carl Elefante: Charge

10:00-11:00   Andrés Duany: Urban Design and Town Planning in the Age of Climate Change

11:30-11:15   BREAK

11:15-12:30   Panel One: Climate change: Definitions and Policy   Ming Hu moderator

                       Ralph Bennett
                       Julie Gabrielli
                       Khara James
                       Mark Nauman
                       Dhiru Thadani

12:30-1:15   LUNCH BREAK

1:15- 2:00   Graham Shane: An Impossible Future? Urban Design in the Anthropocene

2:00-3:30   Panel Two: Models of Architectural Education   Brian Kelly moderator

                   Jana VanderGoot: Landscape
                   Steve Hurtt: City
                   Daniel Solomon: Place

3:30-3:45   BREAK

3:45-4:15   Matthew Bell: The “Durable” City 

4:15-5:15   Panel Three: Views from the Profession   Matthew Bell moderator

                  Adam Gross (ASG)
                  Vaki Mawema (Gensler)
                  Suzane Reatig (Reatig Assoc.)
                  John Torti (TGP)

5:15   Summary Thoughts

2019 KEA COLLOQUIUM.pdf