WIP Collaborative: Women in Practice | Work in Progress

WIP Collaborative: Women in Practice | Work in Progress

The members of WIP Collaborative discussed their approach to feminist collaborative design practice and their recent public space project, Restorative Ground, in Lower Manhattan. WIP Collaborative is a platform that enables independent design professionals to combine their expertise and work together to realize broader impact through shared projects. Founded on feminist principles, WIP supports those who eschew patriarchal conventions and define new narratives of architectural practice through their work. Distinct from a traditional firm built around a singular identity and authorship, WIP is centered around a way of working as an adaptable framework to meet the needs of its projects and collaborators. The members of WIP Collaborative are: Abby Coover, Bryony Roberts, Elsa Ponce, Lindsay Harkema, Ryan Brooke Thomas, Sera Ghadaki, and Sonya Gimon.

Fall 2021 public programming will be a virtual/in-person hybrid. Columbia affiliates holding a green pass may attend in-person events, while the general public may attend via Zoom Webinar. All events will be recorded and available for later viewing unless otherwise noted.

Abigail Coover is founder of Overlay Office - a practice that layers innovative design, development, and collaboration. The work places an emphasis on experimentation with the interplay between geometry, materiality, color and perception to create unique spatial and volumetric experiences.

Sera Ghadaki is an architectural and fashion designer and creative director of SERA GHADAKI, an atelier for garments, environments, and architectural design with purpose.

Sonya Gimon is a landscape and urban designer with a focus on sustainable environmental systems, environmental conservation, human/wildlife relations, and community engagement.

Lindsay Harkema is a NYC-based architect and educator, and the founder of WIP Work In Progress | Women In Practice, a feminist design collective focused on improving the public realm. Her design, research, and teaching projects engage urban architecture in unconventional ways that challenge and transform the norms of their existing conditions.

Elsa Ponce is an architect and designer with international experience at a variety of scales and typologies. She supports design organizations as a consultant and works collaboratively on community-driven projects with Open Architecture New York and WIP Collaborative.

Bryony Roberts leads the design and research practice Bryony Roberts Studio, which integrates methods from art, architecture, community engagement, and historic preservation to create immersive projects in the public realm. Roberts also recently guest-edited Log 48: Expanding Modes of Practice and teaches architecture at the Columbia University GSAPP in New York.

Ryan Brooke Thomas is an architectural designer, educator, and principal of Kalos Eidos, a New York based design office working within the overlap of architecture and other modes of design, creative practice and cultural research. She serves as Co-Chair of AIANY New Practices New York at the Center for Architecture and also teaches design studios, currently at Cooper Union.