In Pursuit of an Architectural Urbanism / Rescripting Urban Systems

As a part of the GSAPP Adv. 4 Studios “Environment” Wednesday Talk Series that explores diverse notions and scales of the environment and the agency of and opportunities for architecture in the milieu, Kathy Velikov (Principal, RVTR; Associate Professor, University of Michigan) and Alexander Eisenschmidt (Dipl.Arch./Ph.D; Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago) will deliver lectures “Rescripting Urban Systems” and “In Pursuit of an Architectural Urbanism” respectively. The presentations will be followed by a discussion and Q&A, moderated by Nahyun Hwang.

Alexander Eisenschmidt is a designer, theorist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture, where he teaches studio and courses in history and theory. Before joining UIC, Eisenschmidt taught at Syracuse University and Pratt Institute in New York, and held a visiting position at the University of Pennsylvania. His work engages the productive tension between the modern city and architectural form – a topic on which he has lectured, chaired conferences, and published extensively, ranging in venues from the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians to Grey Room and The Architect’s Newspaper. He is the editor of City Catalyst (Architectural Design, 2012), the lead-editor of Chicagoisms (Scheidegger & Spiess, 2013), and from 2012 to 2013 was the reviews editor of the Journal of Architectural Education. Eisenschmidt has curated exhibitions and his work was displayed in venues such as the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy (2012), the Bi-City Biennale on Urbanism in Shenzhen, China (2015), and the 4th Architecture Triennale in Lisbon, Portugal (2016). His current book project is entitled The Good Metropolis.

Kathy Velikov is an architect and associate professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is founding partner of the research-based practice RVTR, which serves as a platform for exploration and experimentation in the agency of architecture and urban design within the context of dynamic ecological systems, infrastructures, materially and technologically mediated environments, and emerging social organizations. The work ranges in scale from regional territories and urbanities to full-scale installation-based prototypes that explore responsive and kinetic envelopes that mediate energy, atmosphere and interaction. RVTR has won numerous awards and their work has been exhibited widely; most recently “Infundibuliforms” received a 2016 R+D Awards honorable mention from Architect Magazine and they collaborated on EXTRACTION, the Canadian Pavilion for the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. Her work and writing has been published in JAE, IJAC, Leonardo, New Geographies, eVolo, Volume, [bracket] Goes Soft, and MONU, as well as in Franca Trubiano’s High Performance Homes, Rashida Ng and Sneha Patel’s Performative Materials in Architecture, David Gerber and Mariana Ibanez’s Paradigms in Computing, Blaine Brownell and Marc Swackhamer’s Hypernatural, and Infrastructure Space, edited by Ilka and Andreas Ruby. Kathy is a co-author of Infra Eco Logi Urbanism (Park Books, 2015).