GSAPP Conversations

Dual-degree student Daniel Bernal speaks with Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, co-founders of Neri&Hu, in advance of their lecture on October 8, 2018. Their firm works internationally across multiple disciplines, including architecture, master planning, interior, graphic, and product design. Neri&Hu is composed of a multicultural team that reinforces a core vision for the practice: to respond to a global worldview incorporating overlapping design disciplines for a new paradigm in architecture.

"By virtue of being interdisciplinary, you attract a number of people who have varying interests. A product designer thinks very differently from a master planner... It allows seemingly very different people within the design field to come together and work together, and they realize that they actually have more similarities than differences." - Lyndon Neri

Third-year MArch student Christine Giorgio speaks with Sheila Kennedy and J. Frano Violich, of Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx) in advance of their lecture at the school on October 1, 2018. Their projects engage pressing climate change issues, emerging technology, and user agency.

“In crisis situations we often get into a defense mode: build a wall, build a barricade, stop it from coming in. When one uses the imagination, you begin to think of ways to go outside of that direct, hard approach toward how to deal with these crises.” - J. Frano Violich

Third-year MArch student Christine Giorgio speaks with Sheila Kennedy and J. Frano Violich, of Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA MATx) in advance of their lecture at the school on October 1, 2018. Their projects engage pressing climate change issues, emerging technology, and user agency.

“In crisis situations we often get into a defense mode: build a wall, build a barricade, stop it from coming in. When one uses the imagination, you begin to think of ways to go outside of that direct, hard approach toward how to deal with these crises.” - J. Frano Violich

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Anna Puigjaner, co-founder of the Barcelona-based architecture office MAIO. Puigjaner was recently appointed as Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia GSAPP, where she coordinates the Core I Architecture Studios. They discuss the relationship between research and design, the connections between academic and professional practice, and Puigjaner’s ongoing project of the “Kitchenless City.”

“The kitchen has been used as a political tool during the 20th century and became the center of our so-called homes. To live without a kitchen is a provocation to start a conversation about how the idea of comfort can be redefined in a permanent manner and how architecture can be a tool to rearrange thought.” - Anna Puigjaner

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Anna Puigjaner, co-founder of the Barcelona-based architecture office MAIO. Puigjaner was recently appointed as Associate Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia GSAPP, where she coordinates the Core I Architecture Studios. They discuss the relationship between research and design, the connections between academic and professional practice, and Puigjaner’s ongoing project of the “Kitchenless City.”

“The kitchen has been used as a political tool during the 20th century and became the center of our so-called homes. To live without a kitchen is a provocation to start a conversation about how the idea of comfort can be redefined in a permanent manner and how architecture can be a tool to rearrange thought.” - Anna Puigjaner

Paula Vilaplana, a second year graduate student in GSAPP's Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program speaks with Jan De Vylder of architecten de vylder vinck taillieuin advance of his lecture at the school on September 24, 2018.

Jan De Vylder co-founded the Belgium-based architecture firm, architecten de vylder vinck taillieu, along with Inge Vinck and Jo Taillieu. Their work focuses on the act of making, positioning architecture in the critical role of both craft and cultural production. The firm was recently awarded a Silver Lion at the 2018 Venice Biennale, and has exhibited widely, often in collaboration with photographer Filip Dujardin.

Paula Vilaplana, a second year graduate student in GSAPP's Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program speaks with Jan De Vylder of architecten de vylder vinck taillieuin advance of his lecture at the school on September 24, 2018.

Jan De Vylder co-founded the Belgium-based architecture firm, architecten de vylder vinck taillieu, along with Inge Vinck and Jo Taillieu. Their work focuses on the act of making, positioning architecture in the critical role of both craft and cultural production. The firm was recently awarded a Silver Lion at the 2018 Venice Biennale, and has exhibited widely, often in collaboration with photographer Filip Dujardin.

Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda, co-founders of architecture practice amid.cero9, speak with Paul Amitai, GSAPP’s Co-Director of Events in advance of their lecture on September 17, 2018.

Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda are Diploma Unit Masters at the Architectural Association in London, and their collective amid.cero9 works to recontextualize contemporary notions of space through a technological and sociological lens. They discuss public translation of architecture, particularly focusing on the leverage and creation of symbolism within public spaces for political means.

“I think symbolism is a tricky question in architecture. But we constantly associate actions with ideals. How can we work as architects, not simply taking the banality of things and translating it into architectural languages, but how can we deal with this symbolic dimension of certain actions?” - Efrén García Grinda

Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda, co-founders of architecture practice amid.cero9, speak with Paul Amitai, GSAPP’s Co-Director of Events in advance of their lecture on September 17, 2018.

Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda are Diploma Unit Masters at the Architectural Association in London, and their collective amid.cero9 works to recontextualize contemporary notions of space through a technological and sociological lens. They discuss public translation of architecture, particularly focusing on the leverage and creation of symbolism within public spaces for political means.

“I think symbolism is a tricky question in architecture. But we constantly associate actions with ideals. How can we work as architects, not simply taking the banality of things and translating it into architectural languages, but how can we deal with this symbolic dimension of certain actions?” - Efrén García Grinda

Third-year M.Arch student Alexander van Odom speaks with Felecia Davis, Assistant Professor at the Stuckeman Center for Design and Computation in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Penn State and the director of the university’s computational textile lab (SOFTLAB@PSU), in advance of her lecture at the school on September 13, 2018.

They discuss the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of computational textile design and how her work has transformed concepts of how we communicate, socialize and use space.

“To work in conjunction with other people is super important as an architecture student. And maybe try some things that you think are related to architecture, but you aren’t quite sure how yet. Go out on a limb. There’s so many different phenomenon going on right now that I think belong to architecture, but we’re not quite sure how to grapple with them.”–Felecia Davis