On this episode, we're joined by Chilean architect​​ Alejandro Aravena​​. A long-familiar name to most of our listeners, Aravena’s work gained significant media attention upon winning the Pritzker Prize in 2016​, elevating his reputation for working to address some of today’s most difficult issues through participatory design, engaging users, groups, experts, and the public-at-large. His most notable projects are his “incremental housing” developments, a partially subsidized low-income solution for displaced families providing half-built homes for families to complete on their own, within their own budgets and tastes. Elemental has since released the plans for these projects for free, via download from their website​. This week Aravena was awarded another significant prize, the ULI J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development​. The award recognizes visionaries that are making significant contributions to international community building, with an emphasis on land use and development bettering society. Our conversation starts with him describing how this ULI prize is so important to him...

The War on Cliché

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​Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus concludes today with our conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's final episode is a conversation with Sam Jacob​​.​ ​Sam Jacob Studio​​ is a London-based practice that works at a variety of scales from urban planning to architecture, design objects, art, and curatorial work. Sam Jacob also currently works as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago​, and as a columnist for Art Review. Sam's installation for Exhibit Columbus is located on Washington Street. He treats the six city blocks as a design object in his project titled "Alternative Instruments," telling a story of Utopia from the perspective of both history and fiction, referencing a 16th century novel by Thomas More through symbolism, mapping, and the typography of the Utopian alphabet.

Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Sam Jacob

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Olalekan Jeyifous​​. Olelakan, who also goes by LEk, as I refer to him in this conversation, is a Nigerian-born visual artist with an architecture degree from Cornell​. His work​ has been widely exhibited at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA, Vitra Design Museum and the Guggenheim Bilboa. His work ranges from large-scale art commissions in public spaces and festivals to commercial installations. His contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus is a fascinating hybrid of physical and virtual space entitled Archival/Revival. The installation directly references exhibits at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, the site of the installation, from 1970, celebrating the Black and African arts.

Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Olalekan Jeyifous

​Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Ann Lui and Craig Reschke of Future Firm​.​ Future Firm is a Chicago-based architecture and design research office founded in 2015. Their work spans a wide array of scales, framed by their tagline, "We design on behalf of the secret lives of cities." In the case of their installation for Exhibit Columbus, Midnight Palace, the secret lives represent the nocturnal community in Columbus, Indiana. The sidewalk installation will bring together people that work in manufacturing, one of the most common jobs in the regions, with restaurant workers, truckers on I65, parents of newborns, dedicated stargazers, students, and residents with families overseas.

Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Future Firm

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo of Ecosistema Urbano. Ecosistema Urbano is a design and consulting company operating within the fields of urbanism, architecture, engineering, and sociology, with offices in Madrid and Miami. Their work often addresses climate head-on, while incorporating strategies of working with micro-climates to educate communities through public spaces. This focus was applied to Cloudroom, their contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus. Cloudroom consists of an inflatable "cloud," floating over a wooden structure, acting as a space for education, play, and interaction for middle school students.

Next Up: Exhibit Columbus / Ecosistema Urbano

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues this week as we introduce the winners of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize​. This series was introduced last week with Mimi Zeiger and Iker Gil​, the curators of Exhibit Columbus. If you're not yet familiar with this year's Exhibit Columbus designers and programming, we encourage you to take a listen to last week's episode​. To begin our first episode featuring the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize, we're sharing my conversation with Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers of Dream the Combine​. Partners in work and life, Jennifer and Tom's Minneapolis-based practice explores metaphor, imaginary environments, and perceptual uncertainties that cast doubt on our known understanding of the world. Their installation for Exhibit Columbus starts off with addressing the name Columbus, and the various associations with the controversial name. The project is aptly titled "Columbus Columbia Columbo Colón."

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