No More Lines: The Future of Practice

Keynote 2 | 3:40 - 4:40 PM

1 AIA LU

In the first two decades of the 21st Century, a changing urban context both locally and globally has brought into high relief the dilemma of designing for a single project and the risks of change to communities. In this lecture and through several case studies from the recent work of WXY; the idea of public space being essential to all architecture and planning projects, will be discussed and analyzed.  

Today public health, safety and wellness has put our built environments under scrutiny and is bringing new attention to important aspects of spatial organization of cities and the space that is shared through public systems and spaces. This moment is important for the reevaluation of the separation of design from planning and planning from design. Examples will be shown elaborating on the benefits of urban design as key to a design approach for all building types in a variety of circumstances.  Our digital age has created incredible challenges and opportunities at every scale of the built environment. This has pushed a new generation of designers to move beyond singular works of sculptural architecture into a more systems-thinking approach to urban regeneration. This lecture will explore these approaches through visual presentation of completed projects that deal with the challenges of social impact, resiliency and climate adaptation that affect the health, safety and welfare of inhabitants.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Understand the current relationship between the practice of architecture and the practice of planning by defining the relation of public space to all types and scales of projects.
2. Identify the vulnerability of current economic centers and characteristics of resilient design in public spaces that enhance the health, safety and welfare of people.
3. Understand the potential of designing for civic purpose at all scales using a combination of design-thinking and systems-thinking.
4. Evaluate the status of existing infrastructure and value of new infrastructure, through examples, to create an understanding of urban assets as infrastructure and infrastructure as urban assets.
5. Define Civic Resilience, by examining completed projects, for approaches and features architects can relate to their own work.