April 14, 2021

New York, NY, April 14, 2021 – The Center for Architecture has launched the Center for Architecture Lab, a multi-month, multi-disciplinary residency program that offers new voices in architecture and design full authorship over dedicated areas of the Center for Architecture’s platforms. This year’s digital residency will include access to the organization’s email communications and social media and programming opportunities, along with the publication of a digital exhibition featuring compelling and provocative content meant to elevate underrepresented perspectives.

Created in response to the destabilizing forces of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the reinvigorated racial justice movement across the United States, the Center for Architecture Lab will offer programming that invites a greater diversity of professionals to participate in the fields of architecture and design, encouraging our community to consider outside perspectives, critical questions, and innovative solutions to systemic problems in architecture and other design professions.

“The Center for Architecture Lab is an exciting new initiative for our institution, born out of the constraints of the pandemic,” said AIANY and Center for Architecture Executive Director Benjamin Prosky, Assoc. AIA. ”In 2020, as we were forced to shut our galleries and meeting spaces, we sought to find new ways to engage our constituents with compelling content outside of the traditional exhibition model. We also sought meaningful ways to amplify the work of BIPOC individuals and organizations in the design field, particularly those who may not have been present at the Center for Architecture in the past. Our Lab is a fantastic model for this type of engagement, and we look to expand the program’s scope and impact in the future.”

 

Inaugural Resident: ISAPD

The Center for Architecture Lab Advisory Committee has nominated the Indigenous Scholars of Architecture, Planning and Design (ISAPD) at the Yale School of Architecture, led by Anjelica S. Gallegos (Santa Ana Pueblo/Jicarilla Apache) MArch I Candidate 2021, and Summer Sutton (Lumbee), Architecture PhD Candidate 2022, as the inaugural Center for Architecture Lab residents. Established in 2018 by Sutton, Gallegos, and Charelle Brown (Kewa Pueblo), BA in Architecture Studies 2020, ISAPD is a collective student group focused on increasing the knowledge, consciousness, and appreciation of indigenous architecture, planning, and design at the Yale School of Architecture and the Yale community at large. Sutton and Gallegos intend to utilize the Center for Architecture Lab platform to expand the scope and influence of ISAPD to reach Indigenous students and practitioners of architecture and design nationwide.

Indigenous Futurism will serve as the overarching theme of ISAPD’s residency, investigating narratives of the future for Indigenous communities. Throughout their residency, ISAPD will explore architectural sovereignty through the lenses of technology, alternative worlds, science fiction, and temporality. Sutton and Gallegos will seek the expertise of Indigenous leaders to determine best practices in designing for Indigenous communities, while highlighting architectural designs by Indigenous architects to provide a foundation for analysis of contemporary architectural issues unique to Indigenous communities. ISAPD will also examine the cultural center as an integral resource in the preservation of Indigenous lifeways.

ISAPD’S Center for Architecture Lab residency will take place from May 10 through July 23, 2021.

The Center for Architecture Lab’s second residency will be announced June 2021.

 

Center for Architecture Lab Advisory Committee

Barry Bergdoll, Hon. AIANY, President, Center for Architecture; Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Mark Gardner, AIA, NOMA, Principal, Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects; Assistant Professor of Architectural Practice and Society, Parsons The New School for Design
Christine Gaspar, Executive Director, Center for Urban Pedagogy
Ken Lum, Co-Founder and Chief Curatorial Advisor, Monument Lab
Shawhin Roudbari, Dissent x Design, Assistant Professor, Program in Environmental Design, University of Colorado Boulder
Jennifer Sage, FAIA, Partner, Sage and Coombe

 

About the Center for Architecture
The Center for Architecture is the premier cultural venue for architecture and the built environment in New York City, informed by the complexity of the City’s urban fabric and in dialogue with the global community. The Center shares a home with the AIA New York Chapter and has the unique advantage of drawing upon the ideas and experiences of practicing architects to produce thought-provoking exhibitions, informative public programs, and quality design education experiences for K-12 students. It also leads New York City’s annual month-long architecture and design festival, Archtober. The Center for Architecture’s aim is to further public knowledge about New York City architecture and architects, foster exchange and collaboration among members of the design, development, building, scholarly, and policy sectors, and inspire new ideas about the role of design in communities by presenting contemporary and practical issues in architecture and urbanism to a general audience. www.centerforarchitecture.org