Leaning Out X | Women in Circularity

The cause and effect of our impact on environments—and the impact these environments have on us—has highlighted the importance of understanding ecosystems and circularity in built, cultural, and natural contexts. We also want to understand the communities that create, maintain, and evolve in these contexts. Women that have pioneered in circularity will share their work and exchange thoughts in this moderated panel. Please join the AIANY Global Dialogues Committee for the 10th annual Leaning Out event as we meet and converse with some of these extraordinary thinkers, designers, and architects.

About the Speakers:
Mae-ling Lokko is an Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture and Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (Yale CEA). She is an architectural scientist, designer and educator from Ghana and the Philippines whose work focuses on the upcycling of agrowaste and biopolymer materials. Her research integrates a broad range of technical, environmental, social and cultural criteria to evolve contemporary material-value systems and accelerate business models for upcycling between the Global North and South. Lokko is the founder of Willow Technologies, Ltd. focused on the research, design and development of bio-based building materials. Lokko was the Director for the Building Sciences Program and Assistant Professor at Rensselaer’s School of Architecture from 2018-2021. Lokko’s recent projects have been exhibited globally including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; Museum of the Future, Dubai; Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Belgium; Somerset House; London and Triennale Milano, Italy. Lokko holds a Ph.D. and Masters of Science in Architectural Science from the Center of Architecture, Science and Ecology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and B.A from Tufts University.

Ruth Mandl is a Principal of CO Adaptive and a licensed architect, registered in New York and Massachusetts. She completed her M.Arch at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in 2010, where she met Bobby Johnston. Mandl and Johnson co-founded CO Adaptive in 2011. Mandl received her BA in Interior Architecture from Kingston University in London in 2005, which started her enthusiasm for adaptive reuse and her thinking that in it lies the key to the sustainable growth of our cities. She grew up in Vienna, Austria and has now lived in New York City for over 18 years.

Viviana Pozzoli is co-founder of the architecture firm Equipo de Arquitectura, based in Asunción, Paraguay. Pozzoli graduated from the Universidad Católica de Asunción and founded Equipo de Arquitectura in 2017 with Horacio Cherniavsky. She currently teaches at Universidad Nacional de Asunción and Universidad Católica de Asunción. Her built work with Equipo de Arquitectura has been featured in numerous printed books and magazines and published in digital platforms from around the globe. She has been awarded numerous national and international awards for his built works and career, including the Moira Gemmil Prize 2023 for Emerging Architecture. She has been invited to give lectures and workshops in Barcelona, Bruselas, Pamplona, Quito, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Belo Horizonte, Uberaba, Asunción and other cities.

Abeer Seikaly is a Jordanian-Palestinian interdisciplinary artist, architect, and designer. Her practice is grounded in ‘acts of memory’: journaling, documenting, archiving, and collecting. She draws inspiration from traditional knowledge in the Arab homeland, weaving ‘narrative threads’ into cultural empowerment. Her recent works center indigenous Bedouin practices to recover the intimacy of handmaking.

Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator of Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research & Development. Her goal is to promote design’s understanding, until its positive influence on the world is universally acknowledged. Her work investigates design’s impact on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices, and combining design, architecture, art, science, and technology. Among her most recent exhibitions are the XXII Triennale di Milano Broken Nature, and MoMA’s Material Ecology––on the work of architect Neri Oxman––and Never Alone, on video games and interactive design. The Instagram platform and book Design Emergency (@design.emergency), which she co-founded with design critic Alice Rawsthorn, is an ongoing investigation on design’s power to envision a better future for all.