CRITICAL DENSITY: Health, Ecology, Economy & Equity

September 30, 2020
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Zoom Webinar
Roundtable

Welcome & Introduction: Maria PERBELLINI, Dean, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology

Organized and Moderated by: Tom VEREBES, Professor, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology; Nader VOSSOUGHIAN, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology

Presenters / Panelists:

Peder Anker, Director, Global Design, The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University
Giovanna Borasi, Director, Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA, Montreal
Alberto Estévez, Director, Masters in Biodigital Architecture, UIC Barcelona
Lydia Kallipoliti, Assistant Professor, The Cooper Union; Director ANAcycle, New York
Claudia Pasquero, Lecturer in Architecture, The Bartlett, University College London UCL; Director, Ecologic Studio
Robert Cody, Academic Coordinator, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology
Marcella Del Signore, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology
Dong-Sei Kim, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture and Design, New York Institute of Technology

CRITICAL DENSITY: Health, Ecology, Economy & Equity

Guest Presenters / Panelists
Peder Anker
Director, Global Design, The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University
pederanker.com
Peder Anker’s teaching and research interests lie in the history of science, ecology, environmentalism, and design, as well as environmental philosophy. He has received research fellowships from the Fulbright Program, the Dibner Institute and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and been a visiting scholar at both Columbia University and University of Oslo. He is the co-author of Global Design: Elsewhere Envisioned (Prestel, 2014) together with Louise Harpman and Mitchell Joachim. He is also the author of From Bauhaus to Eco-House: A History of Ecological Design (Louisiana State University Press 2010), which explores the intersection of architecture and ecological science, and Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895-1945 (Harvard University Press, 2001), which investigates how the promising new science of ecology flourished in the British Empire. Professor Anker’s latest book explores the history of ecological debates in his country of birth, Norway: The Power of the Periphery: How Norway Became and Environmental Pioneer for the World (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Peder Anker received his PhD in history of science from Harvard University in 1999. He is Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Lydia Kallipoliti
Assistant Professor, The Cooper Union; Director ANAcycle, New York
anacycle.com/
Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar whose research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics. She is an Assistant Professor at the Cooper Union in New York. She has also taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she directed the Master of Science Program, at Syracuse University, Columbia University [GSAPP] and Pratt Institute; she was also a visiting fellow at the University of Queensland and a visiting professor at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia.
Her work has been published and exhibited widely including the Venice Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Shenzhen Biennial, the Onassis Cultural Center, the Royal Academy of British Architects, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and the London Design Museum. She is the author of the awarded book The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit (Lars Muller Publishers, 2018), the History of Ecological Design for Oxford English Encyclopedia of Environmental Science and the editor of EcoRedux, a special issue of Architectural Design magazine (AD, 2010). Kallipoliti holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, a Master of Science [SMArchS] in design and building technology from MIT and a PhD in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. She is the principal of ANAcycle thinktank and Head Co-Curator of the upcoming Tallin Bienalle.

Giovanna Borasi
Director, Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA, Montreal
Architect, editor, and curator, Giovanna Borasi joined the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 2005, first as Curator, Contemporary Architecture (2005-10), then as Chief Curator (2014-19). She has been Director of the CCA since January 2020. In this position, Borasi provides curatorial, scholarly, strategic and managerial leadership to the activities of the CCA. She defines institution-wide policies, goals, and priorities and develops long-term strategies for the institution to establish it as a leading voice in the field.
Borasi’s work explores alternative ways of practicing and evaluating architecture, considering the impact of contemporary environmental, political, and social issues on urbanism and the built environment. She studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, worked as an editor of Lotus International (1998–2005) and Lotus Navigator (2000–2004), and was Deputy Editor in Chief of Abitare (2011–2013). Her exhibition and publication projects include: Environment: Approaches for Tomorrow: Gilles Clement / Philippe Rahm (2006), Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo: Stephen Taylor, Ryue Nishizawa (2008), Journeys: How travelling fruit, ideas and buildings rearrange our environment (2011), The Other Architect: Another Way of Building Architecture (2016), Besides History: Go Hasegawa, Kersten Geers, and David Van Severen (2017), and Scripts for a new world: Film storyboards by Alessandro Poli (2019); as well as four projects co-curated with Mirko Zardini: 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas (2007), Actions: What You Can Do With the City (2008), Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (2011), and Other Space Odysseys: Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Alessandro Poli (2010).
Borasi’s latest curatorial project, What it takes to make a home, is the first in a three-part documentary film series that considers changing definitions of home and homelessness as a result of urban and economic pressures. It premièred at the Architecture and Design Film Festival, New York in October 2019 and will continue circulating at film festivals worldwide. In February, it was screened at the 58th Commission for Social Development at the United Nations Headquarters.
Borasi has written widely on contemporary architecture, and her work has appeared in journals such as ARCH+, Domus, 2G, Cartha, Harvard Design Magazine, e-flux, and PLOT. She has served on numerous international juries and speaks regularly at symposia and conferences worldwide.

Claudia Pasquero
Lecturer in Architecture, The Bartlett, University College London UCL; Director, Ecologic Studio
Claudia Pasquero is an architect, curator, author and educator; her work and research operates at the intersection of biology, computation and design. She is founder and co- director of ecoLogicStudio in London, Lecturer and director of the Urban Morphogenesis Lab at the Bartlett UCL, Professor of Landscape Architecture and founder of the Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University.
Claudia has been Head Curator of the Tallinn Architectural Biennale 2017, and she has been nominated in the WIRED smart list in the same year.
She is co-author of “Systemic Architecture - Operating manual for the self-organizing city” published by Routledge in 2012.
Her work has been published and exhibited internationally: at the FRAC Centre in Orléans, the Venice Architectural Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe and the MilanoExpo2015 among others. ecoLogicStudio has in recent year completed a series of photosynthetic architectures, such as, the BioTechHut Pavilion for Expo Astana 2017, HORTUS Astana 2017, Urban Algae Folly Aarhus 2017, PhotoSynthEtica Dublin 2019, HORTUS XL 2020 for the Center Pompidou in Paris, PhotosSynthEtica Helsinki 2020 upon others.

Alberto T. Estévez
Director, Masters in Biodigital Architecture, UIC Barcelona
Alberto T. Estévez (Barcelona, 1960), Architect (UPC, 1983), Architecture Ph.D. of Sciences (UPC, 1990), Art Historian (UB, 1994), Art History Ph.D. of Arts (UB, 2008). With a professional office of architecture and design (Barcelona, 1983-today). Chairman-Professor in Architecture, teaching in different universities, in the knowledge’s areas of architectural design, architectural theory and art history. Founding as first Director the ESARQ School of Architecture (UIC Barcelona, 1996), as an avant-garde international school in its first 10 years: it was then the first school in the world with an architecture curriculum including –among other ideas– mandatory subjects of sustainability and international cooperation, as well as laboratories for biological architecture (genetics) and digital architecture (manufacturing). He also founded two research lines there, with two officially accredited research groups, two masters’ degrees and Ph.D. programs: “History, Architecture and Design” (UIC Barcelona, 1998- today) and “Genetic Architectures / Biodigital Architecture” (UIC Barcelona, 2000-today). As well as the Master of International Cooperation with Alex Levi and Amanda Schachter (UIC Barcelona, 2004-today). He was also the Founder and 1st Director of the UIC Barcelona PhD Program of Architecture. He has written more than two hundred publications, and has participated in a large number of exhibitions, congresses and committees. Invited to give more than one hundred lectures around the world, presenting his ideas, research, projects and works of architecture and design: in the last 20 years on biodigital architecture & genetics. He was also Vice-Chancellor/General-Manager of UIC Barcelona (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya), where he is currently the Director of iBAG (Institute for Biodigital Architecture & Genetics) after founding it.