People, papers and presentations

Albert Pope, Rice’s Gus Sessions Wortham Professor of Architecture, and Jesús Vassallo, assistant professor of architecture, will work together as one of 12 teams commissioned to participate in the United States pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. More than 250 U.S. teams submitted proposals for the prestigious international architecture exhibition, which runs from May 28 to Nov. 27, 2016. The U.S. pavilion’s theme, “The Architectural Imagination,” will focus on speculative projects designed for specific sites in Detroit but have “far-reaching applications for cities around the world,” according to the pavilion website. Pope and Vassallo will base their contribution on research developed at Rice through the school’s new “Present Future” Master of Arts in Architecture program, which builds on the concept that the future of architecture and urban design emerges from existing conditions.