Rice Architecture is charging ahead with a full slate of virtual lectures this fall with a theme of race, social justice and allyship.
Lectures will take place via Zoom every Wednesday at either noon or 6 p.m. from Aug. 26 through Nov. 11, concluding with the annual Rice Design Alliance Civic Forum.
The free lectures are open to the public. Register online via links at the lecture titles below.
This semester’s series, according to the school, are part of an initiative to acknowledge, understand and act upon systemic racism in the built environment.
Designers, scholars and activists will discuss the relationship between race, architecture and questions of social equity, environmental justice and gender parity. The series aims to bring these issues to the fore in the school’s curriculum while fostering solidarity and action in architecture.
The series begins with a talk at noon Aug. 26 by Mikki Hebl, Rice’s Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Professor of Psychological Sciences and Management, on “How Individuals and Organizations Can Reduce Racism.”
Future lectures:
Sept. 2, noon: Anzilla Gilmore, assistant director for project management and engineering at Rice, on “Architecture: It Is What It Is, But It Does Not Have To Be.”
Sept. 9, noon: Ilze Wolff and Heinrich Wolff, principals, Wolff Architects, South Africa, “About Paying Attention.”
Sept. 16, noon: Jesús Vassallo, associate professor of architecture, “Affordable Housing Lab.”
Sept. 23, 6 p.m.: Ana María León, assistant professor, history of art, University of Michigan, “You Are Standing on Occupied Land.”
Sept. 30, noon: Stephen Fox, lecturer at Rice Architecture and the University of Houston and fellow of the Anchorage Foundation of Texas, “Asking What It All Means.”
Oct. 7, 6 p.m.: Kadambari Baxi, a professor of professional practice in architecture, Barnard College, Columbia University, “Activism: Climate, Labor, Memorial.”
Oct. 14, noon: Nonya Grenader, professor in the practice at Rice Architecture and principal at Nonya Grenader Architects, “Collaborations.”
Oct. 21, 6 p.m.: Michael Stone-Richards, professor and director of critical theory, College for Creative Studies, Detroit, and editor at Detroit Research, “Negation and Disavowal in Spatial Politics.”
Oct. 28, 6 p.m.: PLAT Roundtable, “Re-Committing Architecture.”
Nov. 4, 6 p.m.: Thomas Sugrue, professor of social and cultural analysis and history, director of The Cities Collaborative and director of the Metropolitan Studies Program at New York University, “Less Separate, Still Unequal: Cities, Suburbs and the Unfinished Struggle for Racial Justice.”
Nov. 11, 6 p.m.: Rice Design Alliance Civic Forum 2020, “A House of One’s Own: A State of Houston Housing.”
Rice Design Alliance is an American Institute of Architects/Continuing Education Services Registered Provider of quality educational programs. For each evening lecture, attendees earn one learning unit.