Resilience by Design: Spring 2025 Lecture Series

Overview

An Einhorn Center for Community Engagement Lecture Series

Overview

Join us for a compelling lecture series featuring architectural historians, design practitioners, visionaries, and community stakeholders. Together, they will explore the multifaceted challenges and opportunities of community-engaged design in post-industrial cities, abandoned spaces, vacant lots, and economically declining zones.

This series complements the Spring 2025 HAUD Course: ARCH 3819/5819: Architecture & Sustainability in Post-Industrial Cities.

Free and open to the public.

This series is supported by an Engagement Impact Grant and is organized by Associate Professor Pamela Karimi.

March 6: Adrian Anagnost

Opportunities and Challenges in Adaptive Reuse

Speaker: Adrian Anagnost, art historian, Tulane University
Focus: Explores the social and cultural impact of adaptive reuse through Theaster Gates' groundbreaking projects, highlighting the interplay between the transformation of neglected spaces into community hubs, and broader tendencies in urban development.
Time: March 6, 2025, 10–11 a.m.
Location: Zoom

March 13: Cheree Franco + Sage Michael Pellet

Potential and Pitfalls of Shoreline Wastelands

Speakers: Cheree Franco, journalist; Sage Michael Pellet, community activist
Focus: Discuss grassroots design initiatives that transform urban wastelands while also advancing environmental justice, accessibility, and shared ownership.
Time: March 13, 2025, 10–11 a.m.
Location: Zoom

March 20: Matthew Mazzotta

Community-Specific Design Strategies for Neighborhoods

Speaker: Matthew Mazzotta, internationally celebrated public artist, activist, and designer
Focus: Presents innovative strategies to develop community-specific projects for public spaces in neighborhoods through dialogue and asset-based design.
Time: March 20, 2025, 9:30–11 a.m.
Location: 144 Sibley Hall and on Zoom

March 27: Andrew Herscher

Humanitarian's Housing Question

Speaker: Andrew Herscher, architectural historian, University of Michigan
Focus: Explores the relationship between the provision of shelter and the recognition of rights in the case of refugees and other populations of displaced people.
Time: March 27, 2025, 9:30–11 a.m.
Location: 144 Sibley Hall and on Zoom

April 10: Jill Desimini

Limits of Temporary Design for Abandoned Urban Zones

Speaker: Jill Desimini, landscape architecture director, University of Connecticut
Focus: Analyzes how temporary design solutions activate abandoned spaces but often fail to catalyze systemic change, offering lessons for designers and planners.
Time: April 10, 2025,10–11 a.m.
Location: Zoom