Resilience by Design: Spring 2025 Lecture Series

Vignette - Resilience by Design. image / provided
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