Time and Place

Time: 5:00pm (Central)
Location: Architecture and Urban Planning Room 110 – UWM Campus – 2131 E Hartford Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53211

Urban Edge Award Lecture

Future / Practice: Coauthoring the Equitable City presentation by Ann Lui, AIA, Future Firm

AFFILIATION(s):

Future Firm / University of Michigan

Lecture Summary:

Can the practice of architecture itself be re-designed? This talk proposes that we consider the tools, processes, and frameworks of professional practice themselves to be a design project of urgent concern. It will focus in particular on the coauthored history of the building code by progressive movements in the United States as well as actionable proposals for more equitable enforcement, including the creation of an Office of the Public Architect. This lecture will also include recent community-focused design work from Future Firm’s practice in Chicago, including projects for non-profits, small businesses, and arts-culture organizations within the context of these broader questions.

BIO:

Ann Lui, AIA, is a founding principal of Future Firm, a Chicago-based architecture and design research practice. She is an assistant professor of practice at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on the intersection of professional practice and social justice, including exploring access to design services, equitable enforcement of building code, and coauthorship of the built environment. She was co-curator of Dimensions of Citizenship, the 2018 U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. She co-edited Public Space? Lost and Found (MIT/SA+P Press, 2015) and Log 53, “Coauthoring” (2022). Her current research explores building codes through the lens of social equity, including the recently published “Toward an Office of the Public Architect” (Log 48). Future Firm designs spaces for changemakers, with a focus on buildings for nonprofits, arts and culture organizations, and community-led developments. Future Firm was awarded the J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize in 2021 and has been exhibited at the Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Storefront for Art & Architecture, and the Chicago Architecture Center..

Questions, comments?

All lectures are free and open to planners, students, staff, faculty, and friends of the University. Please contact Karl Wallick, Department of Architecture