Stuckeman symposium to highlight issues surrounding displacement in architecture

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State will host a research symposium on Nov. 13-14 to examine the relationship between refugee displacement, climate and architecture. Titled “(Dis)Place: From tent camps to the future of urbanism – The architecture of migration,” the event is presented by the Stuckeman School’s three research centers: Ecology plus Design, Hamer Center for Community Design, and the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing.

Registration for the event, which will be held in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space and via Zoom, is free.

“Our goal is to bring together scholars and experts from different disciplines to tackle this multifaceted problem,” said Nasim Motelabi, the symposium chair and a doctoral candidate in informatics within the College of Information Sciences and Technology. “It’s about urban planning, it’s about refugee policies, and it’s about climate change and climate action.”

According to the European Commission, 108.4 million people were displaced worldwide by the end of 2022.

The symposium invites Penn State researchers across various disciplines to join the conversation and assist in setting a research agenda to tackle the issues at hand. Penn State students are invited to learn more about the research and learn about ongoing trends while engaging with academic and industry experts on the topic.

Motelabi, who earned her master’s degree in architecture from the Stuckeman School, conducts research on humanitarian informatics and the implications of technologies in the broader context of forced migration and refugees’ lifecycles. She also considers the countries receiving refugees and their management policies.

“The Afghan situation in 2021 and the Ukraine invasion in 2022 really triggered Penn State researchers to pursue this topic,” Motelabi said. “How are urban designers or architects helping refugees in those countries that are displaced in urban areas? What is the toll that has on infrastructure and environment, and how can we actually plan ahead of time for these situations?”

The event will open at 9 a.m. on Nov. 13 with featured guest speakers and panel discussions in three sessions starting. Featured speakers include: Theo Issaias, faculty member at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture and associate curator of the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Achilles Kallergis, assistant professor at the New School for Social Justice and director of the Project on Cities and Migration at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility; Robert Beyer, data and research analyst at the International Organization for Migration; and Simone Sandholz, head of the Urban Futures and Sustainability Transformation Programme at United Nations University.

The second day of the event will be dedicated to a private workshop for invited researchers to start thinking about the next steps as to how they can start collaborating on this topic with an interdisciplinary approach.

“This is where our three centers come together to really showcase their work, and then try to stimulate collaboration,” Chingwen Cheng, director of the Stuckeman School, said about the symposium. “This will be a space to stimulate further conversations and innovative ideas moving forward to learn from each other and to explore what the next opportunities can be together.”

Learn more and register for the symposium via the event website.

Penn State work featured in upcoming long-term Franklin Institute space exhibit

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A video that highlights the work a Penn State team is doing to 3D print houses that can sustain life on Mars is featured in a new $8.5 million core exhibit opening Nov. 4 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

“Wondrous Space” is a two-story, 7,500-square-foot long-term exhibit that will highlight the diversity of science and technology in the space industry, emphasizing the achievements, innovations and people who “work to bring science fiction to life,” according to a press release issued by the Franklin Institute.

Co-led by José Pinto Duarte, Stuckeman Chair in Design Innovation and Stuckeman Center for Design Computing director, and Shadi Nazarian, former associate research professor of architecture at Penn State who is now the H. Ralph Hawkins, FAIA, Chair in Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, the interdisciplinary Penn State Den@Mars research team was originally established to compete in NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, a Centennial Challenges competition. Sven Bilén, Ali Memari and Aleksandra Radlińska from the College of Engineering, along with Randall Bock from the College of Agricultural Sciences, have also made significant contributions to the team, which has formed the Additive Construction Lab (AddConLab).

Featuring faculty and student researchers from the three colleges, Penn State Den@Mars generated $465,000 in prize money from the competition and continues the push to create sustainable housing options that could revolutionize the construction industry and address larger societal issues such as homelessness.

The video used in the “Wondrous Space” was produced by WPSU to document the successes the Penn State Den@Mars team experienced in the NASA competition.

“It’s great that the work the AddConLab is doing will be featured in such a prominent science education and research museum in Philadelphia. It will help to increase exposure and awareness of the lab’s work to the people who visit this premier science and development museum,” said Duarte. “It can also help garner support for applying the technology developed in the laboratory to overcoming housing shortage crises on Earth.”

Backed by a $3 million gift from The Boeing Company, “Wondrous Space” is located between the Fels Planetarium and the Holt & Miller Observatory in the Franklin Institute. The exhibit features interactive displays, immersive simulations and a focus on future advancements in space exploration.

Located in the heart of Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute is as one of the leading science centers in the United States and reaches more than 1 million people each year with informal learning experiences that engage students, adults and families.

Stuckeman School lecture and exhibit series kicks off with TAKK co-founder

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School at Penn State kicks off its 2023-24 Lecture and Exhibit Series at 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 20 with Mireia Luzárraga, co-founder of the Barcelona-based architecture and design studio TAKK, in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space. Hosted by the Department of Architecture, the lecture will also be offered via Zoom.

Luzárraga teaches at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation with TAKK co-founder Alejandro Muiño.

Titled “Becoming Post-Natural: Rethinking the Modern Natural Contract,” Luzárraga’s lecture will explore the relationships between architecture, nature and society, as well as question what “natural” means.

“How can it be that, in a world that depletes its resources, rapidly loses biodiversity and modifies its climate forever, it is precisely nature, what we must protect, that is a problem?” Luzárraga said.

“Let’s pose the question in another way: What would happen if we rethought nature as if it were any other object, institution, relationship or contemporary thought, impossible to escape the flows of the capitalist machinery? Maybe the situation would change a little,” she continued.

Luzárraga and Muiño founded TAKK in 2010 with the mission to investigate how architecture can catalyze the development of more democratic lives through the incorporation of feminist thought, ecology, and politics into spatial practices, according to the firm’s website.

TAKK has worked in both the public and private spheres with clients, including FRAC-Centre Val de Loire and IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Barcelona City Council, FAD (Foment de les Arts i el Disseny), Vitra, Swatch, Hermès, FITUR (Feria de Turismo) and CA2M (Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo).

TAKK’s work has been exhibited at the Oslo Triennale, and the Venice, San Sebastián, Tallinn, Maia and Rabat Biennales, and has been published in El País, El Mundo, Diari Ara and Architectural Digest.