Clemson University’s School of Architecture has announced its 2024 – 2025 Lecture Series, “Collective.” 

The fall series will feature six distinguished speakers, three of whom will present at the Clemson Design Center in Charleston. 

The series will approach its theme, “Collective,” from multiple angles. It will explore conflicts within architecture and the inventive methods of mediation they inspire. It will also examine how conflict resolution is at the core of architecture and how it can harmonize the relationship between the earth and the structures built upon it. The series also seeks to unpack the collaborative experiences of students and the products of their cooperation. Lastly, the theme aims to study strategies of making within groups, defining the role of the individual within a community and examining how students and the school can grow as a collective. 

Upcoming Events 

The “Collective” series will take place throughout the Fall and Spring semesters; however, only Fall dates are available at this time.

• August 23, Clemson, Brooks Center for the Performing Arts, 2:30 p.m.: Tenna Florian – Lake|Flato 
• September 4, Clemson Design Center Charleston,12:30 p.m.: Jonathan Tate, OTJ Architects  Jonathan Tate is principal of OJT (Office of Jonathan Tate), an architecture and urban design practice in New Orleans. The office engages in numerous design-related activities, including applied research, opportunistic planning, strategic development and conventional architectural practice. Their work has received numerous awards, including the National AIA Housing Award and the National AIA Honor Award in Architecture. The office has been recognized as a 2017 Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York, a Next Progressive by Architect Magazine and a 2018 finalist for the international Architecture Review Emerging Architect Award. Tate is the recipient of the 2020 Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 
• September 25, Clemson, Lee 2-111 2:30 p.m.: Janet Loebach, Ph.D., P.Eng, Cornell University  Dr. Janet Loebach is the Evalyn Edwards Milman Assistant Professor for Child Development in Human Centered Design at Cornell University.  Her research efforts focus on the development of inclusive, child & youth-friendly environments and examining the impacts of built and natural environments on young people’s behaviors and healthy development. Dr. Loebach has particular expertise in the design of outdoor play and recreation spaces, and capturing children’s play and learning behaviors through innovative methodologies including behavior mapping. Much of her work also engages children and youth directly in participatory assessment and co-design of their everyday spaces such as playgrounds, schools and community spaces.   Dr. Loebach is the Chair of the Children, Youth & Environments Network of the Environmental Design Research Association and sits on the Editorial Board of the journals Children, Youth & Environments, Cities & Health and PsyEcology.  
• October 2, Clemson Design Center Charleston, 12:30 p.m.: Vishaan Chakrabarti, PAU  With over thirty years of experience investigating, designing and implementing urban architecture, Vishaan Chakrabarti is the Founder and Creative Director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism | PAU, where he leads the firm’s growing global portfolio of cultural, institutional and public projects. Chakrabarti’s past roles—including Principal at architecture firms SHoP Architects and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, President of the Moynihan Station Venture at the Related Companies, Director of the Manhattan Office for the New York Department of City Planning in the Bloomberg administration and the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley—have given him a uniquely well-rounded perspective on how cities and their architecture function and what they need to flourish.  Chakrabarti is the author of the highly acclaimed books A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America (Metropolis Books, 2013) and The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy (2024, Princeton University Press). He taught at Columbia for more than a decade and serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Planning Association, the Norman Foster Foundation, The World Around and Prometheus Materials. Chakrabarti has degrees in architecture, urban planning, art history and engineering.  This lecture will also include a book signing.  
• October 23, Clemson, Lee 2-111, 2:30 p.m.: Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore, Beebee Skidmore Architects  Lecture Title  Uncertain Buildings  What happens when architecture is lived in differently than how it was imagined? Insights from recent projects with design strategies for our unpredictable future.  Bio  Beebe Skidmore Architects is a two-person studio based in Portland, Oregon, with commercial and residential projects throughout the Pacific Northwest. The firm is the recipient of six AIA design awards, including an AIA Northwest and Pacific Region Honor Award. Their work has been published in a range of platforms, including Häuser, Gray, Frame, Dezeen, The New York Times and Dwell.  Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore established their practice in 2007 with the intention of working on crafty, focused, design-driven projects where they can be involved in all aspects of the work, from concept to realization.  Beebe holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, and Skidmore holds a Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Key projects include the 30,000 square-foot Swift Agency Headquarters, recipient of an American Architecture Award and The Outpost Co-Housing, profiled in Metropolis Magazine.  Exciting projects on the boards or under construction include a residence on San Juan Island in Washington state, a tasting room for Granville Wines in Dundee, Oregon and a residential overhaul in Boise, Idaho’s North End Historic District. 
• November 13, Clemson Design Center Charleston,12:30 p.m.: Jason Griffiths, University of Nebraska  Jason Griffiths is the PLAIN Director, Associate Professor at The College of Architecture, UNL and the W. Cecil Steward Professor.   PLAIN Design-Build is an architectural collective that creates buildings from renewable resources of wood.  PLAIN promotes all types of timber construction, ranging from advanced forms of engineered lumber to small-scale forestry and local fabrication. Renewable resources include undesirable trees discarded by insect borer infestations or the by-product of forest fire fuel mitigation. PLAIN’s projects support material flows that sequester carbon and reduce the embodied energy of construction. Their buildings establish circular economies by learning from vernacular forms of architecture and regional forestry ecosystems. PLAIN empowers students through a co-creative educational model of experienced-based learning and hands-on construction. 

The Third Place series is curated by Matt Nicolette, an assistant professor of landscape architecture; Amy Trick, an assistant professor of architecture; Manon Courbon; and Jared Cook, editors of the student journal Inter.  Inter- will produce its second issue during the 2025 Summer semester, coordinated with and informed by the lecture series theme. The lecture series is sponsored by the Clemson Architectural Foundation. Clemson campus lectures will be streamed on Zoom for those unable to join us on campus. They are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.