Archinect - Features

WFH Show & Tell: French 2D

2020-04-16T08:43:00-04:00

As the world shifts to a work-from-home (WFH) survival strategy, architects and architectural academics have been forced to learn a variety of new tools and methods to keep moving forward in the face of the growing COVID-19 pandemic. While many in our community are already fluent in this approach to work, due to opportunities brought to us with the internet, in a field that often requires travel and on-site work, many are struggling with not just the technology, but also the lack of personal connection with our friends and colleagues.

In this new series of features, Archinect is sharing some stories from members of our community about their own transitions, with personal experiences and images of what their new work environment looks like.

In this second installment, we're profiling French 2D, a Boston-based practice founded by sisters Jenny and Anda French.

Creating "an Architecture Out of Constraints, Ordering Systems, and Rules" with WOJR

2020-04-10T13:29:00-04:00

WOJR: Organization for Architecture is a six-person "organization of designers" based in Cambridge, Massachusetts led by William O'Brien, Jr. that works holistically across projects, research, and workflows to conceptualize the practice of architecture as "a form of cultural production." O'Brien, a tenured Associate Professor at the MIT Department of Architecture and one of the founding members of Collective–LOK, and his team work to imbue a growing set of conceptual and built projects with an immaculate sense of detail that fuses subtle formal gestures with elemental materiality to produce sumptuous spaces that toy with our expectations of what architecture should be.

For the latest Studio Snapshot, Archinect connected with O'Brien to discuss the intellectual and cultural concepts that drive the practice and its work.

A Conversation with Katie Swenson On Rebuilding Trust Through the Design of Safe and Healthy Spaces

2020-04-08T09:00:00-04:00

The question of the architect's role within the community has continued to grow and change in recent years thanks, in part, to the work of dedicated individuals like Katie Swenson. Her involvement and leadership within organizations like Enterprise Community Partners and MASS Design Group have enabled her to help redirect architecture’s creative and generative energies towards fulfilling social and community goals through projects that include the creation of affordable housing and healthful spaces.

Archinect was able to chat with Swenson and learn about her journey from comparative literature to architecture, housing, and community development. In addition, Swenson discusses what it means to be a community architect in the COVID-19 era and how two fellowship opportunities changed the course of her professional career.

"I went in with the question,” Swenson tells Archinect, “‘how can love and kindness be tools for community development?’ I came out appreciating the broader implicati...

Deans List: Sarah Whiting on Taking The Helm of Harvard's Graduate School of Design

2019-12-10T13:23:00-05:00

Deans List is an interview series with the leaders of architecture schools, worldwide. The series profiles the school’s programs, pedagogical approaches, and academic goals, as defined by the dean–giving an invaluable perspective into the institution’s unique curriculum, faculty, and academic environment.

For this installment, Archinect spoke with Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard University. The school is home to over 900 students and offers an expansive set of programs and degrees at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and design studies. Whiting, who is a design principal and co-founder of WW Architecture arrived at GSD in July 2019. The last time we spoke to Dean Whiting, she was the Dean at Rice University.

We caught up with Whiting once again as she arrives at Harvard to discuss the school's reputation for years-long curric...

A Conversation With Jennifer Bonner: Architecture's Playful Provocateur of Practice and Pedagogy

2019-06-21T12:14:00-04:00

Understanding architectural practice and pedagogy is one thing; learning how to merge them together and challenge its idiosyncrasies is another. A name often associated with playful obscurity, Jennifer Bonner is a powerful force in the academic and practicing world of architecture. The Huntsville, Alabama native often thanks the city of Las Vegas for her interest in pursuing architecture, but owes much of her highly specific design aesthetic to her experience challenging design systems. Pulling influence and application from ordinary things outside of architecture, Bonner learned to embrace the every day in order to understand any object or task can be represented in architecture.

Pushing herself, her students, and the profession, Bonner continually finds ways to take risks and find new opportunities for discourse and disruption through playfulness and architectural representation. This week Archinect chats with Jennifer Bonner for an in-depth interview discussing the power of alter...

Architects. Educators. Sisters. The Boston-Based Duo French 2D Discusses How Blending Practice and Academia Through Exploration Creates Community and Change

2019-01-23T11:18:00-05:00

Through the power of self-funded, self-initiated projects, Anda and Jenny French use their passions in graphic design, academia, and architectural discourse to produce thought-provoking work. As a smaller design firm, the Boston-based duo, French 2D, champion the importance of autonomy and prototyping. As educators, both approach practice and academia by creating opportunities for people to be candid and critical, valuing conversations based on questions of "What is it?" and "Why is it?"

For this week's Studio Snapshot, the sisters talk with Archinect about the importance of preserving a sense of autonomy in their practice, stressing that their approach leans more towards that of an art collective than a traditional architectural firm. Further, Anda and Jenny go on to discuss how the future of architecture is changing as it relates to their involvement in academia and as women in the field.

Trying Something New with Matter Design

2017-04-10T09:00:00-04:00

This week on, Small Studio Snapshots, we talk with Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee of Matter Design - an interdisciplinary studio founded in 2008. Recent finalists of the 2017 AZ Awards, the duo discuss their love of taking on experimental projects, merging the design and making process, and even give us a little background on the history of the architecture studio.

Screen/Print #36: Harvard Design Magazine's "Well, Well, Well"

2015-08-14T10:32:00-04:00

“Well, Well, Well”, the fortieth issue from the Harvard Design Magazine, explores the tricky business of designing for health, and provokes considerations on the flip-side of neglecting to do so.