Florida State University and UCLA share resources to create a new history of Indigenous thatch work architecture in the Americas

2023-05-26T12:00:00-04:00

A new project led by Florida State University associate professor Paul Niell is working to retrace the lineage of thatch work architectures used by different African and Indigenous diaspora groups throughout the Americas in the hopes of documenting and preserving their impact on history for future generations of scholars.

Niell teaches Caribbean art and architectural history in the school’s College of Fine Arts with a focus on the architecture and cultural landscapes of the Hispanophone Caribbean in the late-18th and early-19th centuries.

Recently, he coordinated with UCLA associate professor Stella Nair, several graduate students, and representatives of different Indigenous groups to organize a three-part conference titled “Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds,” that provided a framework for further study into the vernacular domestic structures that predominated in both regions.

A modern examp...

Blind architect kicks off new FSU Master Lecture Series

2020-01-13T14:24:00-05:00

To kick off the inaugural Master Lecture Series put on by the Florida State University College of Fine Arts in collaboration with Florida A&M University School of Architecture and Engineering and the Tallahassee chapter of the AIA, Chris Downey will be speaking.

Downey is a San Francisco-based architect who lost his eyesight after undergoing brain surgery to remove a benign tumor that was pressing against his optic nerve back in 2008. The architect will speak on how the loss of sight gave hum a unique perspective on how people with disabilities experience the built environment, FSU writes.

Since losing his sight, Downey has been working on architectural projects for the visually impaired, combining 20 years of experience and using it as a force to triumph over this unfortunate event in his life. "When faces with a personal tragedy, rather than giving up on himself and his work, he chose to reinvent how architecture is done and experienced," said Rhonda Hammond, president of the AIA...

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Florida State University and UCLA share resources to create a new history of Indigenous thatch work architecture in the Americas

Blind architect kicks off new FSU Master Lecture Series