This post is brought to you by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis an Archinect School Partner

In architecture today, nothing is what it seems. Familiar outputs in the form of drawings, models, and photographs are now produced through sophisticated digital tools and techniques. And though these products of electronic imaging may seem like replicas of their predecessors, they are in fact something entirely new.

So argues Constance Vale, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. From October 24-26, Vale will convene Decoys & Depictions: Images of the Digital, a symposium exploring how digital images are constructed; the implications for how architects and artists operate; and the potential effects within social and political realms.

“Decoys are objects that share characteristics with images,” Vale said. “Depictions are images that have the qualities of objects.” Yet, unlike traditional representations, both decoys and depictions are primarily shaped by hidden matrixes of informational formats, frameworks, and data sets. “They are attuned to the visual world for only a fraction of their existence,” she added.

For architects and artists, Vale said, these new data-driven modes raise important questions.

“How can a deeper understanding of electronic imaging and the ongoing technological developments therein reshape how we design and build?” she asked. “How might we reconsider conventional methods of display in relation to the circulation of images through social networking and web-based media?

“How can examining images closely change how we structure design pedagogy?”

Schedule & Registration

Presented by the Sam Fox School’s College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, Decoys & Depictions will investigate the effects of digital imaging on contemporary practice through lectures, panel sessions, and exhibitions. The more than two dozen participants will include Sam Fox School architecture and art faculty as well as visiting architects from across the country.

Highlights of the symposium include keynote lectures by Nader Tehrani, dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union in New York (October 25), and Brett Steele, dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in Los Angeles (October 26). Panel sessions will focus on “Image Frames,” “Image Fictions,” “Image Formats,” and “Image Accumulations.”

All lectures and panels will take place in Anabeth and John Weil Hall, the Sam Fox School’s new facility for cross-disciplinary study. Events will be livestreamed via the symposium website.

Three related exhibitions, curated and designed by Vale, will open in conjunction with the symposium.

The first of these, at the Sam Fox School’s Des Lee Gallery in downtown St. Louis, will feature projects by more than 30 architects and artists—the majority of whom are participants in the conference proceedings.

Included are works from O-S-A, Current Interests, Young & Ayata, Amanda Bowles, FreelandBuck, Michelle JaJa Chang, Somewhere Studio, Sage Dawson, Design Earth, Jonathan Hanahan, Amy Hauft, Derek Hoeferlin Design, Petra Kempf, Axi:Ome, Ruy Klein, Medium Architecture, MILLIØNS, Emiliano López Mónica Rivera Arquitectos, Architecture Office, WOJR, Patricia Olynyk, EXTENTS, Tim Portlock, Jack Risley, Curtis Roth, RUR, Buzz Spector, P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S, Jonathan Stitelman, NADAAA, Hans Tursack, The Factory of Smoke & Mirrors, Van Dyck Murphy Studio, and Ultramoderne.

The exhibition will open October 24 and remain on view through November 16.

Other exhibitions will feature work by WashU architecture students, as well as highlight holdings from the permanent collection of the School’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, including examples by Sophie Calle, Nick Cave, Trevor Paglen, Kiki Smith, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

All events are free and open to the public, but registration to the symposium is requested. For a complete schedule, visit decoysanddepictions.samfoxschool.wustl.edu.

Symposium Organizer

Constance Vale is an assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Vale directs The Factory of Smoke and Mirrors, an experimental research practice that undertakes aesthetic and conceptual investigations in the territory between architecture, art, and theatre. Her work has been exhibited at the A+D Museum and published in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects, the Los Angeles Times, Archinect, and CLOG. In 2015, Vale collaborated with Emmett Zeifman to complete a temporary pavilion in downtown Los Angeles for the experimental opera Hopscotch. She is coauthoring the forthcoming Graham Foundation-supported book Mute Icons, with Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich. She has practiced at nationally and internationally recognized offices in Los Angeles, New York City, and her hometown of Pittsburgh, and previously taught at SCI-Arc and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Keynote Speakers

Nader Tehrani is the dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union and principal of NADAAA, a practice dedicated to the advancement of design innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and an intensive dialogue with the construction industry. He was previously a professor of architecture at MIT, where he served as head of the department from 2010-2014. Tehrani’s work has been recognized with notable awards, including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture (2007), the United States Artists Fellowship in Architecture and Design, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture. Throughout his career, Tehrani has received eighteen Progressive Architecture Awards as well as numerous AIA, BSA, and ID awards. Over the past six years, NADAAA has consistently ranked as a top design firm in Architect magazine’s Top 50 U.S. firms list.

Brett Steele (AA DIPL, HON FRIBA, FRSA) was appointed dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in August 2017. A teacher, writer, and recognized leader in arts and architecture education—as well as a leading voice on architecture and urbanism—he is a frequent lecturer, presenter, and critic at universities, cultural centers, and offices worldwide. Steele’s academic experience and scholarly interests focus on the modern and contemporary conditions of arts education and culture, and he has written extensively on the expansive circumstances of today’s electronic, computational design studios. Prior to his appointment at UCLA Arts, Steele was the director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he led a decade-long transformation and expansion of one of the world’s most renowned schools of architecture.