Colloqate and MODU

Join us for lectures by two 2019 Emerging Voices.

Colloqate was founded in 2017 by Bryan C. Lee, Jr. and Sue Mobley. The New Orleans-based firm describes itself as “a multidisciplinary nonprofit design justice practice focused on expanding community access to, and building power through, the design of public, civic, and cultural spaces.” Recent projects include Design Justice, a multi-pronged initiative to address
injustice in the built environment, and Claiborne Cultural Innovation District, a 19-block transformation of space beneath an elevated expressway.

After several years of collaborating as solo practitioners, Phu Hoang and Rachely Rotem launched Brooklyn firm MODU in 2012. Much of their work addresses climate change through a design approach Hoang and Rotem describe as “indoor urbanism.” They write: “Architecture is not simply the middle scale of the built environment, but the space where the urban and interior scales intersect. Merging these two opposing scales prompts the borders around architecture to recede, which can change everyday attitudes about the environment.” Recent projects include the plaza pavilions Outdoor Room in Shanghai and Cloud Seeding in Tel Aviv, both of which draw attention to the movement and condition of the cities’ air quality.

Moderator Lisa Tziona Switkin is a senior principal at Field Operations and serves on the board of the Landscape Architecture Foundation. She was a member of this year’s Emerging Voices jury.