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This episode features Elena Manferdini, the recipient of the ICON award at the 2019 LA Design Festival. This interview was recorded at the event at Row DTLA. Elena is the Graduate Chair at Sci-Arc and principal of Atelier Manferdini. Elena’s striking exuberance, charisma, and rigor is completely evident in her work, which ranges in scale from product design, to graphic facades and entire buildings. Her process often incorporates cutting edge technology as an integral part of the design, and she even includes augmented reality features in the work. Having grown up in Italy and received a degree in engineering before studying architecture at UCLA, Elena combines her skills and sensibilities as an artist, architect, and engineer to produce stunning, award-winning works. I really enjoyed speaking with Elena, and admire her even more after our wonderfully candid and intellectual conversation.

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What I admire about Rachel Allen is the pragmatic, intelligent, and unapologetically hard-working ethos that she brings to her work.  As founding principal of RADAR (Rachel Allen Development Architecture Research Inc.), her success relies upon her ability to understand the viewpoints of people she’s working with in order to communicate effectively and harness the strengths of her team.  The pay off of RADAR’s hard work is evident in their growing project list, such as their role as Design Architect on the competition-winning team for the Pershing Square Renew project.  Additionally, RADAR has been building up a multi-family housing project portfolio, and in this interview, Rachel tells me more about how she was able to go from working on a 6 unit project, to a project with over 200 units. 
In addition to talking about her practice, Rachel and I touch upon her experiences growing up in and establishing babysitting and parenting cooperatives, as well as her experiences as a Rome Prize recipient and former Gehry Partners employee.  

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In episode 20, we’re putting the “LA” in XX|LA by speaking with an architect who is also a film maker!  Mina Chow is an architect and professor at the USC School of Architecture. She is also the director, producer, and star of the documentary “Face of a Nation: What Happened to the World’s Fair?”  The film is about Mina’s journey as an idealistic architect and daughter of immigrants, as she discovers why America abandoned World’s Fairs.  Michael Sorkin calls it an “urgently dispiriting but ultimately tender and optimistic film”.  This is a description I agree with wholeheartedly.  To learn more, visit www.faceofanationmovie.com  or see the film for yourself!

On March 20, Women in Architecture committee is hosting a screening at the Helms Bakery Design Center.

WiA “World’s Fair” Film Screening

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I’m fascinated by architects who work in interdisciplinary and collaborative ways, and my latest guests bridge architecture and dance in a fascinating way!  In this episode, I speak with Rennie Tang and Sara Wookey, the artists and creators behind Punt.Point.  Punt.Point was commissioned by the Van Abbe Museum in 2013 and acquired for their permanent collection in 2018.  Rennie and Sara are practitioners who come from architecture and dance backgrounds respectively, with training and interest in each others’ disciplines.  They met in Los Angeles and started collaborating locally, on projects at venues like the Hammer Museum and Grand Park.  

Rennie Tang is a designer and educator based in Los Angeles. As associate professor of landscape architecture at California Polytechnic State University Pomona, her teaching methods emphasize one-to-one scale spatial construction, topographic manipulation and material exploration. She is recipient of the 2017 Excellence in Design Studio Teaching Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). Her collaborative work with choreographers, artists and occupational therapists supports her research focus on human mobility in urban landscapes.

Sara Wookey is an American dance artist based in London. She creates choreographic works within local, national and international venues including theaters, museums and outdoor spaces. As part of her practice, she is a public speaker and writer known for her stewardship of dance as a recognized and valuable art form, particularly, in museum settings. The founding director of Wookey Works, a production company offering services to cultural organizations, academic institutions and civic agencies, Sara is interested in the social potential of dance across sectors and in our contemporary moment. She is a certified transmitter of Yvonne Rainer’s repertoire and is a Tate Learning Research Associate. 

Images are provided courtesy of Wookey Works and Rennie Tang, and are copyright protected.

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Irma Ramirez is a professor in the architecture department and director of the China Study Abroad program at Cal Poly Pomona. Her accolades include the NCARB Grand Prize, National Lynton Citation for Distinguished Engaged Scholarship for the Habitat 21 Sustainable Settlements Project in Tijuana with Corazon, and awards from the American Planning Association and American Institute of Certified Planners and Environmental Design Research Association for work in the China program. She also recently brought a group of Cal Poly Pomona students into Augustus Hawkins High School to teach ninth graders about architecture and urban planning.
What I admire most about Irma is that she really pushes herself and her students to grow through uncomfortable new experiences and interdisciplinary thinking.