Transient Spaces Panel Discussion

Lecture description:

This panel discussion focuses on the themes presented in Transient Spaces book publication, a curated collection of essays and projects about the impact that mass migration is having on cities around the world. The book examines transience as a force of opportunity and resilience in the design of cities.

Transient Spaces is edited by Loukia Tsafoulia, Suzan Wines and Samantha Ong. It is published by the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York. 

The panel discussion addresses crucial issues of inclusion and exclusion, that architecture and the built environment construct and addresses the need for a major transformation in how we view the phenomenon of mass migration. 

Lecturer bios:

Sean Anderson, Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art. Sean Anderson is Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art. He has practiced as an architect and taught in Afghanistan, Australia, India, Italy, Morocco, Sri Lanka and the U.A.E. His second book, In-Visible Colonies: Modern Architecture and its Representation in Colonial Eritrea(2015) was nominated for an AIFC Book Prize in Non-Fiction. At MoMA, he has organized the exhibitions Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter (2016-17),Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959-89(2017-18) and manages the Young Architects Program (YAP) as well as the Issues in Contemporary Architecture series, with the next exhibition, Reconstructions, opening in October 2020.

Deen Sharp, LSE Fellow, Geography and the Environment, London School of Economics and Politics Science Deen Sharp, PhD, is an LSE Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science in Geography and the Environment. He was previously a Fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-director of Terreform, Center for Advanced Urban Research, and. He is the co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings(Urban Research: 2016) and Open Gaza(American University in Cairo Press and Terreform: 2020). His most recent article was published in Progress in Human Geography "Difference as practice: Diffracting geography and the area studies turn". He is currently working on the book provisionally entitled Capitalizing Urbanization: Between the Future and Survival in the Global Middle East for the University of California Press. Previously, he was a freelance journalist and consultant based in Lebanon. He has written for a number of publications, including, Jadaliyya, Portal 9,MERIP,Arab Studies Journal and the Guardian. He has worked for several UN agencies, including UNDP and UN-Habitat, governments and international NGOs. 

Loukia Tsafoulia, is cofounder of the PLB Studio architecture and research practice and Assistant Professor at the College of Architecture and the Built Environment, Thomas Jefferson University where she has cofounded and codirects the Synesthetic Research and Design Lab. She is also the co-editor for the book publication Transient Spaces. Situated at the intersection of historical inquiry and critical practice, her research is examining transiency in its various social and tectonic expressions. Focusing on the computational theory of design, she explores the relationships between performative environments and scientific cybernetic experiments during the 1950-70. She has developed, taught and coordinated design studios, labs and seminars at the cross section of humanities, technology and design at Pratt Institute, at Parsons The New School, at CUNY, the Spitzer School of Architecture and at NYC College of Technology. Her work has been exhibited in international design venues and she has presented her research in a series international conferences and in academic institutions in US East Coast, Athens, Madrid and various cities of China.

Suzan Wines, founding partner at I-Beam Design and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York. Suzan Wines is an architect and founding partner at I-Beam Design, an award-winning architecture and design firm based in New York City. She is also studio director and project architect at SITE-James Wines, LLC, and has served as New York correspondent to Domus Magazine. She has taught at The Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design and is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College. I-Beam's projects have been featured in numerous international books and publications, and exhibited at the Milan Architecture Triennale, the Venice Biennale, Salone del Mobile, Milan, Prince Charles' Royal Gardens, London, Grade European Center for Culture, Belgrade, Boston Architectural Center, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and AIA New York Center for Architecture.