Lola Sheppard and Mason White, “Undisciplined”

Every act of architecture is simultaneously a declaration and realignment of its disciplinarity. Architecture’s recent history seems best characterized by a dizzying swing from the project of autonomy to various forms of transgression. A centrifugal pull toward the discipline’s exterior, in the last decade, may have shifted the balance in favor of transgression and realigned the discipline’s center; but this extrinsic architecture remains ill defined. This talk by Lola Sheppard and Mason White will present methodology, or what they call “detective work,” and recent projects that attempt to locate and assert the undisciplined as a spatial practice. Sheppard is an associate professor at University of Waterloo. White is an associate professor at University of Toronto. Together, they are Lateral Office.

The work of Lateral Office has been exhibited in numerous venues across the United States and Canada, as well as Germany, Iceland, England, and the Faroe Islands, with clients and collaborators including the City of Memphis, City of Reykjavik, City of Toronto, Metis Garden, Harbourfront Centre, Culture and Heritage Nunavut, and Holcim Foundation among others. Lateral Office are co-authors of “Pamphlet Architecture: Coupling / Strategies for Infrastructural Opportunism” published by Princeton Architectural Press; and authors of the forthcoming book “Many Norths” published by Actar.

Lateral Office have been recognized with several awards and merits including: the 2012 Arctic Inspiration Prize; the 2011 Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Gold Award; and the 2011 Emerging Voices award from the Architectural League of New York. The firm was selected to represent Canada with a project called “Arctic Adaptations” at the 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture, where they received Special Mention – a first for Canada at the Architecture Biennale.

For accessibility accommodations, please contact the events office two weeks in advance at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

Additional Speakers: 3712

Lola Sheppard

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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