Studio Voltaire x The Architecture Foundation
Studio Voltaire and The Architecture Foundation present a series of talks which take the work of artist William Scott as a starting point to discuss wider concerns in architecture; including the roles of biography and cultural memory in citymaking, and the relationships between power, policy and place making.
The talks take place as part of the public programmes for Studio Voltaire’s survey exhibition of artist William Scott, and specifically address the artist’s extensive, ongoing urban planning project, Praise Frisco. In this work, Scott envisions that his hometown San Francisco will be ‘cancelled’ and replaced by a revived, utopian city modelled after his meticulous and detailed plans, imagining a radiant, artistically franchised city that combines references to resorts such as Disneyland with Baptist–sermon ideals. Scott often refers to himself as an architect or scientist rather than an artist, and much of his practice centres on the belief that better lives can, in part, be achieved by reimagining the built environment.
Part 2: The World and the City
Chaired by architect Nana Biamah-Ofosu, The World and the City brings together architects from the West Coast and the UK. David Ogunmuyiwa, founder of ‘Architecture Doing Place’, is unique in the UK having worked as a housing officer for social landlords including the London Boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, and Tower Hamlets before retraining as an architect. Michael Maltzan’s projects cross a wide range of typologies, from cultural institutions to city infrastructure, and include the Star Apartments for the Skid Row Housing Trust in Los Angeles, providing permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals.
About the contributors
Nana Biamah-Ofosu
Biamah-Ofosu is an architect and director of Studio NYALI, an architecture, research and design practice based in London. She combines practice with teaching at the Architecture Association in London and Kingston School of Art and has taught and lectured widely in the U.K and abroad, including as a guest critic at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Biamah-Ofosu was also part of the second cohort of New Architecture Writers and has since written articles for Architecture Today, the Architects’ Journal, Frame Magazine, ICON and Kinfolk, amongst others.
Michael Maltzan
Michael Maltzan founded Michael Maltzan Architecture, Inc. in 1995. His notable projects include the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, MoMA QNS, Star Apartments, the Pittman Dowell Residence, the new Sixth Street Viaduct, MIT Vassar Street Residential Hall, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery Inuit Art Centre.
Maltzan received an M.Arch from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and BFA and B.Arch degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and received the 2016 AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal. He is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award and was elected to the National Academy of Design in 2020. He currently serves on the Deans leadership council at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Visiting Committee to the GSD. He was featured in the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s 2019 film, What It Takes to Make a Home, delivered the 20th Annual John T. Dunlop Lecture for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, and his work was named One of the 25 Best Inventions of 2015 by Time Magazine.
Maltzan’s work has gained international acclaim for innovation in both design and construction. It has been recognized with five Progressive Architecture awards, 43 citations from local, state and national chapters of the American Institute of Architects, the Rudy Bruner Foundation’s Gold Medal for Urban Excellence, the Zumtobel Group Award for Innovations for Sustainability & Humanity in the Built Environment, and a 2020 Best of the Millennium AIA LA Honor Award.
David Ogunmuyiwa
David Ogunmuyiwa is founder of ‘Architecture Doing Place’, an architecture and urban design practice, who aim to produce beautiful buildings and spatial interventions from an immersion in the arts and contemporary architecture. The practice specialises in the arts, housing, and urban design and were recently named an Architect’s Journal ‘AJ100: Disruptor’ Practice and included in ‘New Architects 4’, the Architecture Foundation’s showcase of the best emerging practitioners operating in the UK.
Ogunmuyiwa has combined practice with teaching architecture to MArch level at a number of universities. He mentors widely including for the Royal College of Art practice mentors programme, Public Practice, as well as London School of Architecture students.
