Return - The Bartlett International Lectures

About

Streamed live on The Bartlett School of Architecture's YouTube channel, this event will be a discussion between host Frederic Migayrou and speaker Mae-ling Lokko.

This event forms part of The Bartlett International Lectures Spring 2022.

This spring, each of the International Lectures will be curated by various of the school's programmes to inspire, invent, imagine, and provoke. This event is curated by Architectural Computation MSc/MRes and Architecture & Digital Theory MRes.

Abstract

Return

Coined by the cyberneticist and ethno mathematician, Ron Eglash, 'generative justice' emerged as a twenty-first century framework for the bottom-up creation and circulation of unalienated value. Using emerging biopolymer material technologies, ranging from post-agricultural waste to fungal mycelium, this lecture will explore the emerging agency of architects and designers in 'returning' - patiently cycling and returning value back to their generation mechanisms. 

Speaker biography

Mae-ling Lokko is an educator, architectural scientist and biomaterials technology researcher from Ghana and the Philippines, whose work centres on the development of biopolymer materials. Her research integrates a broad range of criteria that questions contemporary material-value systems to evolve life cycle design to meet generative justice goals. Mae-ling holds a Ph.D. and Masters of Science in Architectural Science from the Center from Architecture, Science and Ecology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and B.A from Tufts University. Lokko is the founder of Willow Technologies, Ltd. based in Accra, Ghana that transforms agrowaste into affordable biobased building materials and for water quality treatment applications. Lokko’s recent work has exhibited globally at Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture (2021), Sonsbeek Biennial (2021), Somerset House, London (2020), Triennale Milano (2020), and Radialsystem, Berlin (2019). Her work has been featured in Blueprint, Frieze Magazine, RIBA Journal, DOMUS, DAMN Magazine and other global design publications. 

Image: Threshold of Return, Photo credit: Selma Gurbuz.