Landscapes in Dialogue Lecture Series 2024/25

The emergence of Generative AI tools has been transformative in many sectors. How will these impact the design of the built environment? This talk will explore how Generative AI tools are being used by urban design practitioners, and the benefits and limitations of these (developing) technologies.

Juliana Martins is Associate Professor (Teaching) in Urban Design at The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. Prior to joining UCL, she worked as an architect, urban designer and policy adviser. Her areas of expertise include urban design, planning education, and the spatiality of work.     

Pei-Chin Lin is an experienced designer with over a decade in architecture, urban design, and computational design. He spent seven years at Arup in London, where he led efforts in developing parametric and AI-driven design approaches. Pei-Chin has worked on projects globally, covering regions across America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Australasia. He has also been a guest lecturer in the UK, Taiwan, and South Africa. Additionally, he collaborated with the Willypodia research group on the urban study project Parasitic Temple (published in 2017).

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Ken Smith’s work is mostly urban and in the public realm, often addressing complex sites and programs.  He doesn’t believe in the idea of tabula rasa. Every site has context and history embedded with cultural and ecological memory. He is committed to designing inclusive and sustainable public spaces that are essential for creating healthy urban environments and meaningful places for human life and culture. His recent projects have grown in scale and complexity, functioning as green infrastructure and having greater impact on public space. He always approaches his work as an art form. His lecture will explore how sees his work being art in the service of place, social purpose and environmental health.

Ken Smith explores the relationship between art, contemporary culture, and the environment.  He is committed to creating landscapes and public spaces that improve the quality of urban life. He holds professional degrees from Iowa State University and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Ken SmithWorkshop, founded in 1992, is based in New York City. Smith has served as an adjunct professor at City College of New York and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He is widely published in both popular and academic press. He is a board member of the Architectural League of New York and the Landscape Architecture CEO Roundtable and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. 

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The ambition of Landscapes of Extraction is to illustrate the need to eliminate the ‘arbitrary’ geopolitical lines that keep a region from operating as it should/does. By identifying shared resources, infrastructure, and cultural similarities via new methods of representation, the work visually demonstrates the gradients that exist between nations and how territories perform, thus allowing us to move past our Cartesian understanding of space and begin to discuss alternative political and economic systems that embrace inclusion and diversity.

Mitesh Dixit is an architect, political geographer and founder of DOMAIN Office. Dixit is a Visiting Associate Professor at The Pratt School of Architecture and a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Politecnico di Torino. He has taught at the TU Delft in the Netherlands, The Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs and the School of Architecture at Syracuse University, the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, N. Macedonia, and Columbia University’s GSAPP. Dixit's work has been presented internationally, including at the Venice Architectural Biennale, Franc Centre Museum, The National University of Singapore, Chicago Architectural Biennale, Delft University of Technology, and the Bioskop Balkan in Belgrade, have been published in numerous publications, including Domus, Contour, Metropolis, Prostor, TAD Journal, and Wallpaper.

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Hugh Conway Morris will present some ideas on the ability, or obligation, of architects to return to the origin of their materials, and hence of their designs: in an age of striving to reduce its environmental impact, an obvious route is to look to traditional craft and practice, honed before cheap energy was widely available.  Hugh's craft is carpentry, particularly heavy oak-framed buildings.  In working to understand the full process and context of this ancient tradition, he has moved back to the woods themselves, sourcing timber and underwood and learning the craft “on the tools”.  His understanding of woodsmanship and building gives him hope that humans can positively impact the natural landscapes of their surroundings and seek to build a sustainable life.

After this session the The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings will be sharing information of their SPAB Scholarship programme.

Hugh Conway Morris studied architecture at Sheffield University, before moving to Hungary and Transylvania to work as designer and carpenter for the Organic school around Imre Makovecz.  On returning to England he qualified as a conservation-accredited architect with Nick Cox Architects, and worked on the tools as an oak framer for McCurdy & Co., builders of the Globe Theatre.  Hugh now runs his own multi-disciplinary practice, Manifest, based in rural Gloucestershire, working on historic conservation, and designing and constructing natural building projects, with much time spent in his ancient woodland on the hazel coppice.  Hugh is also a specialist lime-burner, and works closely with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings on various teaching and research projects.

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