The American Institute of Architects and Lucifer Lighting will host a lecture by Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 7, 2016. Followed by a reception, the lecture will be located at the Coral Casino, 1260 Channel Drive in Montecito.
Titled “Building Between,” the lecture will be a discussion of Blackwell’s architecture and design process. Through his examples of selected design works from his firm, Blackwell will demonstrate how ideas and actions are generated from careful observations of intersections of nature- and culture-made conditions particular to an architectural situation.
Blackwell’s sustainable design principles are the focal point of his professional practice and are evidence in how resilient architecture can be achieved through the interplay between details, form and habitat.
Blackwell’s environmentally responsive projects have received recognition both nationally and internationally.
In 2015, Marlon Blackwell Architects was selected by Architect magazine for the Architect 50, ranking No. 7 in design and No. 36 overall in the national survey of architecture firms.
Marlon Blackwell Architects is the recipient of the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in architecture and was recognized as the Firm of the Year by Residential Architect Magazine.
Extensive experience, leadership and passion for academic education have driven Blackwell to teach his architecture and design process at collegiate level.
In 1994, Blackwell co-founded the University of Arkansas’ Mexico Summer Urban Studio, and he has coordinated and taught in the program at the Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City since 1996.
Through his continuing work at the University of Arkansas, Blackwell has co-taught design studios with Peter Eisenman, Christopher Risher and Julie Snow and has been named one of Design Intelligence magazine’s “30 Most Admired Educators” for 2015.
Blackwell’s significant contributions to architecture and design have been recognized many times, his most notable accolades being the United States Artists Ford Fellow 2014 and being selected for the 2012 Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Other honors include the publication of a monograph of his early work entitled An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2005, and being selected as an “Emerging Voice” in architecture in 1998 by the Architectural League of New York.
Recently, Blackwell was invited to contribute to the architecture section of the Venice Biennale for an installation entitled “Reporting from the Front.”
Blackwell and his staff worked on a piece created with the ideas of transformation, reverence and irreverence, inspired by Arkansas, nature and the spirit of music.
The piece demonstrates the transformation of the land and the change embedded in the land. It is on view until Nov. 27, 2016.
The internationally recognized architect has made a significant contribution to design by working outside the architectural mainstream.
Currently serving as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture + Design at the University of Arkansas, Blackwell focuses on strategies that seek to transgress conventional architectural boundaries, drawing upon vernaculars, typologies and contradictions of a place to develop a language through architecture that contributes to the fundamental civic dignity of communities.
Reservations for Blackwell’s lecture are required. Contact AIA’s executive director, Tara Rizzi for additional information.
— Tara Rizzi is the executive director of AIA Santa Barbara.