The lectures are being held at the Genevieve Fisk Loranger Architecture Center in the UD/M's School of Architecture's Warren Loranger Building on the McNichols campus near the corner of Livernois and McNichols in Detroit. All of the lectures will begin at 6 p.m. Further information can be obtained from the UD/M School of Architecture at (313) 993-1532.


About the Speakers -

Jae Chae

Born in New Delhi, India, Chae holds a master's degree in architecture from Yale University and established Light Inc. in 2000. She won her ar+d awards for her work in designing a 1,250 sq. ft. church for Urubo, a small village in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The church is made with local wood and translucent polycarbonate sheets that generate patterns of light and shadow within the structure. Planning took eight months but the church was built in only ten days by congregation members, local skilled workers, and volunteers from the U.S.

"Well planned public spaces that meet the needs of a community are often overlooked as a potential means to fight poverty," Chae says. "Charitable contributions may reduce need, but ending poverty requires developing sustainable methods and encouraging a web of community action."

Teddy Cruz

Guatamalan by birth, Cruz is an architectural graduate of Cal Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and assistant professor of architecture at Woodbury University's San Diego campus. He also holds a master's degree from the Harvard School of Design, and has gained a national reputation for his low income housing designs. He is adept at turning overlooked and unused space within a dense, urban neighborhood into a liveable, workable environment.

Three of his more noteworthy projects are in San Diego County in California.

• The Casa Familiar, in the city of San Ysidro, involved transforming a church into a community and residential center along with a public plaza and open air Mercado. "This project is showing that you can raise density without compromising privacy and open space, though the result may be semi-private and semi-public areas," Cruz says.
• La Maestra Family Clinic, in City Heights, is a small, non-profit health center serving African and Southeast Asian refugees as well as Latino immigrants. Ten old buildings are being recycled, with the spaces in-between them serving as walkways, outdoor waiting rooms, and play areas. Besides providing medical care, the clinic also hosts a job placement center.
• Housing Corridors, in San Diego, is a plan prepared by Cruz for addressing urban sprawl with a mixed-use project that integrates housing, jobs, and the community. Cruz has received two AIA awards for this effort.

Peter Pfau

Pfau's first exposure to the profession of architecture transpired during a brief sojourn in the construction trades in San Francisco, Calif. Trained as an artist during his youth, he eventually received a B.A. degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley. After several years of work in the field, he moved to New York, N.Y., and earned a master's degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1984. Remaining in that city for the next two years, he won competitions and prepared exhibitions while working for the Design Collaborative and Architectural Studio.

Returning to the Bay area in 1986, Pfau became a partner in the then newly formed firm of Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones. During its six years of existence the firm won numerous architectural awards. Pfau established his own practice, Pfau Architecture, in 1991. His ongoing activities include that of adjunct professor at the California College of Arts & Crafts, work as a founder of the Art & Architecture Exhibition Space (2AES), and frequent participation in design competition.

A recently completed project designed by Pfau Architecture is the 30,000 sq. ft. expansion of the Lick-Wilmerding High School, a non-profit college preparatory. Among its many innovative features is a student lounge that draws its electricity from a bank of windmills.

Michelle Fornabai

A graduate of Cornelle University, Fornabai achieved a master's degree in architecture from Princeton University in 1992. Currently she serves as an adjunct professor of architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and is active with Ambo.Infra Design, Boston, Mass.

Fornabai is listed on the web site newenglandfilm.com as providing film production design, set design, construction drawings, and art direction for film makers. She has been involved in several films and video projects and served as a film director for "Phobic Sited," an Urban Forum Film Project for the Whitney Museum/Rockefeller Foundation.

Thom Faulders

Having recently exhibited his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Faulders established Beige Design in 1998 with the idea of being able to move fluidly between architecture and the design of environments, furniture, and exhibits. He has received awards from the American Institute of Architects and others for both hypothetic and built projects.

Prior to founding his firm, Faulders worked for the conceptual architectural and theorist group Superstudio in Italy. He received an advanced diploma in architecture after that experience from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is currently an adjunct professor of architecture at the California College of Arts and Crafts and, in addition to San Francisco, his work has also been exhibited at the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna.

"(N)on-rectilinear space has been with us forever," Faulders said in a recent interview, "from a simple cave to the Baroque. Thinking of rectilinear space as a given is a mistake. (Rectilinearity) does make complete sense from an economic and structural perspective, due to the nature of gravity. A vertical wall is simply the most straightforward way to transfer a load from above, to the ground plane. That being said, architecture and the formation of space and cities is also built upon so many more issues than function."