50th Anniversary Lecture Series, Conversation 1

This conversation is the first of 6 conversations. The series will stage conversations around the different areas of the Waterloo Architecture curriculum with one broad ambition: Questioning the canon: In a world of unprecedented possibilities and unforeseen brutalities, what can architectural education do?

The first conversation is themed around “Environment and Technology” and asks: "Within a more-than-human world, how can the study of building technology interrogate the appropriateness of technology itself?” 
The first conservation will feature Marc Simmons and Kiel Moe.

Kiel Moe is a registered practicing architect and Associate Professor of Architecture & Energy in the Department of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is also Director of the Energy, Environments, and Design research unit at the GSD. His research and pedagogy reckons with the standing epistemological limitations of energy discourse and methods in architecture, and offers alternatives through design research, pedagogy and practice. Moe received a B.Arch from the University of Cincinnati, the M.Arch from University of Virginia, and the M.Des in Design and Environmental Studies from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design Advanced Studies Program. He taught previously at Syracuse University where he was also associated with the Syracuse Center of Energy and Environmental Excellence. Before that, he was the Herbert S. Greenwald Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago. 

Marc Simmons is a founding partner of Front Inc., a design and façade engineering firm that engages in numerous aspects of the architectural design industry, including façade consulting, system design, energy analysis, procurement and project management services, as well as the authorship of its own design work. He held the position of the Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology from 2012 through 2017. He has also formerly taught at the Princeton University School of Architecture and Columbia University School of Architecture, and holds both Bachelor of Environmental Studies and professional Bachelor of Architecture degrees from the University of Waterloo, Canada. His specialist façade knowledge and experience in custom curtain wall and hybrid cladding system design is built upon previous work at Foster and Partners, Meinhardt Façade Technology, and the structural glass & façade consulting group at Dewhurst Macfarlane & Partners in New York. 

View the poster.