Kripa and Mueller's lecture will be conducted through Zoom. Please register in advance here. Zoom account registration is required.

Kripa and Mueller direct AGENCY, a design and research practice which leverages spatial design and spatial information to counteract nascent forms of global and urban insecurity. From the practice’s position on the US–Mexico border, AGENCY’s work reveals and enacts emerging publics. Working in protracted, conflictual contexts, the practice consistently shifts the narrative, developing targeted methods to identify, appropriate, and subvert subperceptual urban and atmospheric events that violate human rights. AGENCY’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, the Venice Biennale, the Berlin Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, and the Richmond Art Center.

The talk will discuss excerpts from Kripa and Mueller's recent book, FRONTS: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World (AR+D, 2020). The book compiles original urban research and analysis, revealing a growing geography of codependence between the global security complex and the urban morphologies of the developing world which it increasingly incriminates. Military doctrine has dramatically shifted its position, viewing the world’s cities as suspect sites of potential aggression. As military training sites simulate physical replicas of urban environments, they provide a lens through which we can understand the shape of the city to come. 

The lecture will be followed by a public live discussion including Nora Akawi as respondent.

Ersela Kripa is an Assistant Professor and Acting Director at Texas Tech College of Architecture (CoA) – El Paso, and Director of Projects at POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies), a CoA research center. Ersela is an editorial board member of the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) and the International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC). Ersela is a registered architect and founding partner of AGENCY. Her awards include the Rome Prize in Architecture and the Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, among others. Ersela holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP.

Stephen Mueller is a Research Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University College of Architecture (CoA) and Director of Research at POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies), a CoA research center. Stephen is a registered architect and founding partner of AGENCY. His awards include the Rome Prize in Architecture and the Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, and the 2019 GSAPP Incubator Prize from Columbia University among others. Stephen holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP.

This remote lecture and discussion is free and accessible to the public.

View the full Fall 2020 Lectures and Events List.