Join HCCC for a series of six speaking events designed to provide a forum for Houston’s rich dialogue on urban development. Held in conjunction with the SPRAWL exhibition this fall, the series features a variety of notable individuals from city, county, academic, architecture, and urban planning backgrounds.
Like the exhibition, the speaker series addresses three main topics, “Infrastructure of Expansion,” “Survey, Plan, Build,” and “Aftereffects,” which loosely define the phases of urban growth. To supplement the art works in the show, the series aims to create a cross-disciplinary dialogue to address the complex issues raised by the exhibition and generate public discussion.
Thomas Colbert
Associate Professor at the Gerald D. Hines
College of Architecture, University of Houston
Practicing architect and planner, Thomas Colbert, is an associate professor at the University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture. His interests include research into architecture and the modern city, especially the cultural, technological, and environmental forces that shape the built environment and the dialogue between building and place. His recent work dealt with the preparation and evaluation of design responses to the threat of climate change and extreme weather events. Working with environmental and coastal scientists, as well as civil and environmental engineers, Colbert’s research anticipates the transformations of the upper Texas Gulf Coast and the development of place-based, multi-functional infrastructure and urbanism. His work has been widely published and presented at numerous national and international conferences. Colbert holds a B.A. in architecture and urban planning from Princeton University and a graduate degree in architecture from the University of Cambridge.
Susan Rogers
Director of the Community Design Resource Center and
Assistant Professor of the University of Houston’s College of Architecture
Susan Rogers is Director of the Community Design Resource Center (CDRC) at the University of Houston’s College of Architecture and an assistant professor. Her work focuses on design as a strategy for community change and explores the seams between design, justice and the public interest. She is the co-author of “An Architecture of Change,” the introduction to Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford. Her work has been published in Urban Design International,Places Journal, ArtLies, Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston, and, most recently, her essay, “Strategrams,” was published in the fifth volume of the Urban Infillseries, Diagrammatically.
Click here to see the full event schedule and speaker biographies. All events take place at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and are free and open to the public.
The SPRAWL Speaker Series was made possible in part through the City’s Initiative Grant Program of the Houston Arts Alliance.
Above: Sara Pfau, “Semaphore Line with Moving Arms (brooch),” 2010. Sterling silver, copper, brass, 14kt gold, plastic, oil paint. 4.5 x 2.5 x 0.5 inches. Photo by Sara Pfau
