Events

Lecture by Giulia Ricci (About:)

 768 1024 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Giulia Ricci, architectural journalist and deputy editor of Italian architecture magazine “About:”, will be joining us for a lecture on Tuesday, March 24th, at 5:00 pm. In her talk, titled New Ecologies of Architectural Publishing, Giulia explores how architecture circulates today. For more than a century, architectural magazines have shaped the discipline by selecting projects, framing debates, and structuring the narratives through which architecture becomes visible. Today, however, this model is undergoing a profound transformation. In an era of distributed media and post-digital networks, architectural publishing is expanding beyond the traditional format of the magazine into a broader ecosystem of platforms, institutions, and global collaborations.

photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi. Thanks to PoliMI · Centro Sportivo Mario Giuriati
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi. Thanks to PoliMI · Centro Sportivo Mario Giuriati
photo © Visual Hub Audio & Video Hearst Italia, Matteo Bianchi. Thanks to PoliMI · Centro Sportivo Mario Giuriati

Giulia Ricci is a journalist specializing in architecture. Since 2024, she has served as Deputy Editor of About:, a global platform dedicated to architecture. For more than a decade, she has written on architecture across books and journals, with contributions to publications such as OASE, Rassegna, and Domus, where she has held the role of architecture editor from 2018 to 2024. She has moderated and delivered public lectures and conversations with leading figures in the field, among them Norman Foster and Francis Kéré. She serves as an advisor to international awards such as the EUmies Awards, the European Collective Housing Award, and the Italian Architecture Prize. She studied architecture at IUAV University of Venice, Politecnico di Milano, and KU Leuven.
www.aboutplatform.com

Lecture by Jesús Granada

 1024 993 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Jesús Granada, architect and architectural photographer from Spain, in-house photographer of renowned “El Croquis” magazine, will be joining us for a lecture on Tuesday, March 17th, at 5:00 pm. In his talk, titled Context, Construction, and Ideas, Jesús Granada will explore three major concepts around which most of his photographic practice orbits: context (where the work is built), construction (and its logic), and ideas (which formalize the project). He will do so by tracing 25 years of practice across more than 40 countries.

RCR Arquitectes, Dar al Marefa in Dubai. Photo © Jesús Granada
Álvaro Siza, Capela do Monte in Mallorca, Spain. Photo © Jesús Granada

Jesús Granada is a Spanish architectural photographer based in Seville. Trained as an architect at the University of Seville, he has spent 25 years documenting architecture across more than 40 countries. Since 2018 he has served as the in-house photographer for El Croquis, collaborating on monographs with architects including Álvaro Siza, David Chipperfield, Eduardo Souto de Moura, and RCR Arquitectes. His work has been published in over 50 countries. He has lectured at institutions in Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico.
www.jesusgranada.com

Lecture by Pascal Flammer

 813 1024 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Pascal Flammer, architect based in Zurich, Switzerland, will be joining us for a lecture on Tuesday, February 3rd, at 5:00 pm. His talk, titled Buildings, Mostly: Then and Now, will will trace a selection of projects developed over the past twenty years, reflecting the evolution of his architectural position.

Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu
Pascal Flammer, House in Balsthal. Photo © Ioana Marinescu

Pascal Flammer is an architect based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he established his practice in 2005 after several years of collaborating with Valerio Olgiati. Flammer’s work encompasses private and educational buildings as well as communal housing.
He has held teaching positions at prestigious institutions worldwide, such as Harvard, ETH Zürich, Princeton, and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Currently, he is visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lately, his work has focused on community building in both small-scale and urban contexts. A second focus is on sustainable constructions that simultaneously create spaces with a strong identity.
www.pascalflammer.com

Lecture by Evangelos Kotsioris

 1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Evangelos Kotsioris, Assistant Curator in Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, will lecture on Tuesday 11 November at 5:30 pm.

The lecture is part of the University by Design event series — coproduced by the Architecture Programs of the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University in Florence, California State University International Programs Italy and Kent State University Florence — which focuses on the topic of studying architecture abroad. This collaborative forum will consist of two public lectures aimed at reimagining the collective educational space and proposing innovative models for contemporary practice.

Titled The (Secret) Life of Architecture, Evangelos Kotsioris’s talk will expand on the notion that architecture does not end at completion. Buildings gain meaning through the lives that unfold within them—the daily rituals, improvised uses, and personal attachments that animate space. Can exhibitions become tools not only for conveying the intentions of architects, but also for revealing the lived afterlives of buildings? Drawing on recent curatorial research and displays at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, this talk will consider the museum as a pedagogical space, where architectural knowledge is staged, debated, and re-learned. By attending to use, memory, and care, students are invited to reconsider design as an ongoing process — one that continues long after the building is built.

Evangelos Kotsioris is Assistant Curator in Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. At MoMA he has recently organized the exhibitions The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower (2025–26), Down to Earth (2025), Body Constructs (2024), and Architecture Now: New York, New Publics (2023). Kotsioris holds a professional degree in architecture from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, an MArch II from Harvard University, and a PhD in history and theory of architecture from Princeton University. Among other places, he has taught theory and design at the University of Pennsylvania, Barnard+Columbia Architecture, Princeton School of Architecture, The Cooper Union, and Harvard GSD. He is the author of Kisho Kurokawa: Nakagin Capsule Tower (The Museum of Modern Art, 2025), and a co-editor of Radical Pedagogies, a global history of post-WWII experiments in architectural education during the second half of the twentieth century (MIT Press, 2022).

Lecture by Francesco Garofalo (Openfabric)

 724 1024 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Francesco Garofalo, architect and founder of Openfabric in Rotterdam, Milan and Genoa, will be joining us for a lecture on Tuesday, September 16th, at 5:00 pm. His talk, titled Framed natures, will explore Openfabric’s work in landscape across different scales and geographies — from completed projects to large-scale research. The lecture reflects on how “frames” can be understood as design devices: not to fix or limit, but to amplify dynamics, enhancing ecological processes and creating opportunities for people.

Francesco Garofalo is a landscape architect, founder of Openfabric, Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano, and Design Critic at Harvard GSD.
Since establishing Openfabric — an international landscape and urban design practice based in Rotterdam, Milan, and Genova — he has led numerous award-winning projects worldwide. His work spans installations, public open spaces, pocket parks, large-scale landscapes, and territorial research projects of significant impact.
The Mediterranean basin and the Alpine mountain range are central to his investigations, where Francesco explores territorial dynamics both in academia and in practice.
He frequently lectures and teaches internationally at renowned institutions, including MIT (Cambridge, MA), Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), Hong Kong University, IAAC (Barcelona), London Metropolitan University, Strelka KB (Moscow), and TU München.
www.openfabric.eu

Lecture by François Chas (NP2F)

 1024 819 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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François Chas, architect and partner at NP2F in Paris, will be joining us for a lecture on Tuesday, March 25th, at 5:00 pm. His talk, titled Common Architecture, will explore the growing importance of communal and shared spaces in architecture, a theme central to many of his firm’s projects.

NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 01 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 04 – photo © Nicolas Grosmond
NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 05 – photo © Nicolas Grosmond
NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 06 – photo © Nicolas Grosmond
NP2F, Base nautique in Ile-Saint-Denis, France – PH 01 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Base nautique in Ile-Saint-Denis, France – PH 02 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 01 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 02 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 03 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 05 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 08 – photo © Christophe Manquillet
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 03 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 04 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 05 – photo © Maxime Delvaux
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 06 – photo © Maxime Delvaux
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 07 – photo © Maxime Delvaux
NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 03 – photo © Jeroen Verrecht

François Chas is a partner at NP2F, an architecture firm founded in 2009. The practice now includes a team of around fifteen, based between Marseille and Paris, working on projects across France and internationally. NP2F specializes in both architectural and urban projects, with expertise spanning sports facilities, housing, cultural and educational buildings, leisure and dining spaces, and communal areas. The firm has developed notable expertise in designing sports spaces in the Paris metropolitan area, particularly as the curator of the 2014 exhibition Sports, Portrait of a Metropolis at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal. Recent projects include the Adidas Arena at Porte de la Chapelle, completed in collaboration with SCAU and Bouygues Bâtiment; the Mediterranean Institute of the City and Territories in Marseille for OPPIP, designed with Marion Bernard, Point Supreme, Jacques Lucan, and Atelier Roberta; and the UCPA Sport Station Cathedral in Bordeaux. Currently, NP2F is developing a training center for the French Rugby Federation and recently won the commission for the new Gustave Roussy research building in collaboration with AUC.
www.np2f.com

NP2F, Adidas Arena in Paris, France – PH 02 – photo © Caroline Poulin
NP2F, Cathédrale des sports in Bordeaux, France – PH 01 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Cathédrale des sports in Bordeaux, France – PH 02 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Cathédrale des sports in Bordeaux, France – PH 03 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 04 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 06 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Center for Circus Arts in Châlons, France – PH 07 – photo © Sebastien Normand
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 01 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau
NP2F, Institut Méditerranéen de la Ville et des Territoires in Marseille, France – PH 02 – photo © Antoine Espinasseau

Lecture by Denise Costanzo

 1024 576 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Denise Costanzo, Associate Professor of Architecture at Penn State University, will lecture on Tuesday 18 March at 5:30 pm.

The lecture is part of the University by Design event series — coproduced by the Architecture Programs of the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University in Florence, California State University International Programs Italy and Kent State University Florence — which focuses on the topic of studying architecture abroad. This collaborative forum will consist of two public lectures aimed at reimagining the collective educational space and proposing innovative models for contemporary practice.

Denise Costanzo’s lecture, titled The Problem of Rome: Architecture, Modernism, and Academies, will explore the evolving relevance of Rome as a site for architectural research, particularly in the context of the Rome Prize fellowships. While for centuries these residencies made sense within the framework of classicism as a dominant design paradigm, the city’s role became more ambiguous after World War II, when modernism took precedence and both its classical and modernist heritage were burdened by fascist associations. Despite this, postwar architects continued to engage with Rome, transforming the discipline’s oldest system of postgraduate research and demonstrating how the city remained a source of modern architectural insight.

Denise Costanzo is an associate professor of theory and criticism. An architectural historian with a background in architecture and art history, she explores architecture’s conceptual and cultural dimensions in ways that integrate the distinct languages of design, art history, and critical inquiry. Her research centers on the exchange of American and European architectural ideas, with a focus on how references to Italy reveal the mechanics of architectural power during the 20th century. Her scholarly methods include visual, textual, and systems analysis, social and institutional critique, and historiography. Her most recent book project, for which she was awarded a Rome Prize fellowship from the American Academy in Rome for 2014-15, is titled Modern Architects and the Problem of the Postwar Rome Prize: France, Spain, Britain, and America, 1946-1960. This multi-national, cross-institutional study investigates the intersection and mutual transformation of modernism and academic tradition after the World War II.

Lecture by Annalisa Metta

 1024 881 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Annalisa Metta, Full Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Roma Tre, will lecture on Tuesday 11 February at 5:30 pm.

The lecture is part of the University by Design event series — coproduced by the Architecture Programs of the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University in Florence, California State University International Programs Italy and Kent State University Florence — which focuses on the topic of studying architecture abroad. This collaborative forum will consist of two public lectures aimed at reimagining the collective educational space and proposing innovative models for contemporary practice.

Annalisa Metta’s lecture, titled Out in the Open. Designing Exposed Landscapes, will explore how designing landscapes means creating open, exposed spaces where the environment is both revealed and engaged with. She will explain that when we design these outdoor spaces, we are not just arranging elements — we are also inviting vulnerability and trust, as both the landscape and the designer participate and evolve together.

Annalisa Metta is a Full Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Roma Tre. She holds a Ph.D. in the architecture of parks, gardens, and spatial planning and was awarded the Italian Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2016–2017). Her research examines the contemporary architecture of open spaces through a blend of theoretical-critical insights and applied inquiry. In 2007, she became one of the founding partners of Osa, a landscape architecture studio based in Rome. In 2023, she curated Nature at Home, part of the Home Sweet Home exhibition at the Milan Triennale. Her publications include Il paesaggio è un mostro. Città selvatiche e nature ibride (DeriveApprodi, 2022) and the entry “Paesaggio” in the XI Appendice of the Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere e Arti (Treccani, 2024).

Lecture by Juan Elvira (MURADO&ELVIRA)

 1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Juan Elvira, architect and co-founder of Madrid-based architecture studio MURADO&ELVIRA, will lecture on Tuesday 4 February 2025 at 3 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. His lecture, titled Myspace: an Architectural Appropriation, will focus on the Teknobyen Student Housing in Trondheim, Norway—a project MURADO&ELVIRA completed a few years ago. As the architects describe, the project “unifies situations of extreme intimacy with those of extroversion and collaboration,” making it a valuable reference for this semester’s Architecture Studio project brief.

MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen – photo Matthias Herzog
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen – photo Imagen Subliminal
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen – photo Matthias Herzog
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen – photo Imagen Subliminal
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen – photo Imagen Subliminal

Murado & Elvira is a Madrid-based multidisciplinary office founded by Juan Elvira and Clara Murado in 2003 dedicated to innovative architecture and interior design. Their work has been awarded in many national and international competitions, and has been exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Biennale di Venezia and the Bienal de Arquitectura Española. They have been finalists at the Norwegian national architecture prize Staten Byggeskikkpris 2012 and selected at the Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo 2013. In 2018 they were nominated for The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award for their Baiona Public Library project.
www.muradoelvira.com

MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen
MURADO&ELVIRA – Teknobyen

Lecture by Leopoldo Villardi (Architectural Record)

 1024 576 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
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Leopoldo Villardi, architect and managing editor at Architectural Record magazine, will lecture on Tuesday 28 January 2025 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. His lecture, titled On the Record, will be introduced by prof. Paola Giaconia.

Architectural Record – 2016-09 – 125th Anniversary
Architectural Record – 2016-09 – 125th Anniversary

Leopoldo Villardi’s lecture will explore the essentials of architectural publishing, offering insights into exclusivity, pitching editors, and the production process of a monthly magazine. The talk will delve into the history of the magazine — one of the most prominent and long-standing architecture magazines in the world — and offer valuable insights for students preparing to enter the profession, highlighting how publishing can enhance professional credibility and unlock new opportunities, particularly for young professionals and small practices.

Architectural Record covers

Leopoldo Villardi is a Brooklyn-based writer and managing editor at Architectural Record. He oversees the magazine’s residential coverage—including the annual issue of Record Houses—and the Design Vanguard award, an accolade intended to identify and celebrate young talent within the profession. Leo joined Record in 2022 after nearly a decade of work as a historian and researcher—he has contributed to several architecture books, co-authored Between Memory and Invention with former dean of the Yale School of Architecture Robert A. M. Stern, and is a New York State Council on the Arts grant recipient. Trained as an architect, Leo holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation and a bachelor of architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture. Outside of Architectural Record, his writings have appeared in Panteon, Faktur, Log, the New York Review of Architecture.
www.architecturalrecord.com