AMES, Iowa — Joshua G. Stein, a professor of architecture at Woodbury University and founder of Radical Craft, will speak about the sustainability of architecture practices in a lecture hosted by the Iowa State University Department of Architecture.

The Los Angeles-based architect and designer will present “Slow Motion Materiality” at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 16, in Kocimski Auditorium, room 101 College of Design.

Radical Craft is a research and design studio in Los Angeles that operates between the fields of architecture, art and urbanism. In his free talk — part of the Department of Architecture’s Spring 2024 Public Programs Series — Stein will discuss his research projects, including “The Geological Atlas of the Built Metropolis” and “Sediment as Cultural Heritage” (pictured above), among others.

“How does our understanding of architecture change if we zoom out and examine its materials over an extended period of time?” Stein asks. “If we understand the stuff of architecture as being slowly on the move, we might then begin to understand how architecture extends beyond the confines of built form, encompassing the distant landscapes connected to resource extraction and the pits of construction demolition and debris landfill in the not-so-distant outskirts of the city.”

Stein’s work is currently on display as part of the “Beauty Investigated: Dilemmas, Projects, and Promises” exhibition in the College of Design’s Gallery 181, and he will serve as a guest presenter for the Feb. 15–17 symposium of the same name at the College of Design and Student Innovation Center.

About the speaker

Prior to joining the Woodbury University School of Architecture, Stein taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

A recipient of multiple awards, fellowships and grants, Stein was a 2010-11 Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture. He was awarded a 2009 AIA Upjohn Research Initiative Program grant for research into responsive technology, and he’s received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. He is the co-editor of Dingbat 2.0, the first full-length publication on the ubiquitous Los Angeles apartment building type.

Stein holds a master of architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a bachelor of arts in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a former member of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design’s board of directors.

Contacts

Peter Zuroweste, Architecture Associate Professor of Practice and Public Programs Committee Chair, peterz@iastate.edu
Lauren Johnson, College of Design Communications Specialist, laujohn2@iastate.edu

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