BIO:
Wei-Han Vivian Lee is a registered architect in the U.S. and Canada, and an assistant professor at University of Toronto Daniels Faculty. As founding partner of LAMAS, Lee brings to the studio her background in painting and on-going research on the role of craft in the age of digital architecture as related to issues of optics, labor, professional practice, vernacular traditions, and ornament.

LAMAS was a 2014 finalist for MoMA’s PS1 Young Architects Program. Together with James Macgillivray, the studio has won the 2017 Architizer+ Award, 2011 R+D Award, and received honorable mentions by ACSA Faculty Design Award and I.D. Magazine.  Her work has been published in Dwell Magazine, Architect Magazine, PLAT, and AIA Forward. Prior to LAMAS, Lee practiced as a project manager at SHoP Architects and LTL Architects in New York City. While at SHoP Architects, she co-led her team to earn a P/A Award for the NYC East River Waterfront project in 2008.

TALK TITLE: Building and Thinking

DESCRIPTION OF TALK:
Architectural discourse has often framed opposite poles of building (management/construction) on the one hand and thinking (concept/theory) on the other. In both the academy and in practice, there are thinkers and there are builders. It's partly driven by the market structures of the North American context and partly a result of our own ingrained conventions, but the split seems more and more like a false dichotomy. The process of building has undergone radical changes in this century that would appear to presage a reconciliation of the two. But it requires empathy on both sides and a pedagogical platform. This talk will look at ways that the subjects of labour, craft, and ornament can be a locus for the coming together of thinking and building.