40th Anniversary Symposium

As part of our 40th Anniversary Year, the OWA sponsored a Symposium to present various viewpoints concerning the intersection of women's issues and architecture. The one-day event featured 4 speakers and discussion. There was also be a catered lunch and an evening reception as well as a 40th Anniversary Exhibition of work by OWA members.

The original program and registration information is here.

Wurster Hall
University of California at Berkeley
April 13th, 2013

The Symposium also included an exhibit of OWA member work in the exhibition space at Wurster Hall. Presentations from the Exhibition are shown here

Alison Kwok - University of Oregon

Alison Kwok is Professor of the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon. Her work is focused on environmentally responsible design and post occupancy analysis of building performance. She is known for her courses in studio design, green design strategies, environmental technology, case studies in sustainable design, teaching and research methods.

Mui Ho - University of California, Berkeley

Mui Ho is a retired Lecturer in Architecture at UC Berkeley. A founding member of the Organization of Women Architects, Mui instigated the all women speakers symposiums first time in the OWA 30th anniversary. She is the recipient of the distinguished professor award from ACSA Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in 1996.

June Williamson - The City College of New York

June Williamson is Associate Professor of Architecture at the City College of New York, teaching in the architecture, urban design and sustainability in the urban environment programs. She is author of Designing Suburban Futures: New Ideas from Build a Better Burb, forthcoming from Island Press, and co-author with Ellen Dunham-Jones of the award-winning book Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. She received her BA from Yale University, MArch from MIT, and MUD from The City College of New York. Williamson grew up in a variety of suburban settings, near Boston, Pittsburgh and London, and in a Saudi Aramco compound.

Her presentation, "Who Will Lead the Way in Designing More Resilient Suburban Futures?", discusses promising design strategies and tactics, drawn from her two books, Retrofitting Suburbia co-authored with Ellen Dunham-Jones, and Designing Suburban Futures, presenting new models from the Build a Better Burb competition for the suburbs of Long Island.

Annmarie Adams - McGill University

Annmarie Adams is Director of the School of Architecture at McGill University. A native of London, Ontario, Adams graduated with honors from McGill University in 1981. She attended the University of California at Berkeley where she received her M. Arch in 1986 and Ph. D. in 1992. Annmarie is the author of Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses and Women, 1870-1900 and co-author of Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession with sociologist Peta Tancred. Other publications include Sex and the Single Building: The Weston Haavens House, 1941-2001.

Her presentation, "Add Women and Stir", focuses on how changing notions of feminism since 1980 have inspired new ways of analyzing and teaching architecture. Its title is a quote from historian Mary Ryan, who used it in her courses at UC Berkeley in the late 1980s to describe early attempts to include women's history in research and curricula.

Jennifer Wolch - University of California, Berkeley

Jennifer Wolch is Dean of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a scholar of urban analysis and planning. Her past work focused on urban homelessness and the delivery of affordable housing and human services for poor people. She has also studied urban sprawl and alternative approaches to city-building such as smart growth and new urbanism. Her most recent work analyzes connections between city form, physical activity, and public health, and develops strategies to improve access to urban parks and recreational resources.

Mary Hardy - Architectural Conservator, Siegel & Strain Architects

Mary Hardy's work focuses on the conservation of culturally and historically significant properties, including international projects with the Getty Conservation Institute. She holds an M.Arch from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in historic preservation from Columbia University.

Lori Brown - Syracuse University

Lori Brown is an architect and artist with a B.S. from Georgia Institute of Technology, the Ecole d'Architecture in Paris and M.Arch from Princeton. At the intersections of Architecture, Art, Geography, and Women's Studies, her work emerges from the belief that architecture can participate in and impact people's everyday lives. Her design, speculative work, and classes all engage with the larger idea of broadening the discourse and involvement of architecture in our world. Focusing particularly on the relationships between architecture and social justice issues, she has currently placed emphasis on gender and its impact upon spatial Gullone.UrbanArch@gmail.com. She is an associate professor at Syracuse University.

Her presentation, "The 'F' Word: Principles People Still Seek but Don't Want to Name", uses her book, Feminist Practices: interdisciplinary approaches to women in architecture, to frame and discuss the future of architectural education and contributions of women architects in a changing society.

Eleni Bastea - University of New Mexico

Eleni Bastea was born and grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece. She holds a B.A. in art history from Bryn Mawr and M.Arch and Ph.D. in history of architecture from UC Berkeley. She is a Regents' Professor of Architecture and Associate Director of the International Studies Institute at the University of New Mexico. Eleni's work has focused on the place of memory in the creative process, urban history in modern Europe, and contemporary cultural history in Greece and Turkey.

Her presentation, "Kitchen Table Architecture", draws from the book Kitchen Table Wisdom and the underlying concepts of problem solving among friends, brainstorming around the table (or the drafting board or the computer screen), exchanging successful solutions, dispensing opinions and wisdom, and listening.