Advance Notice: Public Lecture by Joel Sanders “Alternative Futures: Questioning Design Standards”

Public evening lecture by Joel Sanders (Architect, New York & Professor Adjunct Yale University) organized by the Visiting Lectureship of the Theory of Architecture Dr. Torsten Lange, Institute gta, ETH Zurich

Thursday May 23, 2019, 18:00–20:00
ETH Hönggerberg, HIL H 40.9 (NSL Foyer)

Abstract
Restrooms exemplify how architecture as a discipline is complicit in perpetuating cultural assumptions about the nature of human identity and embodiment through the protocols of professional practice. Using Stalled! as a case study, the talk will describe how these ideologies are encoded through formulaic spatial typologies, presumed to be shaped by objective functional criteria but that are actually historically relative highly problematic cultural constructions. In his talk, Sanders will propose a two-part Inclusive Design methodology that uses cross-disciplinary research and analysis as a critical tool to imagine alternative futures that call into question and ultimately offer alternatives to architectural standards that perpetuate the status quo.

Bio
Joel Sanders is the Principal of his New York based studio JSA and a Professor of Architecture at Yale University. JSA projects have been featured in international exhibitions including MoMA, SF MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago and Carnegie Museum of Art. The firm has received numerous awards, including six New York Chapter AIA Awards, two New York State AIA Awards, an Interior Design Best of Year Award, and two Design Citations from Progressive Architecture. Editor of “Stud: Architectures of Masculinity” and “Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture” with Diana Balmori, Sanders’s writings and practice have explored the complex relationship between culture and social space, looking at the impact that evolving cultural forces (such as gender identity and the body, technology and new media, and the nature/culture dualism) have on the designed environment.