The David R. Ravin School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte launches its 2023-24 lecture series on September 27, 2023. The series, New South meets Global South, will feature nine distinguished speakers throughout this school year. Curated by Associate Professor of Architecture Nadia Anderson, with Julio Diarte and Elena Vazquez Pena, and organized with Associate Professor of architecture Marc Manack, the series takes its theme from the College of Arts + Architecture’s multidisciplinary New South | Global South initiative, which includes courses, research projects, and programming over a year-long period.
In 1886, Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady delivered a speech to the New England Society in New York City entitled "The New South," boasting of the vibrant economy of urban industrial growth in the post-Civil War South that was replacing the antebellum world of slavery-based rural agriculture. Cities like Charlotte continue to use this phrase to connect their identities with growth and financial prosperity and encourage investment. What was barely implied by Grady and is only just being acknowledged is the structural racism and exclusion inherent in this prosperity. Not only in the American South but throughout the so-called First World, we live in a new colonialism that continues to marginalize people of color and perpetuate inequitable access to resources.
Similarly, the "Global South" refers broadly to the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania that generally lie south of the Equator and were exploited by European colonization. These regions continue to be treated as opportunities for investment and wealth production, decimating economies and ecologies while continuing repression of local cultures. The economic, political, and cultural marginalization of the peoples and landscapes of the Global South mirrors that of the New South, demonstrating how colonialism and the violent pursuit of wealth continue today.
The New South meets Global South lecture series will highlight research and design practices that address the colonial injustices of the New South and the Global South and celebrate their marginalized peoples and practices. The featured presenters are working to overcome social injustice by investigating topics such as territory, housing, immigration, race, social inequity, and civil rights. Their works provide insight into overcoming injustices while producing innovative solutions to issues including climate adaptation, sustainability, resilience, integration, and identity at scales ranging from regional territories to building materials.
The series will open with a lecture from Juan Carlos Cristaldo on September 27 at 2:00 pm in the Boardman Auditorium in Storrs. Cristaldo is the founder and coordinator of Centro de Investigación Desarrollo e Innovación at the Universidad Nacional de Asunción in Paraguay (CIDi FADA UNA ) and cofounder/ senior urban designer of Exponencial S.A., an architecture and urbanism company in Asunción, Paraguay. He received his education from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción and Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The series continues as follows:
October 2 Marlon Blackwell (presented with AIA Charlotte, 6:00 pm at The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City) Blackwell is a practicing architect in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture + Design at the University of Arkansas.
October 9 Germane Barnes- Germane Barnes's research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity, examining architecture’s social and political agency through historical research and design speculation.
November 8 Silvina Lopez Barrera- Silvina Lopez Barrera is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. She is a licensed architect in Uruguay, LEED-AP accredited, and holds a Master of Architecture degree from Iowa State University. Her research focuses on how socio-spatial inequalities influence informal housing, housing insecurity, and community resilience in the US and in Latin America.
January 17 Gabriela Rendon- Gabriela Rendón is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development and Founding Director of Parsons Housing Justice Lab at The New School. Rendón’s expertise and research interests include community planning and design, socio-spatial restructuring of immigrant neighborhoods, rise and settlement of Latinx urban communities, housing and tenants rights, gentrification and displacement, cooperative housing models, as well as other collective and non-speculative housing development schemes providing equitable development in profit-driven urban environments.
February 7 Vernelle A. Noel- Noel is a computational design scholar, architect, artist, and Director of the Situated Computation + Design Lab. Currently an Assistant Professor in the Schools of Architecture and Interactive Computing, she investigates traditional and digital practices, interdisciplinary creativity, and their intersections with society.
March 15 Reiko Hillyer- Reiko Hillyer is an Associate Professor of History and Department Chair, Director of Ethnic Studies at Lewis & Clark College. She has a BA in Political Science, Yale University, 1991 and a PhD in History, Columbia University, 2007. Her specialty is U.S. South, African American History, the built environment, and prison studies.
April 3 Mae-ling Lokko- Mae-ling Lokko is an architectural scientist, designer and educator from Ghana and the Philippines who works with agrowaste and renewable biobased materials. Through her work, Lokko explores themes of “generative justice” through the development of new models of distributed production and collaboration.
April 10 David Gerard Gouverneur- He has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture since 2010, and since 2012 he is Professor in Practice of this Department. His professional practice focuses on urban plans and projects for historic districts, the rehabilitation of areas affected by extraordinary natural events, new centralities and mixed use districts, improvement of existing informal settlements and planning ahead for emergent informal occupation, tourism/recreational areas, and the rehabilitation of cultural landscapes.
Lectures take place at 2 pm in the Boardman Auditorium in the Storrs building on the UNC Charlotte main campus, unless otherwise indicated, and are free and open to the public.
Design by Point of Reference Studio, Madrid, founded by SoA alumnus Jeffrey Ludlow.