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Follow the latest updates from Office e.g. and the (Im)material Matters Lab, including announcements, exhibitions, publications, and ongoing projects.

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04-23-2025 — Jury, New York

League Prize 2025: Plot Jury

Established in 1981 to recognize visionary and innovative work by young practitioners, The Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers is a competition organized by The Architectural League and its Young Architects + Designers Committee. Learn more about The Architectural League Prize’s past winners.

THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS + DESIGNERS COMMITTEE
Rayshad Dorsey
Liz Gálvez
Miles Gertler

JURY
Behnaz Assadi
Mario Gooden
Jia Yi Gu
William O’Brien Jr.
And the Young Architects + Designers Committee

THEME: PLOT
Whatever the narrative, architecture can’t help but engage with plot. This is an open call for designers with a story to tell.

Every building has its lore, and plots are known to thicken. Which dramas are shaping architecture’s arc today? The truth may be stranger than fiction. Despite the best-laid plans, design so often deals in circumstance. That is, while architects may endeavor to write their own stories, projects always present twists.

The 2025 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers competition asks entrants to interrogate Plot and map out the throughlines that shape their work.

How is architecture informed by considerations of plot, whether as land, drawing, or scheme? We invite young designers to chronicle that which bookends their practices and to demonstrate plot’s persistent role as main character.

All entries must be submitted through the League’s online competition portal.

04-09-2025 — Event, Providence

Constructed Environments

Liz Gálvez, presented research on “Prepared Mass: Stone, Thread, and Clay” as part of Constructed Environments: A Colloquium on Practicing Environmental Engagement through Installation-scale Work at RISD Architecture.

Speakers include Debbie Chen, Rhode Island School of Design / Liz Gálvez, Berkeley College of Environmental Design / Brittany Utting, Rice Architecture / Daniel Jacobs, University of Houston / and Catty Dan Zhang, University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Convened and moderated by Debbie Chen, at the Rhode Island School of Design, School of Architecture.

03-23-2025 — Grant, Berkeley

Forest to Forest: A truly circular economy for timber architecture awarded 2025 Lau Just Climate Futures Grant

In collaboration between the architecture and forestry departments, research for the Lau Grant 2025 focuses on designing and constructing a wooden structure that tests biodegradability and material circularity in architectural applications. This collaboration between Assistant Professors Liz Gálvez and Paul Mayencourt evaluates the material's nutrient release, carbon impact, and decomposition over time, contributing to broader discussions on sustainable building systems and regenerative life-cycle design.

Link to Announcement.

02-11-2024 — News, New York

Architect’s Newspaper article features Collective Comfort

Link to Article.

The Architect's Newspaper writes, “Cooling centers are lifesaving architectural typologies, but they’re often haphazardly thrown together after the fact. In the scourging summer heat, cooling centers are typically made wherever city officials and NGOs can find willing space, i.e. vacant hotels, libraries, etc.

What would a purpose-built cooling center look like in the context of Phoenix, Arizona—a place that, last year, had 113 straight days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit? Can a cooling center be more than just a cold room? But also a space that provides collective comfort, social engagement, and joy?”

11-21-2024 — Exhibition, San Francisco

Collective Comfort exhibition at the Center for Architecture

Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities unveils new approaches to climate resilient design in extreme desert climates. On view at the Center for Architecture + Design, San Francisco, November 21, 2024–February 6, 2025.

San Francisco, California—The (Im)material Matters Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Assistant Professor Liz Gálvez, presents Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an innovative exhibition examining climate resilience in desert cities. Opening November 21 at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco, the exhibition highlights design-research, full-scale prototypes, and student work that address the urgent need for alternative cooling solutions in regions facing extreme heat.

Exhibition opening reception: November 21, 6–8pm, free admission. Center for Architecture + Design, Hallidie Building, 140 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94104 / info [at] centersf.org.

Visit e-flux to view the event announcement.

11-07-2024 — Event, San Francisco

Drawing Codes Book Launch

Emerging technologies of design and production have transformed the role of drawings within the contemporary design process from that of design generators to design products. As architectural design has shifted from an analog drawing-based paradigm to that of a computational model-based paradigm, the agency of drawing as a critical and important form of design representation has shifted. Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation examines the effects of this transformation on the architectural discipline and explores how architects have critically integrated procedural thinking into their drawing process.

This event, marking the launch of the book, will discuss the premise of the project and focus on the role of computation in the pedagogy of architectural drawing. Book authors Adam Marcus and Andrew Kudless will be joined by contributors Liz Gálvez, Thom Faulders, Zeina Koreitem, and Heather Roberge to present their contributions to the book and participate in a conversation about how computation has both transformed and revitalized architectural representation.

Fall 2024 — Drawing, Book

Linear Kitchen in Drawing Codes

“Through 96 experimental drawings and five critical essays, this book examines the role of computational processes and procedural thinking in the production of architectural representation.” — Adam Marcus & Andrew Kudless

The Linear Kitchen is included in Drawing Codes: Experimental Protocols of Architectural Representation, which examines the effects of this transformation on the architectural discipline and explores how architects have critically integrated procedural thinking into their drawing process.

The Linear Kitchen’s ventilation system organizes kitchen functions with ventilation processes. Through the use of product specifications, cooked air particles are drawn, reoriented, and ejected revealing a linear, yet illusive, architectural element.

03-20-2024 — Grant, New York

Collective Comfort selected for the 2023 AIA Upjohn Research Initiative

The initiative is led by Liz Gálvez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dalia Munenzon of the University of Houston.

Collective Comfort aims to develop a public program that re-thinks the cooling center as an educational resilience hub. It will explore how visualization and somatic practices of thermal comfort can reduce risk from urban heat, and how resilient hub co-design can create agency and stewardship for vulnerable populations affected by heat and cooling inequality. This research brings interdisciplinary partners from resiliency planning, engineering, and architecture into collaboration with community stakeholders and municipal government to develop design guidelines.

For more information, visit the AIA Upjohn Research Initiative Page.

03-18-2024 — Event, New Orleans

Architecture’s Ecological Restructuring: Part II

Architecture’s Ecological Restructuring: Part II, a workshop-style symposium, follows the inaugural session in 2023.

Speakers include Debbie Chen, Rhode Island School of Design / Rebecca Choi, Tulane School of Architecture / Liz Gálvez, Berkeley College of Environmental Design / Mae-ling Lokko, Yale School of Architecture / Antoine Picon, Harvard Graduate School of Design / and Meredith TenHoor, Pratt Institute School of Architecture.

Convened and moderated by Zaid Kashef Alghata, Favrot Visiting Professor, Tulane School of Architecture. Sponsored by the Tulane School of Architecture and the Charles A. Favrot, H. Mortimer Favrot Chair in Architecture. For more information, visit here.

02-15-2023 — Prize, Chicago

Collective Comfort awarded 2022 SOM Research Prize

"Collective Comfort: Framing the Cooling Center as a Resiliency and Educational Hub for Communities in Desert Cities" is Awarded the 2022 Research Prize by the SOM Foundation, the project reimagines cooling centers in desert cities as educational resilience hubs. The initiative is led by Liz Gálvez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dalia Munenzon of the University of Houston.

The research focuses on the Phoenix metropolitan area, known as the Valley of the Sun, which experienced 145 days with temperatures exceeding 100°F in 2020. This overreliance on fossil-fuel-powered air conditioning poses risks, especially during extreme weather events that strain electrical supplies. The project aims to educate communities about heat risks and weatherization, promoting collective resilience and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

For more information, visit the SOM Foundation's official page on the project.

01-25-2024 — Prize, New York

Collective Comfort II Studio Course receives an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Course Development Prize

Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) announce the winners of the 2024 Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change, and Society. These courses will be taught at ACSA member schools across the world in the coming years.

Link to Winning Course.

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