UCLA AUD Fall 2023 Events: Molly Hunker (MArch ‘10) and Kyle Miller (MArch ‘08) present "Building Practice"
December 4, 2023, 6:30 pm, Perloff Hall Decafe
Molly Hunker (MArch ’10) and Kyle Miller (MArch ’08) present their new book, Building Practice, which features interviews with architects, designers, educators, curators, fabricators, strategists, critics, and activists who are advancing speculative design through the culture and politics of building, capturing critical and formative moments associated with building a practice. Each interview in the book reveals strategies for linking practical and theoretical forms of knowledge and evidences the active creation of unique approaches to contributing positively to both architectural culture and the built environment. Hunker and Miller articulate how architects today claim conceptual territory regarding form, space, order, materiality, and aesthetics, and push for design to have meaning and value in relation to cultural, environmental, political, and social concerns. The individuals and practices profiled in the book and featured in this event, including UCLA Architecture and Urban Design faculty Kutan Ayata and Benjamin Freyinger, and alumni Ellie Abrons, Paul Andersen, Kelly Bair, Kristy Balliet, Brennan Buck, David Freeland, Adam Fure, Jia Gu, Andrew Holder, Justin Rice, and Kagan Taylor, collectively partition themselves from previous generations of experimentally motivated practices while individually exemplifying their own inimitable affinities, techniques, and sensibilities. Building Practice shares the first acts of an emerging generation of practices and identifies the peripheral yet pivotal aspects of building a practice today.
Molly Hunker is a Wyoming-raised designer and educator and the co-founder of the award-winning practice, SPORTS, with Greg Corso. SPORTS focuses on creating compelling spaces that are catalysts for social activities and connection through the design, realization, and visualization of small interventions in the public realm. SPORTS is the recipient of a 2017 Arch League Prize from the Architectural League of NY, the 2018 Young Architect Award from The Architect’s Newspaper, and a 2017 and 2020 ACSA Faculty Design Award. Molly received a BA from Dartmouth College and a MArch from UCLA. She has worked for architecture studios and art workshops along the west coast including Talbot McLanahan Architecture, Doug Aitken Workshop, and The LADG. She previously taught at UCLA, Woodbury University, and The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She is currently an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture.
Kyle Miller is Associate Dean and Associate Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture, Co-Founder of Possible Mediums, and Fellow (’19) of MacDowell. His design research has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and Syracuse University, and has been included in the AIA Emerging Professionals Exhibition and shown at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Yale School of Architecture. In addition to co-authoring Building Practice and Possible Mediums, Miller’s writing has been published in Log, Monu, Constructs, Pidgin, Project, Offramp, PLAT, Room One Thousand, and the Journal for Architectural Education. Miller was Architecture Program Director at Syracuse University in Florence (2016-2018), previously taught at the University of Kentucky College of Design (2009-2013), and worked professionally in Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and for Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos with UNStudio in Amsterdam. Miller is a graduate of the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the University of California Los Angeles Department of Architecture and Urban Design, where he earned his professional degree and was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal and Certificate.