Lecture: Teaching Fellows Research Dialogues

Monday, April 14, 2025
6pm - 7pm
Richardson Memorial Hall, Room 202 - Thomson Hall
Tulane's Uptown Campus

This lecture is open to the public.

About the lectures:

Please join us on Monday, April 14, 2025, from 6:00pm to 7:00pm for Teaching Fellows Research Dialogues. This multi-part lecture focuses on the research and work of the three current Teaching Fellows at Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment:

The Architecture and its Double:

Speaker: Abel Fernández Villegas

Theatre and its semantic field have served to embody the tensions inherent in the modern project and the act of design. Not in vain, its birthplace can be considered a kind of theatrical space — that of a fair booth erected by Brunelleschi to superimpose two images, one virtual and one real, through the mediation of a mirror. Like theatre, which etymologically means a place to see, the modern project is an opening to the eye to represent the world and its potential transformation. This representational condition, and the potential of the machine — both rhetorical and operational — will ensure that the architect keeps this theatrical condition close at hand, allowing us, in some way, to trace it, if we look carefully, throughout the history of architecture. Offering a credible portrait of this theatrical condition is the aim of my research

RELATIONAL SCAPES

Speaker: Sofia Romeo Gurrea-Nozaleda

Sofia’s work has been strongly influenced, first by the GIPC Cultural Landscape Research Group at ETSAM Madrid, and later by an Australian generation of architects led by Glenn Murcutt. She believes architecture is revealed only through a deep understanding of the landscape and its territory. Being trained in the USA, France, India, and Australia has given Sofia a broad perspective on how to interact with different biomes within our built environment. After founding KAL A in 2017, the office she co-directs with Miguel Sotos, she had the opportunity to put her approach into practice through several projects. One of the most significant is Bohinj Kindergarten in Slovenia, which they worked on after winning a public competition alongside ARREA. After its termination, it was 40’ shortlisted for the 2023 EU Mies Van der Rohe Awards.

WE DO NOT WORK ALONE

Speaker: Miguel Sotos Fernández-Zúñiga

Having Mingei potter Kawai Kanjiro’s philosophy as a reference, Miguel’s research focuses on the concept of authenticity and respecting the inner nature and divinity of materials in the design process. In his practice along with Sofia Romeo, he has developed studies on maximizing the use of solid wood in architectural design and practice, from buildings to furniture. During his practice, part of his efforts have been destined to maintain an active wood workshop that coexists with the architectural practice and continues to serve as a laboratory for tests, models, and mockups. These concepts have been applied in projects such as Casa Madriguera, Bohinj Kindergarten, and Sierpe Baja. In parallel, he has been involved in publishing since the beginning of his career, first as an author, studying Japanese architect Kunio Maekawa’s work, and later as editor and founder of the independent publishing house Calmo.

About the speakers:

Abel Fernández Villegas is an architect (With Honors) from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, where he is currently a PhD candidate within the PhD Program in Advanced Architectural Projects. His research explores the theatrical strategies used in architectural design, as well as their urban implications. He holds a Master's degree in Education (UFV). He has been a professor in the Master's in Architectural Communication (MaCA) at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and is currently a professor of Architectural Theory at Nebrija University in Madrid. He was the co-founder and principal at Estudio Inventario Arquitectos, with whom he was a finalist in the competition for the Bauhaus Museum Dessau. He is currently engaged in professional practice independently. He is a co-author of the publication Cartografías Interpretativas and a collaborative member of the Research Group HUM 813 at the University of Granada. He has delivered seminars and lectures at ETSAM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) and has published articles and reviews in specialized journals such as Arquitectura Viva, Cuadernos de Proyectos Arquitectónicos, and Revista Europea de Investigación en Arquitectura (REIA).

Sofía Romeo graduated (With Honors) as M.Arch Architect by ETSA Madrid in 2016. She extended her studies at the IIT of Chicago and at The Vastu Schilpa Foundation of Balkrishna V. Doshi in Ahmedabad, India. She has worked for John Ronan Architects (Chicago), BAST Bureau (Toulouse) and for José María Sánchez García (Madrid). She is currently the co-director of KAL A architecture office, where she develops her main professional activity. She participated in the 2019 Glenn Murcutt International Architecture Master Class (OZ.Etecture Architecture Foundation Australia) in Sydney. In the academic field, she has been member of the GIPC research group at ETSA Madrid. She currently co directs the publication Ornamento Journal (Ediciones Asimétricas, 2017-2019, calmo 2020-).

Miguel Sotos Fernández-Zúñiga. M.Arch Architect by EPS CEU in 2014. He extended his architectural studies at the IUAV Università di Venezia, and specialized in carpentry and Japanese traditional framing at Suikoushya ICS with Kawai Takami in Kyoto. He has worked for Canals Moneo Architects (Madrid), Uno Tomoaki (Nagoya), and Studio Mumbai (Mumbai). He is co-founder of his own practice and wood workshop in 2017, KAL A, where he develops his main professional activity focused on research and work on wood. He is the founder and editor of the
independent publishing house CALMO.

Questions? Please reach out to Ben Neal, TuSA Executive Administrative Assistant, at bneal1@tulane.edu.

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Tulane is an equal opportunity educator and employer. Legally protected demographic classifications such as race, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status, etc. are not relied upon as an eligibility or participation criteria for employment or educational programs or activities.