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MARCH SCHOOL

Architectural (De)Schooling in the Age of Quarantine

These days architecture schools are trying to figure out how to conduct lectures and seminars, studios and crits online. But it is just as well a test of the very foundations of architectural education. Do we need architecture schools? Do we need them to change? Are they capable of change, to prepare to deal with this crisis and the next to come?
This summer MARCH Architecture School invites educators from schools around the world to discuss the past, present and possible future of architectural education. It is a series of online conversations, which will bring together professionals, free to determine the direction of their discussion. They are coming from different countries, schools, generations, bringing their various views, experiences, expectations.
Read the full manifesto
Use the links in the timetable to join the conversations online, or follow our YouTube channel to watch later. The talks will be held till July, check this page for the regular updates of the timetable.

Timetable

June 11, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Regina Loukotová
x Eugene Asse
Learn more
Tom Emerson
x Sam Jacob
June 13, 2020
18:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Adeola Enigbokan
x Carlos Medellin
June 17, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
June 24, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Salomon Frausto
x Lea-Catherine Szacka
Learn more
Troy Schaum
х David Dewane
and Daniel Roche
June 27, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Sarah Hirschman
x Ana Miljački
June 30, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
July 2, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Lucy Bullivant
х Alexander Eriksson Furunes
Learn more
Anastassia Smirnova
x Yury Grigoryan
July 18, 2020
18:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Piergianna Mazzocca
x Anastasiia Gerasimova
July 22, 2020 - 19:00
Learn more
July 24, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Oleg Drozdov
х Nikita Tokarev
July 28, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Christoph Lindner
x Lesley Lokko
August 12, 2020
18:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli
x Anna Puigjaner
August 14, 2020
20:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Evgenia Repina
x Sergey Malakhov
Learn more
Soft Culture
x Andrey Yelbayev
x Maria Yablonina
August 20, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
August 27, 2020 — 19:00
Alla Mitrofanova
х Irina Aristarkhova
х Sergey Sitar
х Oxana Sarkisyan
Learn more
September 3, 2020
19:00 (GMT+3)
Learn more
Coming soon
Check this page for the regular updates
Coming soon
Check this page for the regular updates
KOSMOS
х Space Popular
The talks will be held till October, check this page for the regular updates of the timetable.

Talks

Regina Loukotová х Eugene Asse
June 11, 19:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Regina Loukotová is an architect and Rector of ARCHIP (Architectural Institute in Prague), the first private architectural school in Prague. She combines her architectural practice (started in 1999 together with architect Martin Roubik; GEM architects studio) with educational activities. She graduated from CTU, Faculty of Architecture in Prague, where she completed her postgraduate studies with the topic on Architecture and Public. She strongly believes in changing the approach toward building environment in general through education. She is active within the Czech Chamber of Architects, a member of its' Unit for Education, with her participation in the juries of architectural competitions and also in cooperation with expert press and other media. She has been a member of the Board of the Fulbright Commission in the Czech Republic since 2019.

"We truly wanted to change the approach to how architecture was taught in the Czech Republic. With that in mind, starting a new school seemed to be the ideal option, so that´s how ARCHIP was born." (The Arch. Ed. Podcast Episode 28: Regina Loukotová, ARCHIP, Prague (2018) // archedpodcast.com).
Eugene Asse worked as an artist, architect, curator and educator for more than 50 years, since his graduation from Moscow Institute of Architecture in 1970. In 1997 he started his own design office asse architects in Moscow, which he runs up to now. He became a Professor in Moscow Institute of Architecture in 1989, heading the Experimental Design Studio, was the Commissioner of the Russian Pavilion on the Biennale of Architecture in Venice in 2004 and 2006. In 2012 he co-founded MARCH Architecture School — the first independent architectural school in Russia.

"It is dangerous to teach people to think, feel and trust their feelings, to take more responsibility. The habit of thinking often leads to difficulties in the professional, and in public life. The art of architecture, like the art of poetry, is, of course, not easy to be sold and accepted. But I see no other way to create a new architectural awareness in Russia." (Asse E. Fire doesn’t teach water to boil, it simply heats it (2017) // blog.march.ru)
Tom Emerson х Sam Jacob
June 13, 18:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Tom Emerson is an architect and educator based in London and Zurich. He co-founded 6a architects in London with Stephanie Macdonald which has recently completed the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, the South London Gallery, a studio complex for Juergen Teller and Cowan Court at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. 6a has received several RIBA Awards, the Schelling Medal in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2017. Publications include Never Modern (2014) and a monograph published by El Croquis in 2018. Emerson is professor of architecture and vice Dean of the D-Arch at ETH Zurich where he leads a research and design studio exploring the relationship between making and the territory.
Sam Jacob is principal of Sam Jacob Studio, a practice whose work spans scales and disciplines from urban design through architecture, design, art and curatorial projects. Current projects include a gallery in south London, a new mixed-use building in Hoxton, the remodelling of the V&A's Cromwell Road entrance, and the new National Collections Centre for the Science Museum Group. He has worked internationally on award-winning projects and has exhibited at major museums such as the V&A, MAK, and The Art Institute of Chicago as well as cultural events including the Venice Architecture Biennale. He is Professor of Architecture at UIC, Chicago, council member at the AA, London, and currently visiting professor at ABK Stuttgart. Previously he was a founding director of FAT Architecture.

"Though we often imagine the idea of architectural education to be a natural and inevitable phenomenon, it is of course an accidental by-product of educational politics and economics, of demands of professional training and of murkily subjective disciplinary ideas." (Jacob S. Architectural education must change (2013) // dezeen.com).
Adeola Enigbokan х Carlos Medellin
June 17, 19:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
In this conversation we address the roles of our different bodies and biographies in shaping the kinds of designers that we become, and the sorts of interventions we are able to make in the current moment. We want to talk about the importance of acknowledging our own life stories and how they are projected into the designs we propose.

Architects often assume leadership roles when they approach their work, however, architectural education is not very explicit about how to lead others, and how as designers we assume public roles. For us, leadership involves having the capacity to recognize our own bodies and how we affect others and the environments we create around us. It is also the ability to surface a shared vision that inspires a group of people to accomplish a common goal. Finally, leadership is the ability to sense how our bodies and biographies resonate within a specific context, and to define what our bodies can or cannot do in that context. We will discuss different methods to approach design as a more embodied practice of social leadership.
Adeola Enigbokan is an environmental psychologist. Using public engagement, she re-imagines the relationships between citizens, consumers, institutions and corporations, and the environments they create and inhabit. She combines deep knowledge of human behavior and emotional intelligence, with a sense of how social and spatial systems work and how creative change happens.

Adeola consults on the design of urban housing, workspaces, public space and emerging technologies. Additionally, she has taught Urban Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and New York University and Architectural Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the City University of New York, and a BA in Anthropology from Columbia University.

whyadeolabecause.com
instagram.com/adeolagoes

Carlos Medellín is an architect interested in building spaces for social engagement and individual empowerment. This means that he approaches architecture as a social practice, and his work explores how space can address the structural inequity that shapes our society.

He has experience conceptualizing, designing and managing artistic, architectural and urban projects across the globe. Carlos has also developed social entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary projects and participated in education as a teacher and researcher. He holds a MArch from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá and studied a postgraduate research program at Strelka Institute for media, architecture, and design in Moscow. Carlos has taught in Bogotá at Universidad de los Andes and Universidad Javeriana on the undergraduate architecture programs and in New York at Columbia University GSAPP on the Masters of architecture and urban planning.

www.carlos-medellin.com
instagram.com/cmedell
Carlos and Adeola encountered each other nine years ago on the way from New York to Moscow, Carlos the architect and Adeola the psychologist. It was not immediately clear that they would be friends, and how they would adjust their practices to the new reality of Moscow. Empathy for each other, and for Moscow, was built on everyday dialogs and experiences. They found that they needed each other. At a time in the city when being openly gay became a crime, and being black could get a person killed, their daily practices became crucial. As strangers, they came up with their own methods for understanding their own bodily and social differences, understanding the city and making themselves understood by others. Walking together, exploring, cooking, eating, shopping, working and resting: these practices became rituals of love and survival that slowly opened up the city. Eventually, the city enveloped them in the magic of friendship. They found that they were able to do good work in Moscow.
Salomon Frausto x Léa-Catherine Szacka
June 24, 19:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Salomon Frausto is the Director of Studies at The Berlage, part of the Delft University of Technology's Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. His books include Architourism: Authentic, Exotic, Escapist, Spectacular (2005), a volume exploring the role of architecture in the contemporary tourist imagination; and the forthcoming Twelve Institutional and Public Buildings Revisited, 1928−1968, documenting buildings outside of the received canon of modern architecture. He is also completing a long-term research and book project on the cross-disciplinary character of South African-born British architect Theo Crosby's work, the first critical assessment of his nearly forty-year career, spanning from the canonical "This is Tomorrow" exhibition and his technical editorship of Architectural Design to the founding of the multidisciplinary design firm Pentagram and his involvement with the Prince of Wales's Foundation for the Built Environment. His scholarly focus is on architecture at the intersection of pedagogy, criticism, and communication.
Léa-Catherine Szacka is a Lecturer in Architectural Studies at Manchester Architecture Research Group at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on the history of architecture exhibitions, the history and theory of postmodern architecture, and, more broadly, the relationship between media and architecture since the 1970s. Holding a PhD in architecture history and theory from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, she investigates these topics through extensive historical and archival research and using oral history and micro-history as methodological tools. She recently published Biennals/Triennials: Conversations on the Geography of Itinerant Display. Her current research project is investigating the spatial implications of television.
Troy Schaum х David Dewane and Daniel Roche
June 27, 19:00 GMT+3
Registration
Troy Schaum is an architect engaged in teaching and research as an Associate Professor at the Rice School of Architecture where he has been teaching since 2008. His professional practice with partner Rosalyne Shieh, SCHAUM/SHIEH, was a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, a winner of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA, and named one of the 2019 Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York among other awards. Their work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Art Prize in Grand Rapids, the Storefront For Art and Architecture, and the Center For Architecture in New York. He is also the editor of Totalization: Speculative Practice in Architectural Education, (Park Books 2019) whose contributors explore the status of expertise in the formulation of contemporary practice.
David Dewane (Rice Architecture alumnus) is an architect, entrepreneur, publisher, journalist, and educator. David has a background in ecologically and socially equitable design, having trained under Pliny Fisk III at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin, Texas. His current research focuses on global population dynamics, workplace design, and spaces of hyper-creativity. David is a Halcyon Fellow, has been honored as an Emerging Leader by the Design Futures Council, and has been certified as an EVOKE Agent by the World Bank Institute.
Daniel Roche has a background in urban design, architecture, and journalism, working now for ReThink Studio, a planning and design firm that specializes in transportation. Daniel graduated from an intensive Masters in Advanced Urban Design program at the Strelka Institute in Moscow, Russia. As a student, Daniel contributed to several publications, including Princeton University’s Pidgin Journal and Rice University’s PLAT, and worked as an editor for non-profit journalism outfits including Archeworks in Chicago.
Ana Miljački x Sarah Hirschman
June 30, 19:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
YouTube live stream
Ana Miljački is a critic, curator and Associate Professor of Architecture at MIT, where she teaches history, theory and design. Her research interests range from the role of architecture and architects in the Cold War era Eastern Europe, through the theories of postmodernism in late socialism to politics of contemporary architectural production. She was part of the three-member curatorial team, with Eva Franch i Gilabert and Ashley Schafer, of the US Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, where their project OfficeUS, critically examined the last century of US architects' global contribution. In 2018 Miljački launched the Critical Broadcasting Lab at MIT, whose work, "Sharing Trainers" was included in the São Paulo Architecture Biennales in the fall of 2019. The lab also presented the work of the option studio it hosted — Collective Architecture Studio — at the Seoul Architecture Biennale in the fall of 2019, and it curated and produced "Play Room" for MIT's Keller Gallery in the spring of 2020.
Sarah Hirschman is an architect and founder of the Oakland, CA practice Object Projects. She is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley and was the 2017−18 LeFevre Emerging Practitioner Fellow at the Knowlton School of Architecture, where she explored the expression of linguistic figures of humor through objects, patterns, and shifts of scale. Sarah's research has also focused on legal interpretations of architectural originality. Exhibitions on these topics, "Un/Fair Use" (with Ana Miljački) and "Paranomasiac", have been presented at the Center for Architecture in New York, MIT's Keller Gallery, Berkeley's Wurster Gallery, and the Knowlton School's Banvard Gallery.
Lucy Bullivant х Alexander Eriksson Furunes
July 2, 19:00 GMT+3
Zoom-вебинар
Applying pedagogical processes as part of ongoing architectural and cultural practice transcends the traditionally contained model of an academic environment. Instead of an 'ivory towers' approach, intensive applied educational activities in specific local contexts serves to enlarge a combined practical and conceptual awareness of real sites, as part of an ethos of lifelong learning.

Norwegian architect Alex Furunes brings students into most of his international projects, in Vietnam, Hunan and Shenzhen, engaging them with citizens to design and build. British place strategist, curator and author Lucy Bullivant engages in educational processes through projects using a range of media which serve to draw out new, hybridised relationships between teacher and taught, transcend disciplinary boundaries and localise impacts through participation. This can be seen in a few of their collaborations with communities and students on Biennale projects: one, a collaboration with Shenzhen university students and a knitted garment factory in the urban village of Baishizhou for the UABB Biennale, Shenzhen, 2016; the other, a close collaboration with CAMI migrants support centre and students of FAU Mackenzie to design banners in the Sao Paulo Metro as part of the São Paulo Biennale, 2017. A third and ongoing project is the building of a community centre in Oslo, initiated as part of the Oslo Architecture Triennale, 2019.
Lucy Bullivant is a place strategist, curatorial director and award-winning author of books about adaptive planning and architecture. She has a PhD by Prior Output in adaptive planning from the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University and a Masters degree in Cultural History, Royal College of Art. She has created and delivered over 100 projects of social value, many self-initiated — exhibitions, conferences, seminars, videos, books and magazines, including her webzine, Urbanista.org, dedicated to liveable urbanism, for clients in the public and private sectors internationally, and the new Urban Manifesto webinar series with Prathima Manohar. The 2nd edition of her book, Masterplanning Futures, will be published by Routledge in 2021. Formerly a professor of urban design history and theory at Syracuse University London, Lucy has given keynotes and lectures at leading institutions globally.

lucybullivantandassociates.net
Alexander Eriksson Furunes studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, before receiving his Masters in Architecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He has spearheaded and completed a series of collaborative projects with communities in the UK, India, Brazil, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines through his studio Eriksson Furunes. He is currently doing an Artistic PhD entitled Learning from Bayanihan/Dugnad (NTNU, 2016−2021) which explores the role of these traditions in participative planning, design and building processes. Together with Sudarshan V. Khadka Jr. he is the curator of the Philippine Pavilion, Structures of Mutual Support, at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021.
Anastassia Smirnova х Yury Grigoryan
July 18, 18:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
Through the last decade, the landscape of architectural education in Russia has experienced quite notable changes. The majority of young professionals still get their degrees from the universities established in the USSR. But some new projects and programmes, such as Strelka Institute, Architecture School MARCH, the Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism, Architects. rf programme and others, do offer alternative views on important and complicated issues: the relationship of society and architecture, the status of the profession, its place in culture, politics, economics.

Each of the existing schools makes its choice, responding to these problems, and formulates its mission and curriculum. However, the situation is developing, and some questions have not yet been answered, while some answers might require rethinking. Based on their many years of experience in teaching and designing educational programmes, Anastasia Smirnova and Yuri Grigoryan in their conversation will try to imagine what kind of architectural school they would like to start themselves. How do you do an architectural school today? For whom? Where to start? What tasks to set and why?
Anastassia Smirnova is a designer, writer and researcher. Scenographer by education Anastassia has been part of many multidisciplinary projects. After co-founding a Dutch-Russian office SVESMI in 2007 with Alexander Sverdlov, Anastassia also became part of the educational team at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, where she started teaching alongside Rem Koolhaas, Yuri Grigoryan (Meganom) and David Erixon (Hyper Island). With the latter she has been directing Institute's education program in 2013-2015. She also was an academic director of an international MA program Advanced Urban Design – a joint initiative of the Graduate School of Urbanism (HSE) and the Strelka Institute. At SVESMI Anastassia leads preservation projects and is responsible for various research, educational and cultural activities.
Yury Grigoryan is a Russian architect, in 1998 he co-founded the Meganom Bureau together with Ilya Kuleshov, Aleksandra Pavlova, and Pavel Ivanchikov. From 2011 to 2014, he was a director of the educational program at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design. Yury Grigoryan also regularly gives lectures, participates in conferences and takes an active part in the development of architectural community in Moscow. In 1991, Grigoryan graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute, where he is currently leading a design studio.
Piergianna Mazzocca х Anastasiia Gerasimova
July 22, 19:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
Piergianna Mazzocca's research interest expands on the medicalization of architecture through the study of both domestic and medical typologies and the formation of architectural knowledge when framed through its relationship with medical sciences and biopolitics. She obtained her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of the Andes in Merida in Venezuela, and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from the Delft University of Technology. She has taught at Rice University, in Houston, Texas and currently, she is the Emerging Scholar in Design Fellow at the School of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin.
Anastasiia Gerasimova is an architect, researcher, and a teacher at MARCH Architecture School in Moscow. Prior to that, she has taught at USPTU in Ufa, and School of Form in Poznań. She is a graduate of The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, where she had initiated her on-going research about the culture and aesthetics of the banya, the traditional Russian steam bath. In parallel she is a practicing architect, with experience from the multidisciplinary Studio Makkink and Bey in Rotterdam and a number of collaborations with architectural offices around Europe and Russia.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli x Anna Puigjaner
July 24, 19:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Anna Puigjaner is a PhD architect, researcher and editor. Co-founder of MAIO, an architectural office that works on spatial systems which allow variation and change through time. MAIO's projects embrace the ever-changing complexity of everyday-life while providing a resilient and clear architectural response.

Her personal research is focused on alternative domesticities able to reshape preset social structures. She is currently teaching at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation GSAPP at Columbia University. Formerly, she taught at Royal College of Arts, London, and at the Barcelona School of Architecture ETSAB/ETSAV — UPC. She has also lectured at Yale University, Harvard University, FAU Lisboa and Brussels School of Architecture UCL-LOCI, among other universities. During these last six years, she was also in charge of running the magazine Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme.

MAIO's work has been published in magazines such as Monocle, Domus, Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, A+U, Architectural Review and Detail among others, and exhibited at the MOMA of New York, the Royal Academy of London, the Art Institute of Chicago and Storefront for Art and Architecture. MAIO participated at Venice Biennial 2016 in the Spanish Pavillion, awarded with the Golden Lion, at Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015 & 2017 editions) and co-curated a Weekend Special at the Biennale di Venezia 2014. The work has been awarded several times including: FAD Opinion Award 2017 for Architecture, FAD Award 2016 for Ephemeral Interventions, FAD Award 2015 for Thought and Criticism, FAD Opinion Award 2013 for Interior Design and Arquia/Proxima Award 2014.

Anna has been finalist of the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Initiative 2016, and awarded for her research 'Kitchenless City' with the Wheelwright Prize 2016, Harvard GSD.
Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli is an architect and curator based in Milan. He is the founder of the interdisciplinary agency 2050+. Since 2017 he has been teaching at the Royal College of Arts in London.

Pestellini is currently curating the Russian Pavilion at the 2020/2021 Venice Architecture Biennial. In 2018 He has co-curated Manifesta’s 12th edition (2018) taking place in Palermo and has edited Palermo Atlas, the preparatory investigation on the Sicilian capital (Humboldt books, 2018).

Between 2007 and 2019 he has worked as architect and partner at OMA where his work focused on research and curation, scenography and preservation. His projects include 'Panda', a research and exhibition for the 2016 Oslo Triennale, on the controversial impact of digital sharing platforms; Monditalia, a multi-disciplinary exhibition on the current status of Italy, at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale; the scenography for the Greek theater of Syracuse in Sicily (2012); and the co-curation of Cronocaos, OMA’s exhibition on the politics of preservation at the 2010 Venice Architectural Biennale.

In parallel, Ippolito has run a number of notable architectural projects, including the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin (ongoing), and has led the transformation design of the 16th century Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice (2016). Pestellini Laparelli has contributed to various OMA preservation projects such as Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018) and Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018).
Oleg Drozdov x Nikita Tokarev
July 28, 19:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Oleg Drozdov is a graduate of the Kharkiv University of Civil Engineering with a degree in architecture; lives and works in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 1991−1997, pursued a career of an artist and in 1997 established "Drozdov & Partners" architectural practice. The office works on a wide international scale (South Korea, France, Switzerland, the USA, Spain, Kuwait) and embraces the philosophy of critical artistic pragmatism. Curator of the Ukrainian projects at the "Flood" International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, 2005 (the "Monisto [Necklace]" research project that explores Odessa seafront development) and the Moscow Architecture Biennale, 2012 (the "Circumstances" project tracing the "lifelines" of some of the practice's built projects). A key player in the "Terralogia" art project (Kyiv, Kharkiv, 2015) and the "Patiologia" project (Kyiv, Kharkiv, 2007), an in-depth research into the nature of patio houses. An author and reviewer of a course project in Columbia University GSAPP, 2011. The founder of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, the first private architectural school in Ukraine, 2017, its key tutor at the Department of Technology, focusing on a new understanding of tectonics. An expert of the EU Mies Award.
Nikita Tokarev graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute, the Experimental Design Studio under the guidance of Valentin Rannev and Eugene Asse in 1994. In 1997 he completed an internship at the Institute of Housing and Urban Development (Rotterdam). In 1994−2000 worked as an architect at the architectural bureau "Ostozhenka", in 2001−2012 co-founded and worked at the architectural bureau PANACOM. The bureau’s projects and buildings include more than ten private houses in the Moscow region, interiors in Moscow and Krasnodar, projects of the Achipse recreation center (Sochi) and the LAKEHOUSE apart-hotel (Barvikha), design of the equipment for Grohe and Valli & Valli. Since 1997 he taught at the Moscow Architectural Institute at the Department of Architectural Practice, since 2002 — at the Experimental Design Studio, at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design (2011). From 2012 to the present, he is the director of the MARCH Architectural School, and a tutor at the "Professional Practice" module.
Lesley Lokko x Christoph Lindner
August 12, 18:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Architecture schools strive to maintain their curricular relevance and respond quickly to changing circumstances. Developments in economics, politics, and technology are prompting the introduction of new courses and programs. The intensity and diversity of the educational landscape correspond to the richness and diversity of the cultural and informational environment. Students do not want to be bored, and fun and stimulation are often criteria for choosing a school.

The participants in our next talk represent schools placed at the heart of global cities, which are shaken by social and political disruptions today. The pandemic and remote forms of education have exacerbated the tensions not only between different groups but also between boredom, satiety and new forces of acceleration, which make us even more exposed to the influx of information, images and communication.

Do we manage in an academic environment to focus on comprehending reality, and not on chasing it? Are the conditions created in schools fit not only for intellectual but also for emotional development? Is there a place for an ethical position to be formed, or only for political engagement?
Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic and a novelist. She is currently Dean and Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York. Lesley Lokko received her degrees in architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and a PhD in Architecture from the University of London. She was the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg (2014−2019), which has grown into Africa's largest postgraduate school of architecture. She has taught at the University of Westminster, University of North London, Kingston University, University of Illinois at Chicago and Iowa State University. As an architect, she has worked in locations as diverse as Ghana, the UK, Namibia and France. Lesley Lokko is the author of eleven best-selling novels and has lectured and published widely on the relationship between race, cultural identity and architectural space.
Christoph Lindner is Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment and Professor in Urban Studies at University College London (UCL). He is an urban and cultural theorist, whose work spans the humanities, social sciences, and art and design fields, including architecture, visual culture, geography, media studies, and urban planning and design. Before joining The Bartlett, Christoph Lindner was Dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon, Professor of Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, and Director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. He is the author or editor of 14 books, including the edited collections 'Deconstructing the High Line' (Rutgers University Press, 2017) and 'Cities Interrupted' (Bloomsbury, 2016), which analyse the interrelatedness of public and private life in contemporary cities through architecture, geography, urban planning, photography and art.
Arseny Afonin x Oleg Sazonov
x Andrey Yelbayev x Maria Yablonina
August 14, 20:00 GMT+3
YouTube stream
Over the past two or three decades, the number of new professions emerged seems to surpass all of those that appeared through the 20th century. We have witnessed the rise of new areas of human activity and radical transformations of existing ones. However, these processes seem to bypass the architectural discipline, at least as far as the basis of professional education is concerned.

Is the profession of architecture so homogeneous that it is still possible to train all architects according to one standard? What specializations exist today and may transform the profession tomorrow? What competencies will they require?

To discuss these questions, Arseny Afonin and Oleg Sazonov from Soft Culture, a rapidly growing and innovative Moscow educational project, invited two architects. Both are also engaged in education and have not fit into the conventional professional framework for a long time: an architect-researcher Maria Yablonina and an architect-urbanist Andrey Yelbayev.
Maria Yablonina teaches at John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto, researching the potential of computational design, robotics, and digital manufacturing. Maria previously taught at the Institute of Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart (ICD Universität Stuttgart), from which she graduated.
Andrey Yelbayev is an architect and urbanist, project manager at Strelka Design Bureau and lecturer in the international master’s program Prototyping Future Cities at the Higher School of Urbanism at the Higher School of Economics. In addition to designing and teaching, Andrey runs a YouTube video blog on urbanism.
Arseny Afonin is an architect, co-founder of the educational project Soft Culture. Oleg Sazonov is an architect and a curator of educational programmes at Soft Culture.
Evgeniya Repina x Sergey Malakhov
August 20, 18:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
Evgenia Repina is an architect, professor of the Department of Innovative Design at the Samara State Technical University. In 2009 she defended her PhD thesis on the topic "Spontaneity in the creative method of architecture". She is head of the interdisciplinary laboratory on the problems of self-development of established territories, co-founder of the centre for advocacy design "Samara City Institute", author and co-author of more than ten completed projects and many conceptual ones, more than 150 publications, head of an independent academic studio and partner of a joint creative workshop with Sergei Malakhov. In 2014, TATLIN published an in-depth study on the pedagogical concepts of the workshop.
Sergey Malakhov — Doctor of Architecture, Professor, Head of the Department of Innovative Design at the Samara State Technical University, completed his postgraduate studies at Moscow Architectural Institute. Sergey Malakhov completed an internship at the Stuttgart City Council, and was one of the authors of the concept of "natural reconstruction of the historical environment" (MEMIREX, 1985), was a participant of the exhibition in Seville (EXPO-92), participant of the expedition and exhibition "Art-Ark" (St. Petersburg-Amsterdam, 1994). Sergey Malakhov’s doctoral thesis’s topic was "Compositional method of architectural design". Sergey Malakhov is the author of many conceptual and realised projects, in 2015 he was awarded the ARCHIWOOD prize for the realised project of the Day Gilbert ecological settlement.
Alla Mitrofanova х Irina Aristarkhova
х Sergey Sitar х Oxana Sarkisyan
August 27, 19:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
The question of the role of theory in modern architectural education leads us to a revision of the age-old confrontation between theory and practice, and eventually to the discovery of a third historic course that has long remained in the shadows. This course, which gradually came to the fore of the cultural process, is environmental ethics, the Sphere of Relations in an extended sense: intersubjective, bodily, social, gender and sexual, production and non-production, human and non-human. Alla Mitrofanova and Irina Aristarkhova, art philosophers of the feminist trend, which plays a crucial role in today’s exciting world political transformations, are invited to participate in the discussion. Through the rethinking of the subject matter and the rethinking of the 'thing/object' opposition, the feminist tradition is preparing a new onto-epistemological junction of three areas vital for architecture: hospitality, technology and art.
Alla Mitrofanova is a philosopher, a member of the Cyberfeminist International, curator of the St. Petersburg Philosophical Cafe, teacher of the The School of Engaged Art, Institute of Contemporary Art, Sreda Obuchenia, author of texts on philosophy of technology, new materialism, feminist theory.
Irina Aristarkhova is a professor of art and cultural studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, author of various publications, including the monograph Hospitality of the Matrix Philosophy, Biomedicine, and Culture (Columbia University Press, 2012, Russian translation by Ivan Limbakh 2017, with an introduction by Alla Mitrofanova and illustrations by Anna Tereshkina) and Arrested Welcome: Hospitality in Contemporary Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2020).
Sergey Sitar is an architect, architectural theorist, designer and curator. Sergey Sitar is a senior tutor of the module Theory and History of the MARCH MA program, author of the book "Architecture of the External World" (Moscow, Novoye Izdatelstvo, 2012). Since 1995 he has been a regular author and editor of the architectural magazine Project Russia, since 2001 editor of the theoretical section of the magazine Project International. Co-initiator and curator of the international project-theoretical seminar "There will be New History" (2019).
Oxana Sarkisyan is a senior tutor of the Systems of Art course at MARCH, curator of several experimental exhibitions and author of publications on the topics of unofficial Russian art, gender studies and art activism.
KOSMOS х Space Popular
September 3, 19:00 GMT+3
Zoom webinar
KOSMOS Architects is an office collaborating virtually, bringing together partners based in Zurich, Moscow, Graz and New York. KOSMOS designs projects of all types and scales: from hardcore architecture to pop-up art installations. The office combines art and technology, global experience with respect to a local context, academic research and practice. KOSMOS has received awards and prizes in various competitions, including Prix de Geneve in Experimental Architecture, award in Pro Helvetia competition, 2018 Archmarathon Award for sports facilities. KOSMOS is working now on projects in Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Kazan, Basel, Geneva. Built projects include a sports centre, airport interiors, renovations of former industrial territories, numerous pavilions in Moscow, France, Switzerland, USA, Hungary, etc. KOSMOS is tutoring design studios in Geneva Haute école d'art et de design and Vienna University of Technology.
Space Popular is directed by Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, both graduates from the Architectural Association in London (2011). They founded the practice in Bangkok (2013) and have been based in London since 2016. The studio has completed buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors across Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture in the Immersive Internet. Lesmes and Hellberg have taught architectural design studio since 2011, first at International Program in Design and Architecture in Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and since 2016 at the Architectural Association in London. Their current MArch course investigates visions for civic architecture in the virtual realm.
The talks will be held till October, check this page for the regular updates of the timetable.
MARCH Architecture School is a unique educational centre specialising in an international educational programme in the field of architecture and urbanism. The School was developed in partnership with the School of Art, Architecture and Design of London Metropolitan University (LMU), our students receive a British MA or BA (Hons) award in Architecture and Urbanism, while studying in Moscow. MARCH strives to create a new model of architectural education in Russia, focused on generating thinking, competent and responsible individuals, educated to the highest international level and integrated into the global architecture community.