Light in the Public Realm

Photo Credit: Midway Crossings, Midway Plaisance, Chicago, IL
©Tom Rossiter

James Carpenter – Light In The Public Realm

AIALA Committee: Interior Architecture

This is a virtual event. Zoom log-in information will be emailed to registrants 24 hours in advance from events@aialosangeles.org. If you do not receive a confirmation 24 hours prior to the event, please email events@aialosangeles.org.

CES Learning Unit: 1 LU

James Carpenter’s lecture will focus upon a 40-year trajectory of work that brings agency to the presence of light, allowing it to reveal the defining properties and presence of nature within our built environment.

Presenters:

James Carpenter – Principal, Founder, James Carpenter Design Associates Inc.
James Carpenter has worked at the intersection of architecture, fine art, and engineering for nearly 50 years, advancing a distinctive vision based on the use of natural light as the foundational element of the built environment. Originally studying architecture before concentrating on the fine arts, Carpenter founded the cross-disciplinary design firm James Carpenter Design Associates in 1979 to support the application of these aesthetic principles to large-scale architectural projects. Carpenter’s work is driven by a deep awareness of materiality and craft as a means of enhancing the individual human experience within the built environment. Carpenter has been recognized with numerous national and international awards, including an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Smithsonian National Environment Design Award. He holds a degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and was a Loeb Fellow of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a Mellon Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago.

Joseph Welker – Studio Director, James Carpenter Design Associates Inc.
Joseph Welker is Studio Director at James Carpenter Design Associates, managing the studio’s cross-disciplinary staff and coordinating its collaborations with landscape architects, architects, structural engineers, environmental engineers, fabricators and materials engineers. Welker works across the studio’s diverse range of projects, from public art to design elements and spaces that enhance the public realm. Fundamental to each project is an enhanced experience of light, unique to each project site and resulting in integrated art and structural designs that transcend form and style. Welker studied architecture and design at Cornell University, holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree. He recently led JCDA’s design efforts at the Nordstrom NYC flagship store.

Learning Objectives:
+ Interaction of Light and Material – In context of the projects presented identify several examples of how the use of contrasting materials, solid and transparent, reflecting and absorbing, can affect light in space.
+ Awareness of The Natural Environment – Describe two ways in which built environments can enhance the perception of natural environmental cycles of daylight and seasons when sun and weather are accounted for.
+ Encourage Dynamic Public Spaces – Based on the public settings presented explain several methods to suggest movement and places of pause and why the mix of the two dynamics makes public spaces more engaging.
+ Mixing Technical and Enigmatic Approaches – From the details presented offer two ways in which highly technical explorations of materials and light can yield experiential effects that are profound yet hard to describe.

This event is organized in partnership with IES-LA