Join us for our last Design Talks event of 2022, Urgent Design, Timeless Institutions, which also serves as our Annual Meeting and election of 2023 Board (ballot will be emailed to AIA Austin members).

This event features Brent Stringfellow, AIA, UT Austin's Director of Campus Planning and University Architect.

The talk will review the challenges of architectural design in a dynamic environment where change is happening at a faster rate, but planning must still be in a context of long-term decision making.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand how rapidly changing practices in teaching, research, and architectural practice demand agile approaches for the long-term success of university building designs, including how challenges in design, siting, massing, aesthetics, and materiality, as well as validity of renovation vs. replacement.
2. Appreciate how the legacy of campus plans form a strong connection to a university's identity, yet academic institutions must confront this identity to balance that legacy with the need for a more inclusive and welcoming environment.
3. Recognize how, while sustainability and resiliency are becoming more and more embedded in design expectations for universities, and play a more visible role beyond the initial design, new campus planning faces great challenges to overcome in terms of operations, the health and productivity of occupants, changing assumptions about resources, and even the nature of how a campus is planned.
4. Analyze how aging infrastructure and the demands of existing campus buildings can be at odds with current and future criteria. The session will explore solutions and the greater context that universities inhabit in a city.

Brent is the University of Texas at Austin’s Director of Campus Planning & University Architect. Before to joining UT, he was the Associate Vice-President of Facilities & University Architect at Lehigh University. Prior to joining higher education, Brent spent 20 years in private practice with award-winning firms in New York and Boston focusing on institutional and academic projects. Brent received his undergraduate degree in Design of the Environment from the University of Pennsylvania and the Master in Architecture from Harvard University‚ Graduate School of Design. Brent is a registered architect in Texas and Pennsylvania, and a member of NCARB, the AIA, and the Association of University Architects.  In addition to his professional experience, he has taught at Smith College, Pratt Institute, City College of New York, Fudan University, and Lehigh University.

1 LU/HSW (pending) with paid ticket. Register for the event (includes lunch) here.

All sales are final. Design Talks is AIA Austin's annual speaker series comprising five events that appeal to architects and design enthusiasts from the greater public. This year's speakers include designers from across the globe.