Round Table 2: Mexicantown

Watch the video here.

Architects:

FLORENCIA PITA AND JACKILIN BLOOM, Pita & Bloom, Los Angeles, CA
Both Florencia Pita and Jackilin Hah Bloom have extensive work and teaching experience. While together at Greg Lynn FORM, they were team leaders on the World Trade Center Design competition. While Jackilin continued at Greg Lynn FORM to design and build the Bloom House, Florencia has designed and executed several full-scale installations of her own. Their shared sensibilities and research interests brought them together in 2010 and have since produced a body of work that focuses on the cohesion of form and color.

MARCELO LOPEZ-DINARDI AND V. MITCH McEWEN, A(n) Office, Detroit, MI and New York, NY
A(n) Office partners come from culturally and disciplinary multiple backgrounds. Latin America, the Caribbean and North America are all physical locations where they have actively engaged. Both Latin American and African-American cultures are also at the center of their concerns; as well as issues of migration and democracy. Political economy, urban design, architecture, exhibition, curatorial and installation work are all part of their disciplinary framework. A(n) Office partners collectively have more than twenty years of intense experience in the design field and have developed as well an academic career during the same period. They have worked in a variety of formats, including architectural firms, public and municipal institutions, not-for-profit organizations, academia, and independently as entrepreneurs. These multi-platformed experiences have increased their capacity to consider and produce multi-disciplinary collaborative work. Both partners have professional architecture degrees, as well as graduate-level studies in conceptual and curatorial practices and undergraduate studies in political economy from Columbia and Harvard, respectively.

MACK SCOGIN & MERRILL ELAM, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, Atlanta, GA
Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, founded in 1984 as Parker and Scogin, later as Scogin Elam and Bray, was formed in order to take full advantage of the complementary skills and talents of the two principal architects, Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam. The work of the firm is organized in such a manner that ensures the involvement of the principal architects in the day-to-day development of each project. This keeps the work personal and directed, and brings the best of the firm’s collective knowledge and experience to each client. Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects’ clients expect innovative design with a mature approach to the practical constraints of architecture. They have an innate desire for architecture that goes beyond mere problem solving to architecture that addresses their curiosity surrounding the role of architecture in society. The firm has had the privilege to work with some of the most respected clients in the world including: Herman Miller, Inc; The High Museum of Art; The Committee for Olympic Development in Atlanta; Tishman Speyer Properties; Corning Enterprises, Inc., and The Coca Cola Company, the following city governments: Atlanta, Cincinnati, New York; as well as the following universities: Arizona State, University of California at Berkeley, Clark-Atlanta, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, Harvard, The Ohio State, Tulane, Syracuse, and Yale.

Moderators:

McLain Clutter, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Amy Kulper, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning