Houston Design Research Grant Lectures

Liz Gálvez and Estefanía Barajas.
October 22, 2021
12:00 p.m.
Zoom webinar
 
Rice Architecture
2021-2022 Lecture Series
Building Identities | Fall Edition
Rice Design Alliance Lecture
 

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Rice Architecture Visiting Critic Liz Gálvez and Rice Architecture student Estefanía Barajas, winners of the Rice Design Alliance Houston Design Research Grant 2021, will present their work at 12:00 p.m. cst via Zoom as part of the 2021-2022 Rice Architecture Lecture Series, Building Identities, Fall Edition. The lecture is presented by Rice Design Alliance.

Liz Gálvez (Faculty Winner, Rice Architecture) will present her ongoing work "The Transgressive Kitchen."

Gálvez’s research project will analyze how the domestic kitchen, in relation to migrant populations and informal food supply chains in Houston, addresses social, economic and biological issues as an entangled space of speculation. Gálvez’s research follows home cooks to document their important contributions to Houston’s food supply chains, in an effort to learn about immigrant community relationships between the home and urban food systems.

Liz Gálvez is Mexican-American. She is a registered architect, directs Office e.g. and teaches as a Visiting Critic at the Rice School of Architecture. She received an M.Arch. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a concentration in history, theory, and criticism of architecture and a bachelor’s degree in architectural and philosophical studies from Arizona State University. Her work focuses on the interface between architecture, theory and environmentalism through an examination of building technologies.
 
Previously, Gálvez taught at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College, where she was the 2018–19 William Muschenheim Fellow. She has practiced at architecture firms in the United States and in Mexico, including Will Bruder Architects, NADAAA and Rojkind Arquitectos. Her writing has been published in Footprint, Pidgin, PLAT and POOL. Her work has been exhibited at MIT, the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria, the University of Michigan, the Space p11 Gallery in Chicago, and the Farish Gallery at Rice University. She received the 2021 Rice Design Alliance Houston Design Research Grant and the 2016 Seebacher Prize for the Fine Arts. In 2021, she was awarded the Architectural League Prize.

 

Estefanía Barajas (Student Winner, Rice Architecture) will present her work "Tables in Deserts and Swamps: How Food Education Can Help Solve the Root of Food Insecurity."

Barajas’ project aims to promote urban agriculture and create new public spaces that can provide food education, fresh produce, and entrepreneurial opportunities for underserved communities. Through the development of a multiscalar structure that serves as a vertical farm, outdoor classroom, and distribution center, Barajas’ project aims to help introduce an alternative collective space within schools in Houston—a new system of care within the integration of food and water infrastructures.

Estefanía Barajas is a graduate student at Rice Architecture. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Texas at San Antonio.  

 

 
Building Identities
Construction of physical structures is inseparable from the construction of human identities. Rice Architecture aims to broaden our understanding of building construction and identity formation as two interrelated processes, seeking to close the gap between the social and the formal in the field of architecture and our world more broadly. Reflecting the pluralism of Houston as the most diverse city in the United States, Building Identities advances the agency of architecture in a new multicultural world. We believe this is an urgent theme for our school, our community, and our field at large.
 
All lectures take place CST via Zoom. All lectures are free and open to the public. Each lecture is eligible for one AIA/CES Learning Unit.
 
Please be sure to register online for each lecture to receive the link to join. 
 
This lecture series is made possible through the generous support of the Betty R. and the George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund, the William B. Coleman Jr. Colloquium Fund for Architecture, the Wm. W. Caudill Lecture Series Fund, and Rice Design Alliance (RDA), the public programs and outreach arm of Rice Architecture. The RDA Houston Design Research Grant Lectures are made possible through the generous support of The Mitsui U.S.A. Foundation. Additional programming support is provided by RDA members and the Texas Commission on the Arts.