ASSEMBLE:ELBMESSA

By The Architectural League and the Urban Design Forum

Jan 31  |  Culture

Current Work is a lecture series featuring leading figures in the worlds of architecture, urbanism, design, and art – SoHo Events

ASSEMBLE:ELBMESSA
Members of the London-based collective visit New York to present their recent projects.
January 31, 2023
7:00 p.m.
Assemble is a collective working across disciplines including architecture, research, design, and public art. Founded in London in 2010 to undertake a single self-built project, Assemble has since delivered a diverse and award-winning body of work. The collective maintains a democratic and cooperative practice that enables built, social, and research-based projects at a variety of scales.

In the words of a 2015 Metropolis profile, Assemble is “working to create an open, flexible, participatory, and exciting city, based on architectural projects that are ad hoc, handmade, built by volunteers, and fundamentally of their respective, very urban sites.”

Recent projects include:

Assemble Play, a series of easily replicable, high-quality, free-to-access play opportunities within homes, towns, and cities
Bridport Housing, a research project looking at new forms of community-led housing provision for rural and semi-rural contexts
Sugarhouse Studios Bermondsey, a workspace for artists, designers, and fabricators whose design enables and supports co-working and collaboration.
Assemble won the Turner Prize in 2015 and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2017. Their work is included in the upcoming group exhibition at Art Omi, Shared Space—Collective Practices, opening on January 21, 2023.

The lecture will be presented by Mary Anderson and Owen Lacey, two members of Assemble.

Mary Anderson has worked across the fields of architecture and set design in London and Berlin. She has researched self-build bio-construction methods using hempcrete and timber and, more recently, has contributed to Dreamachine, a touring immersive public art commission.

Owen Lacey has worked between the art and architecture worlds. He studied fine art and has worked with multiple galleries and practices. As the general manager of Assemble, Lacey focuses on the inner operations of the collective and develops collaborative methods of practice.

This program will be moderated by Jerome Haferd. Haferd is an assistant professor at The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at City College and a founding principal of the Harlem-based design and architecture firm BRANDT : HAFERD.

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