Lauretta Vinciarelli: Drawing as ​______

Akima Brackeen is the director/designer of Exhibit A and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her design practice is focused on investigating the social, political, and ecological dimensions of water access in order to reveal the systems of power and care, and material traces that shape perceptions and values within the built environment.

In the past year, Akima was awarded the Lily Auchicloss Rome Prize in Architecture by the American Academy in Rome, was selected as a University Design Research Fellow for the 2024-25 cycle of Exhibit Columbus, and the 2025 Global Goals Award by the United Nations Association-Chicago.

She holds a MArch from the University of Michigan and a BA in Architecture and Community Design from the University of San Francisco.

Bruna Canepa is a Brazilian architect, researcher and artist born in São Paulo, where she lives and works. She graduated as an architect and urbanist from Escola da Cidade in 2013, having her final project “5 Houses” being published as a book. She recently completed her master’s research “An Archeology of Drawing”, developed from 2021 to 2024 at the History and Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism department at University of São Paulo (FAU-USP), in which she discussed the notion of the materiality of a drawing as a fundamental entryway to the indispensable historiographical revisions into the discipline. She has collaborated with a variety of São Paulo-based architecture firms, particularly on exhibition design projects, and has exhibited her work as an artist in Brazil and internationally since 2008. Drawing has been the fundamental substance and guidance of her work for more than fifteen years now, for both the practical and the theoretical endeavors.

Dr. Daniel Sherer (PhD Harvard 2000) teaches architectural history and theory at Princeton University School of Architecture. His areas of research include Italian Renaissance and Baroque Architecture; Modern Architecture in Europe and the USA; modern receptions of humanist architecture; Italian modern architecture and its interactions with art and design; modern architecture and film; historiography and theory, with an emphasis on Manfredo Tafuri. His translation of Tafuri’s Ricerca del Rinascimento: Principi, Città, Architetti (1992) into English (Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects (Yale U. P. 2006) won the Sir Nikolaus Pevsner Book Award. Dr. Sherer has published widely in European and American journals including AA Files, Artforum, Art Journal, Assemblage, Domus, Journal of Architecture, JSAH, Log, Perspecta, Potlatch, Studi e Ricerche di Storia dell’Architettura, Vesper, and Zodiac. In 2018 he curated the exhibition “Aldo Rossi: The Architecture and Art of the Analogous City,” at Princeton SoA . In 2022-23 he was Visiting Professor in Architectural History and Theory at the Iuav, University of Venice, Dipartimento Cultura del Progetto. In 2026 he will be Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Architetturae Studi Urbani.

Elena M’Bouroukounda is a Doctoral Candidate in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP. Elena researches the mediation of space in the French overseas territories in the Caribbean and Atlantic World in the late 19th and early 20th century and their historical formulations at the margins of multiple spatial boundaries. A primary thread through her research is the multiplicities of temporalities and historical narratives within this region and their transmission to and deformation in European metropoles. To this, her research mobilizes a range of visual records, including print materials that register the successive reconstructions of the region. An interest in the ephemerality of material records throughout the Caribbean ultimately grounds her research into the intersection of geography, ecology, and architecture.

At Columbia University, Elena is a Provost Diversity Fellow. Before beginning the Ph.D. Program, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Ball State University in 2017, where she studied and minored in French language, and a master of Architecture degree from Princeton University’s School of Architecture in 2020, where she was awarded a Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for design excellency.

Francesca Romana Forlini is a Roman-born architect, Ph.D., educator, and editor whose scholarship lies at the intersection of architectural history and theory, interior design, and feminist cultural sociology. Her research critically engages with the architectural canon, with particular attention to overlooked Italian women architects, advancing more inclusive architectural histories that acknowledge women’s nuanced contributions to spatial design from the seventeenth century onward. Both her forthcoming monograph, From Within: Uncovering Cultural Domesticity (DEditore, 2026), and her chapter on Lauretta Vinciarelli’s early work in the edited volume Women Artists and Abstract Art in Postwar Rome (Routledge, 2026) address these inquiries. These publications follow her co-authored volume The Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Palava City (Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2017).

Forlini has taught courses on the global history and theory of architecture and interior design, most recently at the New York Institute of Technology. She has also held academic and research appointments at Parsons The New School, Middlesex University, Harvard University, and the Royal College of Art. Her research has been presented at numerous international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals and magazines, including Idea, Thresholds, Urban Planning, Interiority, and Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture. Forlini was the first editor-in-chief of koozArch magazine and studio, the founder of the book series Stanze (Plectica Editrice), and served as contributor and editor for the AIA-awarded journal Oblique: Critical Conservation, Vol. 1.

A Fulbright Scholar, she holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History and Theory from the Royal College of Art, a Master in Design Studies in Critical Conservation from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and an architectural degree from Sapienza University of Rome.

Joan Ockman is an architectural historian, critic, and educator. She is currently Director of Doctoral Studies at Yale School of Architecture, where she was the Vincent Scully Visiting Professor of Architectural History from spring 2020 to spring 2024. She also holds appointments as Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design and at Cooper Union School of Architecture. Previously she taught for over two decades at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and served from 1994 to 2008 as director of its Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. A graduate of Cooper Union, her involvement with architecture began at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, where she edited multiple publications, including Oppositions journal and the Oppositions Books series, from 1976 through 1983. Among her book publications are Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America (MIT Press, 2012); The Pragmatist Imagination: Thinking about Things in the Making (Princeton Architectural Press, 2000); and the award-winning Architecture Culture 1943–1968: A Documentary Anthology (Rizzoli, 1993).

Jolanda Devalle is an architect and PhD candidate part of the Theory and Project of Domestic Space Laboratory led by Professor Pier Vittorio Aureli. Devalle holds and M.Arch from the Yale School of Architecture and a B.Arch from the University of Cambridge. Prior to her doctoral studies, she practiced architecture for several years at Selldorf Architects in New York. Her writings on architecture have appeared in publications including Log, The New York Review of Architecture (NYRA), Paprika! and Burning Farm. Devalle is an editor of the Burning Farm: A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space, and has coedited the forthcoming book Order and Disorder: Selected Essays and Interviews by Manfredo Tafuri 1964–1994 (Birkhäuser, Spring 2026).

K. Michael Hays is the Eliot Noyes Professor of Architecture Theory and Co-Director of the Master in Design Studies Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), where he has taught since 1988. In addition to teaching, he advises doctoral students on the history and theory of architecture. Prior to the GSD, Hays held academic appointments at numerous institutions including Princeton University, along with Columbia University, Cornell University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among others. His research and scholarship focus on critical theory, modernism, and the legacy of poststructuralism in architecture. Hays has played a pivotal role in the development of architectural theory. He was founding editor of the journal Assemblage and the first Adjunct Curator of Architecture at the Whitney Museum. His notable publications include Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject (MIT Press, 1992), Architecture Theory since 1968 (MIT Press, 1998), Architecture’s Desire (MIT Press, 2009), and, most recently with Andrew Holder, Inscriptions (Harvard University Press, 2022). Hays received his Master of Architecture degree and his Ph.D. in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art from MIT.

Keren Dillard is an architectural designer, researcher, and journalist from Yonkers, New York. She is a graduate of Barnard College where she completed her undergraduate degree in Architecture with a double minor in Africana Studies and Italian Studies. Keren has received her Masters of Architecture from Princeton University School of Architecture with certification in African American Studies. Keren’s work is grounded in cultural preservation and forward design thinking for the advancement of African American and African Diasporic communities across the United States. Her research deals closely with Black housing, ghettoes, and enclaves, as she is an advocate for equitable design in research and practice. Keren’s written design journalism work has been published in The Architects Newspaper, Dwell, Azure, Dezeen, and Architectural Digest’s Clever.

Mary McLeod is a Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP, where she teaches architecture history and theory. She has also taught at Harvard University, Yale University, University of Kentucky, University of Miami and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Her research and publications have focused on the history of the modern movement and on contemporary architecture theory, examining issues concerning the connections between architecture and ideology.

McLeod is co-editor of Architecture, Criticism, Ideology and Architecture Reproduction, and is the editor of and contributor to the book Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living (Abrams, 2003). She also initiated and helped curate the exhibition Charlotte Perriand: Interior Equipment, held at the Urban Center in New York. Her articles have appeared in Assemblage, Oppositions, Art Journal, AA Files, JSAH, Casabella, Art Journal, Harvard Design Magazine and Lotus as well as other journals and anthologies, such as The Sex of Architecture, Architecture in Fashion, Architecture of the Everyday, Architecture and Feminism, The Pragmatist Imagination, The State of Architecture, Fragments: Architecture and the Unfinished, Architecture Theory since 1968, Oppositions Reader, Le Parole dell’Architettura, and Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, NEH award, and grants from New York Council of the Arts and the Graham Foundation.

Monica Ponce de León is the George Dutton ‘27 Professor in Architecture at Princeton University School of Architecture and founding principal of MPdL Studio. From 2008 through 2015, she was the dean of Taubman College at the University of Michigan, and served as the dean of Princeton School of Architecture from 2016 through 2025. For over 12 years, Ponce de León taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, where she became a professor and served as the Graduate Program coordinator and was director of the Digital Fabrication Lab. Prior to her appointment at Harvard, Ponce de León was an assistant professor at Northeastern University. She has been a visiting professor or scholar at various institutions across the United States, including SCI-Arc, Rhode Island School of Design, and Georgia Tech, where she was the first Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions in academia, Ponce de León received ACADIA’s distinguished teaching award. As a practitioner, she has been honored with the National Design Award in Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum; the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the USA Target Fellow in Architecture and Design from United States Artists; and the Young Architects and Emerging Voices prize from the Architectural League of New York. She has additionally received 13 Progressive Architecture Awards, 14 awards from the American Institute of Architects, as well as the prestigious Harleston Parker Medal from the Boston Society of Architects. In 2016, she was inducted into the National Academy of Design. Ponce de León has a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, as well as a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami.

Sheila is a Senior Project Manager at New York City Economic Development Corporation. With interests in public service and inclusive programming, she is dedicated to advancing platforms that center women of color in architectural discourse. While at Princeton University, she co-organized Princeton Mellon Initiative’s Research Forum: Gender, Justice, Urbanism as well as the Women in Design conference Norma Merrick Sklarek: Redefining Public. Prior to working at NYCEDC, Sheila was a Forefront Fellow at the Urban Design Forum and a designer at Adjaye Associates and Leong Leong.

Shoshana Torn is a designer and artist working in the expanded field of architecture.

Currently, she is designing and researching with MPdL Studio and serves as Senior Research Specialist for Princeton University School of Architecture. Ongoing projects include curating The House Transformed exhibition (2025) and co-editing Svetlana Kana Radević: Aggregate Assemblies (forthcoming, Princeton University Press.)

Shoshana received a Master of Architecture from Princeton SoA in 2023. Her M.Arch thesis, Exodus, positions both design and the profession as active agents in the shifting landscape of a post-Roe U.S. and was awarded the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize for excellence in architectural design.

With a dedication to teaching as practice, Shoshana has co-taught and assisted graduate core, introduction to architectural design, and design thinking courses at Princeton. She was a key organizer of the Womxn in Design and Architecture conferences on Minnette De Silva (2021), June Jordan (2022), and Svetlana Kana Radević (2023.)

Before reaching architecture, Shoshana worked as an independent graphic designer and holds a B.A. in art history with honors from New York University.

Troy Schaum’s design and research focus on new possibilities for form, representation, and politics in the post-megalopolitan city. He is pursuing this line of research through practice-based work at Schaum Architects, an award-winning architectural firm based in Houston. His firm considers the city at the scale of the building, both as a site of theoretical experimentation and as a material configuration that may be transformed through building. This work, which unfolds at a range of scales nationally and internationally, has received several AIA design awards. He has also been a finalist in the 2017 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, named one of the 2016 New Practices New York by the AIA, awarded as one of the Architectural League’s 2019 Emerging Voices, and named to the Domus list of 50 Best Architecture Firms 2020 and AN 50 in 2025. Schaum is the co-author of Blanking: An Annotated Archive of Thoughts and Projects on Architecture (Park Books, 2025). Recent and ongoing work includes a restoration and new buildings for the Judd Foundation and for the Chinati Foundation, both in Marfa, Texas; work across several local and global sites on art galleries, arts headquarters, and artist studios; a café pavilion in Houston’s Memorial Park; and a residential tower on Park Avenue in New York City. His work has been exhibited internationally – including at the Venice Biennale, MoMA, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, Slade Gallery in London, and the Center for Architecture in New York–and published in many journals and other media, including The Guardian, The New York Times, Fast Company, Architect’s Newspaper, Texas Architect, Azure, Dezeen, Domus, Architect, Frame, and Architectural Record.Troy Schaum is also the editor of Totalization: Speculative Practice in Architectural Education (Park Books, 2019), in which contributors explore the status of expertise in the formulation of contemporary practice.