Cocktails & Conversation: Francine Houben and Harriet Harriss, RIBA

Cocktails & Conversation is a series of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, curator, or architectural historian to discuss current architecture design issues. This program will feature Francine Houben and Pratt School of Architecture Dean Harriet Harriss as they discuss Houben’s career over a custom cocktail that the audience can make from the comfort of their home. 

The formal program is planned to start at 5:30 PM EST, but we will be starting at 5:00 PM EST for an ‘open’ meeting during which our guests and attendees can freely converse. Please join us at 5:00 PM EST if you can. 

Speaker:
Francine Houben, Founding Partner and Creative Director, Mecanoo architecten

Interviewer:
Harriet Harriss, Assoc. AIA, RIBA, ARB, PhD, PFHEA, FRSA, Dean, Pratt School Architecture

About the Speakers:

Founding Partner and Creative Director of Mecanoo architecten Francine Houben‘s work ranges from theatres, museums, and libraries to neighborhoods, housing, and parks. Each design is founded on observation of people, location, culture, and climate. This analysis amounts to designs that respond to current needs, yet are also prepared for (un)predictable change.

Educated at Delft University of Technolog, Houben holds Honorary Fellowships of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC). She was granted lifelong membership to the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 2015, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands presented Houben with the prestigious Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize honoring her contribution to the architecture profession.

Selected works include Delft University of Technology Library, Delft (1997), La Llotja Theatre and Congress Centre, Lleida (2008), Library of Birmingham (2013), Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building, Boston (2015), and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Taiwan (2018). Her most recent work includes the modernization of Washington D.C.’s central library, which was covered in a one-hour-long documentary.

Harriet Harriss is an architect and Dean of the Pratt School of Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. She previously led the Architecture Research Programs at the Royal College of Art in London. Her teaching, research, and writing focus upon pioneering new pedagogic models for design education and widening participation in architecture to ensure it remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve.

Dean Harriss has won various awards, including a Brookes Teaching Fellowship, a Higher Education Academy Internationalisation Award, a Churchill Fellowship, two Santander Fellowships, two Diawa awards, and a NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and Art) Pioneer Award. Harriss was awarded a Clore Fellowship for cultural leadership (2016-17) and elected to the European Association of Architectural Education Council in summer 2017. Dean Harriss has spoken across a range of media channels (from the BBC to TEDx) on the wider issues facing the built environment and is a recognized advocate for design education. In 2019, she was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design.

Enjoy the talks, then buy the book!
From 2012 through 2018, the AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee’s Cocktails and Conversation series has hosted some of architecture’s most interesting and provocative practitioners to discuss what informs their designs. These conversations have been collected into a book intended to inspire and delight its readers. You can purchase a copy here.