Concrete Encounters: Architecture of Repair and Theory Across Cultures

In celebration of its seventh anniversary, new chair leadership, and the formation of its Advisory Group, the AIANY Committee on Residential Architecture presents Concrete Encounters: Architecture of Repair and Theory Across Cultures—a program blending video interviews and a book discussion. Join us for video interviews with the founders of Amateur Architecture Studio, which set the context for a book talk by Ruo Jia on Chinese experimental architecture within a global theoretical framework shaped by cross-cultural exchange.

Stephen Moser and Michael Landry, incoming AIANY Committee Co-Chairs, will introduce the program, reflecting on past accomplishments and its evolving mission to set the stage for an evening of film and conversation.

Two video segments feature interviews with Amateur Architecture Studio founders Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu. The videos situate their practice within a broader context while highlighting Lu Wenyu’s focus on repair—where material reuse, construction knowledge, and on-site craftsmanship inform a design approach—as they take on their upcoming role at the Venice Biennale in 2027.

After a brief intermission, the event will continue with a lecture by Ruo Jia based on her new book, Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory: Different Patches of the Concrete (Routledge, 2026). Her research situates Chinese experimental architecture within a global theoretical framework, highlighting how cross-cultural exchanges expand architectural thinking and challenge conventional narratives.

A discussion with Guanghui Ding and Ekin Bilal will follow, contextualizing the themes of Ruo Jia’s book within the development of contemporary Chinese architecture and extending their relevance to a broader global exchange of ideas.

Speakers:
Ekin Bilal, Cofounder, NOT NOT; Visiting Critic, Cornell University
Guanghui Ding, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, City College of New York
Ruo Jia, PhD, Founder and Director, IfWorks

About the Speakers:
Ekin Bilal is a Visiting Critic at Cornell University and the cofounder of NOT NOT, an architectural design practice. Through design and representation, his work examines the regulatory and economic paper trail that shapes architecture and approaches maintenance, material circularity, and back-of-house infrastructures as sites for political and creative inquiry. Bilal previously taught at the MIT and has practiced with New Affiliates, Bureau Spectacular, MIT Urban Risk Lab, and Stephen Moser Architects. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Salone del Mobile Milano, and the Timișoara Architecture Biennial and collected by the Art Institute of Chicago.

Guanghui Ding is a former Associate Professor at Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture and Adjunct Associate Professor at the City College of New York. A specialist in contemporary Chinese architecture, Ding is author of Constructing a Place of Critical Architecture in China (Ashgate, 2015), and with Charlie Xue, co-author of A History of Design Institutes in China (Routledge, 2018) and co-editor of Exporting Chinese Architecture (Springer, 2022).

Ruo Jia is founder and director of the research-based architecture/theory practice IfWorks. She is the author of Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory: Different Patches of the Concrete (Routledge, 2026), constructing a decolonizing postmodern materialist space, which expands to her on-going research/practice envisioning the possibilities of Asian Feminist Architecture, and Post humanist Sustainability. Her works have been published with The Journal of Architecture, Representations, Log, Brooklyn Rail, Journal of Architectural Education, Architectural Research Quarterly, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, e-flux among others.