AIANY Committee on Residential Architecture Meeting (An Evening with NOT NOT)

This meeting is offered in person at the Van Alen Institute. Please register to join HERE.

Join AIANY’s Committee on Residential Architecture for a special summer gathering at the Van Alen Institute, just steps from Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.

As part of the Committee’s initiative to bring its monthly meetings to each of New York City’s five boroughs over the coming year, this event marks the first stop in a series designed to connect members with the city’s diverse architectural communities while expanding AIANY’s outreach beyond Manhattan.

As part of CORA’s initiative to bring its monthly meetings to each of New York City’s five boroughs over the coming year, this event also marks the beginning of a collaboration with AIA Brooklyn CRAN, bringing together architects from across New York City’s residential design community. The evening will begin with welcoming remarks from Hayley Eber, AIA, Executive Director of Van Alen Institute, together with Committee Co-Chairs Stephen Moser and Michael Landry. Michael will then share an update on the Committee’s exciting lineup of tours, lectures, and events planned for this fall before Stephen joins Ekin Bilal and Celia Chaussabel in conversation.

Stephen will then join Ekin Bilal and Celia Chaussabel, founders of the emerging architecture and design practice NOT NOT, for an informal conversation about launching a young practice in New York and the ideas that shape their work. Together, they’ll explore contemporary questions surrounding residential architecture and domesticity—from accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and alternative models of living to curiosity, invention, and play as tools for design. The discussion will also draw on projects such as Chasing Dust Bunnies, developed from a design studio led by Ekin and Celia, and the idea of “uninhabitable space,” challenging conventional assumptions about how we inhabit, adapt, and reimagine the built environment.

Following the conversation, attendees will explore NOT NOT: An Office, An Exhibition, the practice’s installation at Van Alen Institute. Conceived as both a working studio and a public exhibition, the installation invites visitors into the daily life of a young architectural practice while questioning traditional ideas of practice, process, and collaboration.

The discussion will also draw on workshops previously taught by Ekin and Celia, such as Chasing Dust Bunnies, which tested alternative approaches to architectural image-making by focusing on small, fragmented views of a space in order to capture architecture’s overlooked moments.

Whether you’re a longtime Committee member or joining us for the first time, come spend a summer evening at Van Alen Institute, meet fellow architects and designers, discover one of New York’s most inventive emerging practices, and help shape the Committee’s upcoming season of programs across New York City’s five boroughs.

Speakers:
Ekin Bilal, Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Co-founder, NOT NOT
Celia Chaussabel, Assistant Professor, Rhode Island School of Design; Co-founder, NOT NOT

About the Speakers:
Ekin Bilal is a Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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 Cornell University 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.

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The committees of AIA New York are the foundations from which the Chapter positions itself in the field of architecture, whether through discussion, advocacy, policy making and development, event and exhibition planning, or other endeavors.

Committees meet monthly, usually at the Center for Architecture. AIA members, AIA associate members, and general public are all welcome to participate.

If you have questions or are considering attending a meeting for the first time, contact each committee’s co-chairs for more information at aiany.org/committees.