Structures of Landscape
A lecture from Débora Mesa
Principal, Ensamble Studio; Ventulett Chair, Georgia Tech School of Architecture
Monday, October 14, 6pm
Betts Auditorium, School of Architecture
Débora Mesa Molina makes space for experimentation in a highly regulated profession, designing and building architectures that ingeniously use overlooked materials and discover the beauty of the mundane. She is the principal architect of Ensamble Studio, a cross-functional team she leads with her partner Antón García-Abril, based in Madrid and Boston. Balancing imagination and reality, art and science, their work innovates typologies, technologies, and methodologies to address issues as diverse as the construction of the landscape or the prefabrication of the house. From their early works–SGAE Headquarters, Hemeroscopium House or The Truffle in Spain–to their most recent–Cyclopean House and Structures of Landscape in the US and Ca'n Terra in Menorca, Spain–every project navigates the uncertain, aiming to advance their field. Currently, through their startup WoHo, they are invested in increasing the quality of architecture while making it more affordable by integrating offsite technologies. Débora is committed to sharing ideas and cultivating synergies between professional and academic worlds through teaching, lecturing, and researching: she is Ventulett Chair in Architectural Design at Georgia Tech since 2018 and has previously served as visiting professor at different universities, such as Pratt Institute in 2018 and The Cooper Union in 2017, and as a research scientist at MIT where she co-founded the POPlab–Prototypes of Prefabrication–in 2012. Above all, she is a doer, committed to making poetic ideas happen.
Lecture made possible by the Jean Labatut Memorial Lectures in Architecture and Urban Planning Fund. The School of Architecture, Princeton University, is registered with the AIA Continuing Education System (AIA/CES) and is committed to developing quality learning activities in accordance with the AIA/CES criteria.
Photos of this and other Fall 2019 events can be found on the Princeton SoA Flickr.
The lecture recording will be available on Vimeo following the event.
