[Contesting] "Practice" with Danna Walker and Bryony Roberts at the University of New Mexico

Please join the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico on Monday, April 19, at 5:00pm for its final conversation for the year, [Contesting] PRACTICE, which will include presentations and discussion by architects and advocates Danna Walker (of Built By Us and Public Practice) and Bryony Roberts (of Bryony Roberts Studio). The conversation will be facilitated by SA+P’s Aaron Cayer. What is the role that architects might play in ending structural inequality within our professions and within the public realm? What might alternative models to private, profit-driven practice look like? What techniques, strategies, or campaigns are necessary?  The conversation is free and open to the public. Be sure to register here in advance.

Danna Walker is the founder and CEO of Built By Us, an award-winning social enterprise that exists to actively champion greater diversity and inclusion in the construction sector. Her career spans over 20 years in construction and built environment, encompassing various roles including electrician and Architect, and within the field of vocational education.  She is currently a board member of Public Practice, a not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission to improve the quality and equality of everyday places by building the public sector’s capacity for proactive planning. She is also a former charity Trustee and was an elected Board member for the Architects Registration Board. Danna was nominated for the Precious Awards 2015, which celebrates the achievements of women of color.  In 2018 she presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary The Architecture of Incarceration which explored the philosophy and ethos of modern prison design and took part in a debate on Race and Our Public Space. In 2019 Built By Us won the prestigious National Mentoring Awards 2019, National Diversity Programme of the Year for the innovative FLUID Diversity Mentoring Programme.

Bryony Roberts leads the design and research practice Bryony Roberts Studio based in New York. Roberts combines experience in studio art, architecture, and historic preservation to create projects that activate public spaces and historical sites around the world. For over ten years, Roberts has been designing site-specific projects that bring deep engagement with existing buildings and communities and find expression through experimental material craft. The practice has been awarded the Architectural League Prize and New Practices New York from AIA New York as well as support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the American Academy in Rome, where Roberts was awarded the Rome Prize for 2015-16. Roberts also instigates research and publication projects about designing in response to social and cultural histories. She guest-edited the recent volume Log 48: Expanding Modes of Practice, edited the book Tabula Plena: Forms of Urban Preservation published by Lars Müller Publishers, and co-guest-edited Log 31: New Ancients. Roberts earned her B.A. at Yale University and her M.Arch at the Princeton School of Architecture. She teaches architecture and preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York.