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Monterey Design Conference Kicks Off This Weekend at Scenic Asilomar

Monterey Design Conference Kicks Off This Weekend at Scenic Asilomar

The California AIA’s biennial Monterey Design Conference is on the next two days—September 27th and 28th—at Asilomar, the glorious Julia Morgan– and John Carl Warnecke–designed center on the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Grove. The conference will feature lectures by Thom Mayne, Marlon Blackwell, Thomas Phifer, Kengo Kuma, and AN board member Odile Decq.

But first up this morning was Greg Otto from Buro Happold who presented various Happold projects that were created using a multi-disciplinary approach and discussed design and legal issues around responsibility and how these “stress traditional design assumptions.” Otto also discussed his ongoing New York projects with Jeff Koons who wants to make large steel structures look “like marshmallows.”

Next a Pecha Kucha–type session on Technology Serving Design where German Aparicio, CCA and UCLA professor and AECOM architect, presented his “informedCITIES” digital data research on urbanism and how it can be applied to design. Aparicio has done fascinating urban metrics research on pre- and post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand.

It’s great to be at an architecture conference that does not just discuss local or regional issues but brings in the world’s most important designers to present work of high quality and offers a 6:00a.m. “restorative wake-up Yoga” session sponsored by Academy for Emerging Professionals.


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