Pratt Institute‘s Graduate Architecture and Urban Design (GAUD) program has selected Thom Mayne as the school’s first “critic at large.”

In this role, Mayne will work directly with architecture students on their projects while facilitating discussion about the field and related disciplines.

The Pritzker Prize–winning architect, who is a tenured professor in UCLA’s Department of Architecture, will serve in the critic’s role through the 2017-2018 academic year.

Mayne co-founded Los Angeles– and New York–based Morphosis in 1972. New Yorkers can see his built work at the Cooper Union, and soon on Roosevelt Island, where construction on the firm’s academic building for the Cornell Tech campus is expected to be complete this year.

According to Pratt, the position was created to “expand discourse across the GAUD curriculum and build connections between the pedagogical and professional aspects of the program.” The public, too, will be able to get in on select Mayne discussions and events: The first one is free and scheduled for next Thursday, April 13.

More information on the critic at large program and the upcoming lecture can be found here.