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Rationalizing Architecture through Research

April 9-10, 2026

Illinois School of Architecture

break down of event found in text below

Rationalizing Architecture through Research

This on-campus symposium will describe disciplinary and professional attempts to rationalize architecture through research. Our focus will be on architecture that is concerned with health, defined here to include both medical architecture and extra-medical spaces like workplaces and homes.
The main aim of the symposium is to reflect on the role of research in architecture, with specific attention to issues of information and embodiment. Another aim is to gauge the potential for interdisciplinarity between two School of Architecture program areas: Health and Well Being and History, Theory, Preservation.
Presenters:
Stuart Leslie (keynote): Johns Hopkins University Department of History of Science and Technology
Didem Ekici: UIUC School of Architecture
Geoffrey Goldberg: University of Chicago Department of Art History
Kathryn Holliday: UIUC School of Architecture and Department of Landscape Architecture
Avigail Sachs: University of Tennessee School of Architecture
David Theodore: McGill University Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture
Julie Zook: UIUC School of Architecture and Carle Illinois School of Medicine
Co-chairs: Julie Zook (contact) and Kathryn Holliday
break down of event found in text below

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Keynote: Stuart Leslie

APRIL 9, 5pm

Temple Buell Hall, room 227

Stuart Lesley: ‘Minimal Means for Maximum Effect’: Butaro District Hospital, Rwanda and Tambacounda Pediatric and Maternity Hospital, Senegal

Sessions and Discussions

Please join us at the Siebel Center for Design on April 10th, from 9:30AM – 4PM. We will begin at 9:30AM with coffee and a welcome, with lunch offered from 1:00PM-2:00PM.

Session 1. Rationalizing the Hospital

Siebel Center for Design Sunset Studio, room 1050

10:00-11:20

David Theodore: Research-Hospital-Research: Automation is the Content of the Digital

Julie Zook: No More Than a Heap of Stones is a House: Why Evidence-Based Design Needs Theory

Geoffrey Goldberg: Inside, Outside, and Everything In-Between: Bertrand Goldberg’s Healthcare Projects

Session II. Architectural Research and the Pursuit of Health and Welfare

Siebel Center for Design Sunset Studio, room 1050

11:30-1:00

Avigail Sachs: Research and Performance: The Political Dimensions of Architectural Research

Kathryn Holliday: Telephone Shock: Design, Technology, and Health in the Workplace

Didem Ekici: Atmospheric Affections in the Age of Empire: David Boswell Reid’s Shipboard Ventilation Systems

Moderated comments: Bill Leslie

Ph.D. Lightning Talks

Siebel Center for Design Sunset Studio, room 1050

2:00-2:30 Lightning talks by UIUC PhD students

Discussion

Siebel Center for Design Starlight Room

2:40-4:00   Programming across health, theory, and practice

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