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Elizabeth Whittaker

March 13, 2024

Elizabeth Whittaker
Elizabeth Whittaker

Elizabeth Whittaker is the Founding Principal of Boston based MERGE Architects, a practice aimed at developing contemporary craft, transforming type, and addressing social ecologies across all program. For this talk Elizabeth will share how the work of her practice has evolved from small-scale material explorations to transforming Housing typologies in Boston, Detroit, and throughout the US. The presentation will explore contemporary interpretations of varying contexts, as MERGE reimagines the vernacular of each unique site and region at the missing middle scale of Housing.

The need for more modest scale multi-family housing in particular offers immense opportunity for experimentation and the revitalization of many neighborhoods throughout the country. As the housing crisis in the US has reached a fever pitch, we can no longer rely on Big Development to satisfy all of our collective housing needs and changing lifestyles. This lecture will discuss how MERGE is translating known residential building types in both form and material to address this demand for diversity through their research and built work on the flat, maisonette, duplex, townhouse, triple-decker, and Chicago 6-flat."

CEU: This lecture equals 1 professional architecture credit.

This lecture is free and open to the public. As part of CoAD's Design x Technology Lecture Series, guests may watch online or on campus. Register for the location/viewing details. Your on-campus registration includes a pizza lunch

The lecture will:

  • share a collection of unit and buildings types by MERGE addressing missing middle-scale Housing in the US.
  • explore contemporary interpretations of material, tectonic, and vernacular Housing contexts.
  • experiment with hybrid unit-types within singular Housing projects.
  • discuss how to create a compelling narrative for neighborhood Housing approval processes.

About:

Elizabeth Whittaker is an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she has been teaching Core Architecture Studios since 2009. Elizabeth is also the founding principal of MERGE architects, a practice that aims at developing contemporary craft, transforming type, and addressing social ecologies throughout the US. Her practice operates at multiple scales through commercial, institutional, retail, private residential, multi-family housing, graphic and furniture design. The office works side-by-side with teams of fabricators, artists, craftsmen and engineers to produce an architecture that embraces the art of making within a larger agenda: to re-define the urban and social boundaries in and around the city. The work combines both digital fabrication and the hand made by working through a cross-disciplinary as well a cross-production process.

The work of MERGE has been widely published both nationally and internationally and has received multiple awards over the years. Elizabeth is the recipient of the AIA Young Architects Award, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, the Architectural League of New York ‘Emerging Voices’ Award, and the recipient of Architectural Record’s 2017 Women in Architecture ‘Next Generation Leader’ Award – an honor bestowed upon one female architect in the U.S. each year. Elizabeth graduated from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design with Distinction. She approaches architecture as a discipline embedded in both practice and academia, and has taught design studios in several Architecture programs including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Northeastern University, and the Boston Architectural College before coming to the GSD.

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