Stuckeman School leads off lecture series with architecture, urban design firm

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School is hosting the first talk in its 2022-23 Lecture and Exhibit Series, with Dan Adams and Marie Law Adams, principals of Landing Studio, at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 5.

Titled “Just Infrastructure,” the lecture will examine the spaces of urban highways, utilities, rail corridors and industrial waterways that support the flow of goods and people, but often at the burden of local places where they bring social and environmental harm.

“This is the context where we have focused our practice,” said Marie Law Adams. “We work across communities, environmental advocates, activists, industrial businesses and public agencies, and use design to transform infrastructure to reflect the priorities of those who are most directly impacted by it, and for the health of the planet.”

Dan and Marie Law Adams founded Landing Studio in 2005 with the Rock Chapel Marine project, a shared-use road salt terminal and public park landscape located in an immigrant community just north of Boston. While working intensively in this community during the first 10 years of practice, they also studied salt production facilities across the globe. Through this parallel global field work and local practice, Landing Studio documented ways that seemingly standardized spaces of production and infrastructure could be shaped by local places and people. This understanding serves as the foundation for Landing Studio’s ongoing work, where the firm looks to bring local voices, new dimensions of human delight and comfort, and natural systems to everyday infrastructural spaces.

Landing Studio’s work has been recognized with national and international awards, including the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices award, the Architectural League Prize, a Holcim Award and a Progressive Architecture Award. Their work has also been exhibited at institutions in the United States and internationally.

Marie Law Adams earned a bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Michigan and her master of architecture from MIT, where she was a Presidential Fellow and recipient of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Medal. She is an associate professor of architecture at the Northeastern University School of Architecture and a licensed architect.

Dan Adams also holds a bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Michigan and his master of architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he received the AIA Medal and the James Templeton Kelly Thesis Prize. He is the director of the School of Architecture at Northeastern University.

Co-hosted by the Department of Architecture, the lecture will be live-streamed by WPSU.