Recorded: March 9, 2011
Lateral Office, founded in Toronto in 2003 by Mason White and Lola Sheppard, is an experimental design practice that operates at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. In this excerpt from their Emerging Voices lecture, they discuss Architecture After Discipline; Water Economies/Ecologies, Farming the Salton, CA; and Next North: Caribou Research Station, Nunavut. The studio describes its practice as a commitment to “design as a research vehicle to pose and respond to complex, urgent questions in the built environment,” engaging in the “wider context and climate of a project– be that social, ecological, or political.” Projects include Water Economies/Ecologies, Farming the Salton, CA; Next North: Caribou Research Station, Nunavut; the installations, “The Active Layer” in Chicago and “Clearing” in Toronto; Icelink, Bering Strait Competition; and From Runways to Greenways, a masterplan for Reykjavik. They are the recipients of the Professional Prix de Rome from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Lefevre Emerging Practitioner Fellowship from Ohio State University. In 2005, they were selected to participate in the League’s Young Architects Forum (now known as the Architectural League Prize). They are co-authors of Pamphlet Architecture #30: Coupling.
The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices Award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design “voices” that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind, and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape, and the built environment.
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