School of Architecture Announces Fall 2026 Visiting Critics

Lap Chi Kwong & Alison Von Glinow (Kwong Von Glinow)

Lap Chi Kwong (left) and Alison Von GlinowLap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow will lead the visiting critic studio, “New Rooms: Re-building the Chicago Bungalow,” an investigation into one of Chicago’s most recognizable housing types and its potential role in the city’s future.

Built primarily between 1910 and the mid-1930s, Chicago bungalows comprise nearly one-third of the city’s single-family housing stock and remain a defining feature of many neighborhoods. Originally promoted as an affordable path to homeownership, the bungalow was designed for working- and middle-class families. Over generations, homeowners have adapted these houses to accommodate changing needs, demonstrating the bungalow’s remarkable capacity for transformation while maintaining its recognizable identity.

The studio asks how this historic housing type might be reimagined for contemporary life. Responding to evolving household structures, accessibility requirements, environmental performance, and changing relationships between public and private space, students will reconsider the bungalow from the inside out. Working across multiple scales—from the room and dwelling to the lot, street, and city—they will explore new ways of living together and speculate on the future of housing in Chicago.

A field trip to Chicago will provide firsthand exposure to significant residential projects and housing precedents across the city. Students will visit works that examine density, live-work environments, leisure, and the technologies of their time, all united by a clear spatial organization and an enduring influence on how Chicagoans live.

Kwong and Von Glinow will also present a public lecture on Thursday, September 22, at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Michael Abel Deng & Nile Greenberg (Abel Nile New York)

Michael Abel Deng (right) and Nile GreenbergMichael Abel Deng and Nile Greenberg will lead the visiting critic studio, “Programless Studios,” an exploration of how architecture can respond to an increasingly uncertain future.

The studio begins with a fundamental question: if program no longer determines form, what does? Contemporary architects must contend with an expanding range of forces that shape buildings over time, including climate risks, changing regulations, energy requirements, insurance pressures, construction systems, and evolving patterns of occupancy. While buildings are often designed around a specific program, that program may change dramatically over the course of a building’s lifespan.

Since the rise of modern functionalism, architecture has frequently treated program as the primary generator of organization and form. “Programless Studios” challenges that assumption. Today, many of the forces that strongly influence architecture are concentrated in the building envelope, where structure, climate control, regulation, construction, water management, and economics intersect. Rather than resolving these competing demands, the studio treats their conflicts as a productive source of architectural form.

Students will develop new design methods through a series of formal superimpositions, combining geometric systems and testing them against competing structural, material, environmental, and construction logics. Program will be introduced only after the architecture has taken shape, serving as a test of occupation rather than a starting point for design.

Abel Deng and Greenberg will also present a public lecture on Thursday, October 1, at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Erin Cuevas & Zachary Matthews (CMLA), Alex Sheft & John Farrace (Sheft Farrace), Ali Chen (Ali Conchita Chen)

Erin CuevasErin Cuevas, Zachary Matthews, Alex Sheft, John Farrace and Ali Chen will co-teach the visiting critic studio, “Window Shopping: Reframing the Seasonal Storefront,” which will reframe the storefront retail typology through the lens of a seasonal campaign for the re-release of a brand’s vintage footwear Zachary Matthewssilhouette.

Alex Sheft (right) and John FarraceStudents will investigate both the literal and conceptual framing of products, exploring how storefronts and other framing devices shape consumer interactions with brands. The work sits at the intersection of brand storytelling, architectural design, and the retail experience.

Students will examine the visual language and marketing history of a specific brand as the foundation for developing an original footwear campaign. Through four successive modules led by industry professionals, they will create a holistic seasonal Ali Chenmarketing package that connects brand graphics, imagery, and storytelling with facade design, windows, spatial experience, and theatrical visual merchandising. The studio will culminate in the design of a provocative storefront and product window for each student’s selected footwear silhouette.

Throughout the process, students will consider themes of brand distinction, sustainability, the AI-driven “sea of sameness,” and the threshold between public space and commercial interiors.

This studio is among several collaborative programs currently being developed by Syracuse Architecture and Polimoda including a post-professional Master of Science degree program, Space | Brand | Strategy, launching this fall. Students will contribute to this larger body of research through related events and activities, including travel to New York City, Los Angeles, and Italy.

Dan Wood (WORKac)

Dan WoodDan Wood will lead the visiting critic studio, “Solarpunk Fishing Collective,” which asks students to envision an optimistic architectural response to global instability.

Set in Galilee, Rhode Island, a major fishing port, the studio centers on the design of a new home for the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island. The project combines infrastructure, housing, education, and public space to support the fishing community while exploring how architecture can strengthen collective power and civic life. By bringing together spaces for work, learning, and living, students will investigate new models for community-centered development and resilience.

The studio also seeks to define a contemporary solarpunk aesthetic. Borrowing from steampunk’s blend of technology and imagination, solarpunk uses “radical optimism” to envision a more collective and forward-looking society, driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy and global electrification. Students will explore how active green infrastructure and contemporary architectural design can come together to create an expressive visual language for this vision.

Through research, drawing, modeling, and design, students will develop architectural proposals that respond to current social, environmental, and economic challenges while projecting a more sustainable and optimistic future. A field trip to Rhode Island will provide firsthand exposure to the site, local communities, and the region’s maritime infrastructure.