Jesús Vassallo of Rice University is presenting a lecture titled “Housing Work” as part of the Gibbs Spring 2022 Goff Lecture Series. Jesús is among the 2021-2022 Bruce Goff Chairs of Creative Architecture at the University of Oklahoma.
The lecture will take place April 25th at 2:00p.m. in the Gould Hall Buskuhl Gallery. The talk will explore how the design of housing is both universal and contingent on context. Housing design is universal in the sense that it is highly technical and regulated, and contingent to the extent that it is deeply affected by the cultural, climatic and economic conditions of its setting. In this lecture, Jesús will explain a series of recent international housing projects through such dual lens, with special attention to how local conditions elicit different responses from the architect.
Jesús Vassallo is a Spanish architect and writer, and currently an associate professor at Rice University. His work focuses on the problem of realism in architecture through the production of design and scholarship. He is the author of Seamless: Digital Collage and Dirty Realism in Contemporary Architecture (Park Books, 2016) and recently completed his second manuscript titled Epics in the Everyday. His articles have been published internationally in magazines such as El Croquis, AA Files, 2G, Log, Harvard Design Magazine, Domus, or Arquitectura Viva. Since 2011 he serves as editor of Circo magazine.
To learn more about Jesús’s lecture and the rest of the Spring 2022 Goff Lecture series, click here. Contact Francesco Cianfarani [francesco.cianfarani@ou.edu] with any questions.
The Gibbs Design in Action Awards (GDAA) program, led by Dr. Wanda Liebermann, has announced its 2026–2027 funded student projects. The initiative supports design and research work that addresses social, cultural, and economic issues in the built environment through collaboration with faculty and community partners.
The OU Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) 2024 collaboration with the Historic Threatt Filling Station has been recognized in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's newly released Byways Report: The Scenic Route to Rural Prosperity – a story-driven publication exploring how road trip culture and place-based tourism can fuel economic growth in rural communities.
The Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Camille Germany, Chief of Staff, has been named the 2026 recipient of the university-wide Jennifer L. Wise Good Stewardship Award.