JANETTE KIM & TROY CONRAD THERRIEN /// Introducing ARPA: Applied Research Practices in Architecture

Published

This conversation introduces the three first issues of the ARPA (Applied Research Practices in Architecture) Journal with its editor in chief (Janette Kim) and the guest editor of its second issue (Troy Conrad Therrien). We begin by looking at the editorial line of the journal itself, then examine the second forthcoming issue dedicated to “The Search Engine,” embodied by Google, whose algorithm influences the way any research is conducted nowadays. In the second part of the conversation, Janette and I examines the problems raised by the first issue, “Test Subjects,” and the relation/contrast between experiment and democratic processes in architecture. We finish the conversation by a short preview of the third issue of the journal dedicated to the notion of performance and its double meaning. On a side note, this is also the last conversation recorded in New York!

Janette Kim is an architectural designer, researcher and educator based in New York City. She is principal of All of the Above, a design practiced based in Brooklyn, and a faculty member at the Columbia University GSAPP. At GSAPP, Janette directs the Applied Research Practices in Architecture (ARPA) initiative and the Urban Landscape Lab, and is Editor-in-Chief of ARPA Journal.

Troy Conrad Therrien is a partner in Therrien–Barley, a design and innovation consultancy, and a faculty member at the Columbia University GSAPP where he co-directs the Architecture Online Lab and directs The Energy Issue initiative. He holds an MA in architecture history and theory from the AA, an MArch from Columbia and a BASc. in computer engineering from the University of British Columbia. Troy is an editor at ARPA Journal, where he is guest editing an issue called “The Search Engine.”

WEBSITES:

– http://arpajournal.gsapp.org/
– http://e-alloftheabove.org/ (Janette Kim)
– http://cargocollective.com/troyconradtherrien/ (Troy Therrien)

REFERENCE ARTICLES:

– Gökçe Günel, “Masdar City’s Hidden Brain,” for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Leah Meisterlin, “The City Is Not a Lab,” for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Andrés Jaque, “Everyone an Expert,” for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Andrés Jaque, Patrick Joseph Craine, and Rodrigo Valenzuela Jerez, “An Interview on Interviews,” for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Quilian Riano, “Which Public?,”  for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Lucía Jalón Oyarzun & Mateo Fernández-Muro, “The Minstrel’s Lab,” for ARPA Journal 1 Test Subjects (2014)
– Léopold Lambert, “Democratic Construction Processes by Patrick Bouchain,” for The Funambulist (March 30, 2012)