Amy Kulper took up the mantle as Rhode Island School of Design’s head of the architecture department effective July 1, 2017. Previously, Kulper served as an associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, where she received the Donna M. Salzer Award for Teaching Excellence four times.
PBN: What are your responsibilities as the head of the RISD architecture department, a position you’ve held since July 1, 2017?
KULPER: As the head of RISD Architecture, I’m responsible for cultivating a dynamic and supportive culture for the department’s students, faculty and staff, and for stewarding and tuning the curriculum.
One of my ambitions for the department is to make it more outward facing by promoting and disseminating the amazing work that the RISD students and faculty are doing. To that end, I will be co-chairing the national conference for the Association of the Collegiate Schools of Architecture in 2019, and three current RISD Architecture faculty members – Carl Lostritto, Brett Schneider and Erin Putalik – will be chairing paper sessions.
I am hoping that other members of the faculty will submit papers and projects as well. The theme of the conference is Black Box: Articulating Architecture’s Core in the Post-Digital Era, and we are working with the ACSA to procure a book contract based on the theme of the conference.
PBN: What are the biggest academic and programmatic achievements you’ve celebrated in that time?
KULPER: In my first year at RISD I’ve worked closely with the graduate program director, Carl Lostritto, to promote three initiatives. First, we established the Design Research Seed Fund, an annual stipend given to a RISD Architecture faculty member to produce an exhibition, a lecture and a publication related to their current design research. In September, assistant professor Emanuel Admassu will begin his work as the first recipient.
Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Admassu is a founding partner of the architectural practice ad-wo, together with Jen Wood. In his three years at RISD Architecture, his teaching, research and design practice have focused on the problems and opportunities associated with the diasporic condition. Admassu plans to utilize the stipend to continue his research on urban marketplaces in Africa.
Our second initiative promotes and stimulates the thesis culture at RISD Architecture. Each year our undergraduate and graduate students produce a design thesis as the culmination of their academic career. This year, RISD Architecture will host a Thesis Colloquium in the fall and a Thesis Super-Jury in the spring.
The colloquium will assemble renowned thesis educators from across the country and ask them to address the question “What is an architectural thesis?” by presenting and reverse-engineering one salient example. My hope is that this event will jump-start the thesis inquiry for our students. In the spring, these same educators will reassemble, surrounded by the work of the RISD Architecture thesis students, they will discuss and debate the question “What is an architectural thesis at RISD?”
Our third initiative was prompted by RISD President Rosanne Somerson’s Social Equity and Inclusion Plan. Throughout the academic year, our faculty, students and staff will be engaged in facilitated critical conversations on issues [such as] the culture of the critique, grading equitably, and what do equity and inclusion look like in a lecture class, seminar or studio.
As the demographics of our incoming students change and diversify in exciting ways, we want to continue to strengthen our ability to support them throughout their education. It is our hope that these conversations will be an important step in this direction.
PBN: What are the biggest hurdles you’ve faced in this position in that year-plus?
KULPER: One of the biggest hurdles I’ve faced in my first year in the new position is that, currently, the curriculum for our graduate and undergraduate programs [is] relatively undifferentiated. This year, we introduced a pair of graduate-only seminars into the mix, and next year we will experiment with offering graduate and undergraduate sections in our core studio sequence. While the robust exchange between the undergraduate and graduate cultures in the department will always be a priority, it is my hope that research and digital craft will emerge as differentiating factors in the graduate experience.
PBN: Have you worked to collaborate with other RISD academic departments and what have been the fruits of that labor?
KULPER: My colleagues on the RISD Architecture faculty are incredible collaborators, pursuing innovative interdisciplinary projects with other RISD departments, industry partners and global institutions. Professor Jonathan Knowles worked with industry partner Certain Teed, collaborating with the textiles and interior architecture departments, [and] students produced innovative wall systems that were installed last month in a chateau in the Domaine de Boisbuchet, France.
In September, professor Peter Tagiuri and lecturer Erin Putalik will offer a studio in a collaboration spearheaded by RISD Global involving the Luso-American Foundation in Portugal. This studio will focus on the use of soft wood and cork in architectural design, and will parallel studios offered in industrial design, furniture and interior architecture, each with the same material focus.
Professor Anne Tate, critic Laura Briggs and senior critic Nadine Gerdts collaborated with the Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning, and Management of Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet [Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences]. Tate and Gerdts traveled with students to Malmö, Sweden, to consider the problems and opportunities associated with urban waterfronts.
This is just a small cross section of the rich and diverse collaborative projects currently happening in the department.
PBN: What are your goals for the department in your next year as its head?
KULPER: I have several goals for the coming year. The first is to work closely with the faculty to tune the core curriculum, making it more legible both inside and outside the department, while asking ourselves what it means to be a department of architecture in a college of the arts.
Second, I will continue to make the department more outward facing, disseminating the provocative work of our students and faculty through publications, exhibitions, built projects and lectures.
Third, I will work closely with Graduate Program Director Carl Lostritto to advance the graduate program and promote its agendas of design research and digital craft.
Fourth, I will work closely with our chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students to bring greater diversity to RISD Architecture, promoting the agendas of social equity and inclusion.
And fifth, I will continue to cultivate RISD Architecture’s global presence through future collaborations with the Arumjigi Foundation in South Korea, with Wang Shu and the Chinese Academy of Art, with RISD Architecture alumnus Rex Wong and a dedicated group of alumni in Hong Kong, and with institutional partners in Africa, including the Zoma Contemporary Art Center in Addis Ababa and the Nafasi Art Space in Dar es Salaam.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, gowdey-backus@pbn.com.
