Virtual Public Lecture: French 2D (Anda and Jenny French), “Together Again”

Impressions of a tables and armchairs on the wall of a room with a table and stools on the floor

The GSD is pleased to present a series of talks and webinars broadcast to our audiences via Zoom.

*This lecture will be ONLINE ONLY. For security reasons, virtual attendees must register. Scroll down to find complete instructions for how to register. 

Event Description

In a time of physical separation, how can we reflect on a design practice whose focus is collectivity? With an eye to the not too distant future, French 2D will discuss ways that interventions within our environment can bring us together, again.

French 2D will present their recent experiments in architecture, participatory design, and objects. From cohousing and compact living, to tableware and dinner parties, they will share new models to encourage thinking and seeing collectively.

Speakers

French 2D is Boston-based architecture studio founded by Jenny French (MArch Harvard GSD, BA Dartmouth College) and Anda French (MArch Princeton, BA Barnard College).  Their intimate knowledge of Boston, where the sisters were born and raised, allows the close practice to be both deeply engaged and work critically with local issues of housing, public space, history and identity. French 2D works on housing and mixed-use projects with a focus on strange housing types that combine familiar ideas of home with radical organizations and typologies, found in their cohousing and micro-housing projects. The practice also works on civic installations and exhibitions that call upon the domestic to bring people together for familiar rituals in unfamiliar spaces, found in serial dinner-parties, fuzzy bartering environments, and out-scaled dresses.

Jenny and Anda’s interest in hybrid models that exist between practice and academia has been the catalyst for their practice-based research and advocacy. Jenny is an Assistant Professor in Practice at the Harvard GSD and Anda serves on the Board of Directors for the Boston Society of Architects, where the pair organized the recent Now Practice Now series, exploring emerging modes of practice.

French 2D received a 2020 P/A Award from Architect Magazine, and was named as an Architectural Record Magazine Design Vanguard winner in 2019. The firm has been featured in Domus, Metropolis, The Architect’s Newspaper, and as Architect Magazine’s Next Progressives.  French 2D was a 2013 MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program finalist and exhibited at the US Pavilion of the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale.

How to Join

1. Have a Zoom account. Members of the Harvard community who have not yet set up their Zoom account can follow the instructions here. Guests without a Zoom account can set one up for free at zoom.us.

2. Register to attend the lecture here. Once you have registered, you will be provided with a link to join the lecture via Zoom. This link will also be emailed to you. Please make sure the email you use to register is the same email connected to your Zoom account.

The event will also be live streamed to the GSD’s YouTube page. Only viewers who are attending the lecture via Zoom will be able to submit questions for the Q+A.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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