Forum Lecture: Subperceptual Exposures
Monday, November 10, 2025 from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
- In-person event
- The Pit, Architecture Building, Carleton University
- 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6
2025-2026 Forum Lecture Series
Speakers: Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, AGENCY, Texas Tech University, USA
Free and open to the public
Presented by the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism
Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller are academics, architects, and founding partners of AGENCY, an architectural design and research practice located on the United States/Mexico border.
Kripa and Mueller will discuss current investigations into emerging binational issues impacting architecture and urbanism in the Ciudad Juárez–El Paso border region.
A series of recent projects addresses environmental and cultural shifts in the Chihuahuan Desert, a dynamic populated territory spanning the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
As directors of POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies) at Texas Tech University, their work has focused recently on ultraviolet radiation exposure and lack of shade in this urbanized desert, which impact the use of public space throughout the year.
Their work includes the development of radiation-aware shade structures using computational design to better respond to UV exposure in so-called “irradiated shade” conditions, which occur uniquely in the desert context.
Kripa and Mueller will present work from an ongoing, multi-year and multidisciplinary project that collaboratively constructs the shared, untold, and unseen histories and trajectories of ultraviolet exposure conditions in vulnerable borderland communities.
Ersela Kripa is a professor and associate vice provost at Texas Tech University, where she is also the director of the Huckabee College of Architecture – El Paso, and director of projects at the research centre POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies).
Stephen Mueller is an associate professor at Texas Tech University and director of research at POST.
They are registered architects and founding partners of AGENCY, an architectural design and research practice located on the United States/Mexico border.
AGENCY engages emerging publics in conflictual contexts by developing methods to identify and subvert subperceptual urban and atmospheric phenomena that endanger human rights. AGENCY’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale, the Venice Biennale, the Berlin Biennale, and Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Their awards include the Rome Prize in Architecture, the Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, and the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, among others.
Their book, FRONTS: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World (AR+D, 2020), compiles original urban research and analysis, revealing the geography of codependence between the global security complex and urban morphologies of the developing world, which it increasingly incriminates.
Instagram: @ersela_kripa, and @stphn_mllr