Johanna Hurme is an architect and co-founder of Winnipeg-based design studio 5468796 Architecture. She is on the Executive Board of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and a member of the International Council of the New-York based Van Alen Institute and was past Chair of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.

Hurme will present a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 26, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the spring lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.

In her lecture, “platform.MIDDLE: Architecture for Housing the 99%,” Hurme will discuss how, against a backdrop of a global affordability crisis, and within a context where most of the housing stock is produced by the private sector and designed by architects, now more than ever the architecture and design profession can position itself as an indispensable creative resource, shaping communities and positively affecting the lives of millions of residents.

5468796 Architecture hosted a missing middle housing symposium in 2019 at the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology to discuss these topics, evolving into a critical review of their work. Through this process, the studio identified their contributions to the conversation on housing, not just through individual projects that they design and build in the future, but also by communicating a set of strategies that could potentially be applied by anyone participating in the production of housing across North America and possibly beyond. This research compromises a four-volume publication written by the office and released in fall 2023.

This lecture will expand on two of the topics of focus in this publication: practice ecosystem, describing 5468796 Architecture’s approach to the architect’s role in challenging contexts, intersecting with politics, economics, civic governance, social activism and other forms of cultural and scholarly research; and toolkit, looking at a selection of the studio’s projects and uncovering a series of specific design and planning strategies developed over years of experience building in this typology.

5468796 Architecture, led by Hurme with Colin Neufeld and Sasa Radulovic, has been awarded numerous international recognitions, including 50 Best Architectural Firms in 2020 by Domus, the Rice Design Alliance Spotlight Award, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Emerging Architectural Practice Award, WAN 21 for 21 Award by World Architecture News, Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices, and the Design Vanguard issue of Architectural Record. The studio also was selected as Canada’s official representation at the 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture.

In addition to practice, Hurme is an activist, advocate and educator, having initiated and co-created a number of design-related events and programs, including the 2013 Professional Prix de Rome prize-winning project Table for 12 + 1200. In 2019, she was named Visiting Professor-Morgenstern Chair at the College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago, and most recently, she was invited to Cornell AAP as the Gensler Visiting Critic. She has also taught design at several Canadian universities and lectures extensively across the world. Hurme contributed to Innovative Solutions for Creating Sustainable Cities, edited by Sylvie Albert (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019) and is co-author of platform. MIDDLE: Architecture for Housing the 99% (2023).

This is the Warren Segraves Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Modus Studio.

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.

This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.