Design x Technology Series: Scott Shall

Come to CoAD for our first Spring 2026 Design x Technology Series talk featuring Professor, LTU, Co-Founder and CEO, houm, Founding Director, International Design Clinic Scott Shall.

Scott’s presentation on Thursday, January 22, titled 'Pressure Points,' will explore his houm work as well as his affiliation with a community-led strategy created by the International Design Clinic (IDC), in partnership with Shalom Ministries, Fielding International and a variety of local activists.

This informative presentation and discussion will be led by Architecture Department Chair and Associate Professor Gretchen Wilkins and will provide our guests with a thoughtfully guided interview.

In the spring and summer of 2025, the International Design Clinic (IDC), in partnership with Shalom Ministries, Fielding International and a variety of local activists, created a community-led strategy and phased approach to design and construct a new community space for the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood of Detroit. The final proposal utilized donated, undervalued, or reclaimed resources to transform the previously unfinished, 2000-sf space into a community hub that will offer free therapy services, nutritional justice programming, and other community-centered supports. The work utilized a mix of low- and high-tech approaches, including 3d scanning, digital simulation and AI in order to give community partners greater voice in the project.

The Cochrane Home reimagines how high-quality, cost-conscious housing can take root on vacant urban land. Built on a narrow site in Detroit, it unites generative design, digital fabrication, and a thoughtful blend of on- and off-site construction to reduce waste, accelerate delivery, and enhance performance. A compact massing strategy and digitally-fabricated service core create open, flexible living spaces filled with daylight and natural ventilation. Cedar cladding, reclaimed tile, and bamboo flooring headline a warm, durable, and sustainable material palette. The project offers a replicable model for owner-occupied infill housing that strengthens community, advances environmental stewardship, and balances comfort with cost.

🛂 CoAD Freshman, this event counts towards your Experience Passport.

CEU: This event equals 1 professional architecture credit towards licensure requirements. ​​

Please note that LTU is not a registered AIA CE provider. By virtue of having a NAAB-accredited architecture program, the State of Michigan authorizes LTU to offer continuing education credit. A list of state-approved HSW subjects can be found on their licensing website by searching the page for 'HSW subjects for continuing education'.

As part of CoAD's Design x Technology Series, this event is free and open to the public. Guests may watch online or on campus. Register for the location/viewing details. A pizza lunch will be provided to all on-site registered guests.

BIO:

Scott Gerald Shall, RA, is a Professor Architecture in the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) and the founding principal of the award-winning architectural practice houm (ourhoum.com). Prior to joining LTU, Shall was an Assistant Professor of Architecture in the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and the School of Art and Design at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Shall is also the founding director of the International Design Clinic (IDC, www.internationaldesignclinic.org), a registered non-profit that realizes crowd-sourced architecture and virally-propagated creative action with communities in need around the world. Since founding the IDC in 2006, Shall has worked through this organization to complete over two dozen projects on five continents, including an urban tent for the homeless made of reclaimed water bottles, a vision for education based upon borrowed resources for the migrant communities of India, educational devices based upon the vending architectures of Bolivia for kids working the streets of La Paz, and a two-dollar water filtration system.

Shall’s research and creative work in this arena has been disseminated widely, including presentation at the World Congress of Architects (2023), the Third, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth International Symposia On Service Learning In Higher Education (2013, 2017, 2022, 2024), the 2nd Valencia Biennial of Research in Architecture (2020), and Structures for Inclusion (2007) as well as invited lectures hosted by the AIA (2017), Polis University (2016), the University of Maryland (2009), the New School for Design at Parsons (2008), and the Pratt Institute (2008). Shall’s writing on socially-responsive design has been featured in a range of publications, including works by Springer (2023), Palgrave-MacMillan (2018), the University of Indianapolis Press (2015) and the AIA Press (2010). In 2008 Interior Design magazine published the work of the IDC along with projects by Kengo Kuma & Associates, OMA, and Buckminister Fuller in an article highlighting practitioners who are challenging the edge of design practice. Shall has exhibited his creative work in venues around the world, including solo shows at the Zeitz Museum for Contemporary African Art (2022), the San Francisco Museum of Art in La Paz, Bolivia (2015), and the AIA Center for Architecture in Philadelphia (2009) as well as inclusion within group shows at the Sheldon Swope Museum of Art (2010), the Goldstein Museum of Design (2010), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2013) and MoMA (2015).