Please join us for an informal presentation and discussion in conjunction with our 5-week Summer Seminar, Breaking Glass, by this week's guest presenters: curator Stephanie Smith and architect Marshal Brown, who are together the directors of the urbanism, art and culture think tank NEW PROJECTS. The talk will be followed by an open discussion with the seminar participants and visitors.

NEW PROJECTS is an urbanism studio, research center, and exhibition space in Chicago. The 3400 square foot storefront is a new center for instigating, nurturing, and realizing advanced thinking in architecture, urban design and aesthetic culture. The storefront office is located in the former home of the Overton Hygienic Company, an African American cosmetics concern from the 1920's. Other local landmarks include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's IIT campus and the former site of Stateway Gardens, one of Chicago's recently demolished public housing projects.

Stephanie Smith is Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the University of Chicago¹s Smart Museum of Art. Since joining the Smart Museum as Associate Curator in 1999, she has played a central role in establishing the museum¹s reputation as a home for challenging thematic exhibitions that address the complex relationships between contemporary art and larger social issues and for projects that combine rigor, generosity, and play. For her work on projects such as Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art (2012); Heartland (2008-2009), and Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art (2005), she has been recognized as one of the most visionary curators working in Chicago. Smith also serves as a founding member of the University's Open Practice Committee and as an editor with the international art journal Afterall.

Marshall Brown is a licensed architect and urban designer in Chicago who creates ambitious, entrepreneurial visions for the future. His recent accomplishments include competing as a finalist in the Navy Pier redevelopment competition, a 2010 MacDowell Fellowship, and serving as the first Cranbrook Saarinen Architecture Fellow. In 2003 he founded the Yards Development Workshop, a studio that set out to hi-jack Frank Gehry’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. He also recently founded the urbanism, art and culture think tank NEW PROJECTS in collaboration with Stephanie Smith. He has worked with a diversity of organizations including New York City Council, U.S. Department of Energy, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Municipal Art Society of New York, and the Smithsonian Institute. Brown is also an Assistant Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture. He previously taught at the University of Cincinnati and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education.  Brown has lectured at the Chicago Humanities Festival, University of Michigan, Northeastern University, and Cranbrook. His projects and essays have appeared in several books and journals, including Architectural Record, The New York Daily News, The Believer, and New Directions in Sustainable Design. His practice, Marshall Brown Projects, Inc. is currently working on several projects in Chicago, including the Navy Pier redevelopment with James Corner Field Operations, a master plan for the neighborhood of Washington Park, and scenario planning for the University of Chicago Smart Museum of Art.