“Towards a Black Vernacular: the Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center”
Darell Fields and Brian Cavanaugh, AIA will talk about collaboration and their experiences on the Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center. Specifically the exploration and development of a Black vernacular through four interrelated Black concepts: the Veil, the shotgun house type, autonomy and curatorial freedom. The project which is located on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Oregon was the recipient of a 2020 Honor Award from AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Design Awards, a 2020 Merit Award from AIA Oregon Architecture Awards, and a 2020 People’s Choice Award - Public/Institutional Category and 2020 Colleague’s Choice Award from AIA Eugene.
Brian Cavanaugh, AIA
Brian Cavanaugh was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon during which time he received a one-year fellowship to study architecture and urban design at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow, Scotland. He earned his Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Brian is Design Principal at Works Progress Architecture (W.PA). Prior to joining W.PA, Brian was Principal and Co-Founder of Architecture Building Culture (ABC) . With over 25 years of experience, Brian has demonstrated a unique commitment to the practice of architecture and played a critical leadership role in his community. His record of design excellence, his contributions to academic and non-profit institutions, and his positions on municipal boards, all speak to a career built on a deeply held belief in the value of the architecture profession and its potential to serve the public good.
Brian has been an instructor and a guest critic at a number of academic institutions. He is a licensed architect in California, Oregon, and Washington. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is currently the President of the Center for Architecture and is a past President of AIA Portland.
Brian's work has won numerous design awards – including local, state and regional design awards - and been published throughout the world. In 2012 Brian received the Young Architects Award from the American Institute of Architects. In 2014 ABC won the AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Emerging Firm of the Year Award.
Darell Wayne Fields, Ph. D.
Darell Fields is a distinguished designer and scholar. He has taught design, urbanism and theory at several universities, including the University of Texas at Arlington, Harvard Graduate School of Design, California College of the Arts (San Francisco), and the University of California Berkeley. His design/artistic work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of Art (New York), the Studio Museum in Harlem, the August Wilson Center for African American Culture (Pittsburg), CentralTrak (Dallas) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco).
In 2015 he published the book, Architecture in Black: Theory, Space and Appearance. The pioneering text posits a Black, formal (spatial) syntax derived from traditional narrative structures. Black Formalism signifies a specific moment in aesthetic time where blackness challenges racial negativity by perceiving, synthesizing, and projecting spatial systems for its own (Black) purposes. In 2006 he designed the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
Darell’s most recent accomplishments include the Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center at the University of Oregon (w ABC Portland) and the 2020 Kassler Lecture, On Solitude, for the School of Architecture, Princeton University.
