Fast Forward lecture series

A well-known and respected event in the community, Fast Forward is generously sponsored by GIB® and supported by Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects.

10 NZRAB CPD points are available at each lecture. Attendance at each talk is free. All welcome.

Marlon Blackwell is the founder and principal at Marlon Blackwell Architects, a design firm established in 1992 in Arkansas, US. His design practice has been the recipient of numerous major awards and honours, including the 2020 American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, the 2020 Southeastern Conference Professor of the Year, and the 2016 National Design Award for Architecture Design from Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. In 2014, he was named a United States Artists Ford Fellow (in Architecture and Design). In 2012, he received the Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2023 Blackwell was elected as a member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Blackwell has taught at the University of Arkansas since 1992, where he is the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture and a Distinguished Professor in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. Blackwell has held visiting professorships at institutions around the United States, and currently at Harvard University.

Supported by GIB®, the Warren Trust, and a Walter Linton fellowship, Blackwell is visiting as the School’s 2024 International Architect-in-Residence. He will teach a studio course, and give public lectures around the country.

Director and founder of Matakohe Architecture + Urbanism in Whangārei, Jade Kake is an architectural designer, writer and housing advocate. Her design practice is focused on working with Māori organisations on their marae, papakāinga and civic projects, and in working with mana whenua groups to express their cultural values and narratives through the design of their physical environments. She is a member of the Auckland Urban Design Panel and a part-time lecturer at Huri Te Ao, the School of Future Environments at AUT University.

Jade lives and works within her home area of Whangārei, where she is currently leading projects to support the re-establishment and development of papakāinga within the district and leading the cultural narrative integration component on public space, civic, commercial and education projects within the city. Recently completed projects include the award-winning Te Iwitahi Whangārei Civic Centre and Pūtahi Park – Whangarei Town Basin.

A returning speaker to our Fast Forward series, Jade was a part of the Mana Moana lecture panel from the 2023 edition of Fast Forward, and we are very pleased to have her back to headline her own lecture.

This ‘double feature’ session will present the work of two exciting young design practices.

Patchwork Architecture is the award-winning Wellington-based architecture practice of Ben Mitchell-Anyon and Sally Ogle. They have rapidly developed a reputation for crafting modest materials into innovative spaces. Their first project, produced with Tim Gittos and called ‘DogBox’, was a finalist in Home magazine’s Home of the Year award in 2013. Their Kahutara House, and 10x10 have received New Zealand Institute of Architects National Awards, while Party Wall was recognised with the Institute’s prestigious Sir Ian Athfield Award for Housing.

Sayes Studio is an Auckland-based architecture practice specialising in residential projects. Led by Henri Sayes, the practice has become known for its ability to develop unpretentious briefs and constrained settings into sculptural forms and light-filled spaces. Founded in 2016, Sayes Studio has received New Zealand Institute of Architect’s National Awards twice—for Sawtooth Apartment and Brick House. The firm’s projects have been widely published in local and international media.

Many of our Fast Forward lectures are recorded and available to watch online following the event. Watch a selection of previous Fast Forward lectures on YouTube.

If you have any queries about our events, please get in touch.

Email: creative@auckland.ac.nz