Langston Hughes Visiting Professor Lecture to explore role of community in design solutions

LAWRENCE — Firsthand experience with neighborhoods can create designs that lead to healthier communities. That’s the principle to be discussed during the fall 2018 Langston Hughes Visiting Professor Lecture. 

Gregory Crichlow, Langston Hughes Visiting Professor of architecture at the University of Kansas, will present “Citizen Architect” from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 18 in Woodruff Auditorium of the Kansas Union.

“The profession must learn from and generate design solutions from the inside through constituent relationships,” Crichlow said.

Architects often develop prescriptive design solutions that are tested in ideal settings but are misrepresented in their application to underrepresented contexts. In his presentation, Crichlow will chronicle his work as an individual negotiating these everyday interactions to help shape healthier communities as both citizen and architect.

A native of Colorado, Crichlow is a lecturer in the architecture department of the University of Colorado-Denver and principal of Chocolate Spokes Bike Studio, a full-service bicycle shop that also offers design and fabrication. The shop is located in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, one of the city’s oldest and most diverse communities. His research focuses on human-powered design — efforts to study human transport systems that meet and exceed the needs of a petroleum-powered automobile while also protecting the occupant from the elements.

He is a registered architect in Colorado. His professional experience also includes work with the firms Anderson Mason Dale, In Situ DESIGN and Burkett Design.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental design from the University of Colorado-Boulder and a master’s of architecture degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he received the American Institute of Architects’ Henry Adams Certificate of Merit.

All are welcome to attend this free presentation. A reception will follow in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center.

The Langston Hughes Visiting Professorship was established at KU in 1977 in honor of the African-American poet, playwright and fiction writer who lived in Lawrence from 1903 to 1916. The professorship brings a prominent or emerging minority scholar to the university for one semester each year. The Langston Hughes Professorship has been a valuable vehicle for bringing prominent minority scholars to KU for visiting appointments, as well as for recruiting permanent faculty.