The fourth evening of the annual Emerging Voices lecture series features Jonathan Tate of OJT; and David Scott and Susan Scott of Scott & Scott Architects. Emerging Voices spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada, or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism. This evening’s lectures are introduced by Ian Volner.

OJT is a New Orleans-based firm founded by Jonathan Tate in 2011. Tate believes context is “both formative and integral” to the firm’s projects, which seek to complement and celebrate the surrounding built environment. The firm researches social, spatial, historical, economic, ecological, and environmental factors to develop “multi-scalar processes specific to a project’s location.” In 2016, OJT completed two single-family houses that are part of “Starter Home*,” an urban infill housing initiative in which the firm collaborated with a developer and builder to develop and design entry-level homes located on lots deemed undesirable for developers. Bastion Community, which will be completed in 2017, is an 80-unit multi-family housing community for combat veterans, incorporating open space and old growth oak trees. OJT has also developed a planning study for housing in Newark, NJ and feasibility planning for a multimodal transit hub in Monroe, Louisiana. Tate has taught at Tulane University School of Architecture and received his Master in Design Studies degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

David Scott and Susan Scott are the directors of Scott & Scott Architects, a Vancouver, Canada-based firm founded in 2012. The practice privileges “working with architecture that supports agriculture and eating” and “the use and reconsideration of readily available materials and techniques which have a history in the location of the work.” They believe that a design’s refinement “occurs with the continuous re-evaluation of use and experience.” Scott & Scott Architects’ work ranges from agricultural and community master planning to residential projects and adaptive re-use of buildings for commercial and retail clients. In 2017, the firm will launch a fixture and furniture line. Recent residential projects include a 2012 British Columbia cabin designed and constructed by the architects to withstand heavy snowfall, and Gulf Island Barn, a 2015 private barn and community space, designed to serve many generations into the future. Retail projects in Vancouver include a 2016 knife shop designed with integral display cases and an ice cream shop situated on the loading dock of a restored 1912 warehouse. David Scott has taught at British Columbia Institute of Technology. Both directors received their Masters of Architecture degrees from Dalhousie University.

Ian Volner is a writer and critic whose work has been published in Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, Artforum, and The New Republic, among other publications. He’s currently working on his first book project.