Lecture by Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, faculty members at Texas Tech and Founding Partners of AGENCY, a design and research practice which leverages spatial design and spatial information to counteract nascent forms of global and urban insecurity.

Kripa and Mueller are the authors of FRONTS: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World (AR+D, 2020). The book compiles original urban research and analysis, revealing a growing geography of codependence between the global security complex and the urban morphologies of the developing world which it increasingly incriminates. 

From its position on the US–Mexico border, the work of Krippa and Mueller’s practice, AGENCY, reveals and enacts emerging publics. Working in protracted, conflictual contexts, the practice consistently shifts the narrative, developing targeted methods to identify, appropriate, and subvert sub-perceptual urban and atmospheric events that violate human rights. AGENCY’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Hong Kong–Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, the Venice Biennale, the Berlin Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, and the Richmond Art Center.

Ersela Kripa is an Assistant Professor and Acting Director at Texas Tech College of Architecture (CoA) – El Paso, and Director of Projects at POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies), a CoA research center. Ersela is a registered architect and founding partner of AGENCY. Her awards include the Rome Prize in Architecture and the Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, among others. Ersela holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP.

Stephen Mueller is a Research Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University College of Architecture (CoA) and Director of Research at POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies), a CoA research center. Stephen is a registered architect and founding partner of AGENCY. His awards include the Rome Prize in Architecture and the Emerging Voices award from The Architectural League of New York, and the 2019 GSAPP Incubator Prize from Columbia University among others. Stephen holds a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University GSAPP.