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DESCRIPTION: 
Join us for the second event of Crossing Design Borders, an annual speaker series launched by the USC School of Architecture in partnership with USC Visions and Voices. This year’s distinguished guest is Sadie Morgan, an acclaimed designer and co-founding director of the London-based firm dRMM.

Morgan will discuss integrity through design. What makes design good or bad? What are today’s priorities or ambitions for design excellence in our built environment? What must design support and achieve for it to bring value to people’s lives, and how can design reconcile what people need with what the planet and our ecological system can withstand? Championing longevity, well-being, and resilience in national development, Morgan will address the role of design at different levels and scales of development, what and who make good design happen, and how to widen that pool of decision makers. She will also look at practical examples where early design testing and thinking have helped elevate the impact of infrastructure projects on both people and place.

The talk will be introduced by Brett Steele, dean of the USC School of Architecture, and followed by a Q&A moderated by architectural journalist Sam Lubell.
 

Sadie Morgan is a co-founding director of dRMM, a RIBA Stirling Prize–winning architecture studio. Working as a design advocate, educator, and advisor for over two decades, Morgan’s personal practice within the architectural industry occupies several roles. These include chairing the Design Panel for High Speed Two (HS2) and the Ebbsfleet Design Forum; chairing the Cross Cutting Committee for Homes England, for which she is a board member; and acting as commissioner for the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). Morgan has been instrumental in setting up the NIC’s Design Group, which places design at the heart of major infrastructure projects. Aside from her ongoing advisory roles, Morgan joined the core group of the West Midlands Future Taskforce in 2022. Earlier in 2021, she became a member of the Net Zero Buildings council, and in 2020 took up a commissioner role on the RSA Food, Farming, and Countryside Commission. Morgan lectures internationally about her practice and the role of design in infrastructure and large-scale development.  

Sam Lubell is author of ten books on architecture for Phaidon, The Monacelli Press, Metropolis Books, and Rizzoli. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Dwell, Wired, The Atlantic, Metropolis, Architectural Record, Architect, The Architect's Newspaper, Travel + Leisure, and other publications. Lubell has co-curated the exhibitions Never Built Los Angeles (A+D Architecture and Design Museum) and Never Built New York (Queens Museum), and taught at Columbia University GSAPP and Syracuse University School of Architecture.

Architectural scholar Brett Steele is the dean of the USC School of Architecture and holder of the Della & Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair in Architecture. Steele is a teacher, writer, and leading voice on architecture, cities, and education. He has served on national and overseas arts and architecture commissions, juries, and policy planning initiatives. Steele’s scholarly interests focus on the modern history and contemporary conditions of architecture, and art education and culture. He is a frequent lecturer worldwide on architecture, design, and the arts within larger public, political, and professional fields. Steele’s writing explores how the field of architecture has transformed globally in the past 150 years. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, and he has written extensively on the expansive environments of today’s electronic, computational, and amplified studios and networks in 21st-century design.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices and the USC School of Architecture.  

Portrait: Agnese Sanvito
Photo: Maggie’s Oldham, courtesy of dRMM