Missing Masses: Architecture of the Unseen invites participants to engage with the latent and absent elements of architectural discourse and practice. Drawing from Bruno Latour’s sociological exploration of the role of human and non-human actors in societal networks, the symposium poses critical questions about the previously unseen constituents of architecture and the built environment. It reflects on how these “missing masses”—be they physical, material, or spatial—participate in shaping our social and environmental constructs.

Germane Barnes will deliver the keynote address in conversation with Architecture Section Head Phu Hoang.

Germane Barnes is the 2023–24 Trott Distinguished Visiting Professor Germane Barnes and the Principal of Studio Barnes and Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Architecture Graduate Program at the University of Miami School of Architecture as well as the Director of the Community Housing & Identity Lab. Barnes’ practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity, examining architecture’s social and political agency through historical research and design speculation. Believing strongly in design as a process, he approaches each condition imposed on a project as an opportunity for transformation.

Phu Hoang is Head of the Architecture Section at the Knowlton School and the Robert S. Livesey Professor of Architecture. He is a Founding Director of the interdisciplinary architecture practice MODU, and the author with Rachely Rotem of Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism.