2008 Curry Stone Design Prize Finalist
Wes Janz is an architect and associate professor of architecture at Ball State University whose practice and teachings focus on the transformative potential of “leftover spaces,” the slum dwellings, squatter towns and refugee settlements that house 1 billion of the world’s poor. For Janz, these impoverished sites are also living testaments to human resourcefulness and ingenuity: the shelters built from detritus and recycled materials possess a utilitarian beauty wrought of necessity. According to Janz, these “informal pioneers of global urbanism” have much to teach contemporary professional architects who have heeded “the same voices, the same pieces of architecture, and the same logic systems for too long.” As the demand for safe, low-cost shelter grows around the world, Janz argues, global citizen-architects have an important role to play. Extended Profile
