Join Michael Maltzan, 2025 National Design Award winner in Architecture, and Florian Idenburg, co-founder of Brooklyn-based architecture firm SO-IL, for a discussion on urban housing in Los Angeles and New York. Despite the cities’ distinct housing landscapes, both Maltzan and Idenburg employ imaginative, experimental, and persistent strategies to expand architectural possibilities through projects ranging from private residences to supportive, social, and affordable housing. This conversation will explore their bi-coastal work during a critical moment for urban housing in the United States.

Program introduction by Jack Murphy.

SPEAKERS

Michael Maltzan is principal architect of Los Angeles-based firm Michael Maltzan Architecture, which he founded in 1995 and whose work spans affordable housing, innovative urban infrastructure, and cross-disciplinary educational spaces. The firm’s practice is rooted in a deep belief in architecture’s capacity to create new physical, cultural, and social connections, and the firm’s groundbreaking work is often located in challenging locations. Notable projects include Inner City Arts, a multiphase youth arts center in the heart of Skid Row; Star Apartments, a first-of-its-kind prefabricated construction; and the Los Angeles Sixth Street Viaduct, which radically reimagines infrastructure as civic amenity in the contemporary city. A fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. Maltzan’s honors include Cooper Hewitt’s National Design Award in Architecture (2025) and 2016 AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal.

Florian Idenburg is a co-founding partner of New York-based architecture firm SO–IL with Jing Liu. Founded in 2008, SO–IL has grown into a world-renowned architecture firm with public and private clients spread around the globe, from France and South Korea to the United States and Mexico. Their work is celebrated for its sensitivity, intellectual rigor, and imaginative approach to solving challenges of the built environment. Idenburg has a particularly strong background in institutional spaces, leading the office on projects such as Kukje Gallery and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis as well as Amant in Brooklyn. His strength lies in generating imaginative ideas and transforming them into real-world spaces and objects. A frequent speaker at institutions around the world, he has taught at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and Princeton University, and is currently a Professor of Practice at Cornell University. In 2010, Idenburg received the Charlotte Köhler Prize from the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund. He is a registered architect in the Netherlands and an International Associate of the American Institute of Architects.

Jack Murphy is editor in chief of The Architect’s Newspaper (AN) and AN Interior. He previously held the roles of executive editor and managing editor for these publications. Before joining AN, he was editor of Cite and an adjunct professor at the University of Houston. Murphy was co-editor-in-chief of PLAT 8.0 Simplicity and the assistant editor for Totalization, edited by Troy Schaum and published by Park Books in 2019. He received an Honorable Mention for the Pierre Vago Journalism Award 2020 from the International Committee of Architecture Critics and was named the 2017 Associate Member of the Year from the Texas Society of Architects. His writings have appeared in many publications, and he has contributed to a handful of books. He earned degrees in architecture from MIT and Rice University. Prior to being an editor, Murphy worked for award-winning architecture practices in Boston, Austin, Houston, and New York.