Last year, we started an informal lecture series to share experiences and inject fresh design discussion into the studio. Accompanied by the tastes of good cheese and wine and facilitated either by designers at W or colleagues and professionals from outside of the office, last year’s topics included Scales of Erosion, by Johannes Feder, to the shifting ecologies of waterfronts in The Shape of Time, by Barbara Wilks, to the urban ecology of the Manahatta Project, by Eric Sanderson.

Martin Barry kicked-off the new year of design with a lecture entitled “Hops, History, and Interpretive Design,” in which he discussed and proposed contemporary methods of historic interpretation for a site in upstate New York. Martin and Kate Belski, both architects at W, paired local beer with regional cheeses from Germany, New York, and England: all important agricultural regions discussed in the lecture. The topic and provisions inspired a rich discussion on interpretive design, globalization, agricultural landscapes, and design process.