Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

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.

In Part 1, dive into the world of contemporary speaker design with fast-paced presentations by New York’s rising audio innovators—Deborah Garcia, Mo Yasin, and Zoë Mowat and Dave Shaw of Waves and Frequencies. Learn about their strategies for spatial activation, home audio enhancement, and live event sound system set ups. SPEAKERS PART 1 Deborah Garcia is a spatial activator specializing in sonic and structural disruption. She currently teaches at the Yale School of Architecture and is Residency Director and Curator of the Institute for Public Architecture in New York. Zoë Mowat and David Shaw are the founders of Waves and Frequencies (WAF Audio), a hi-fi project based in New York and Ontario, Canada. Their approach to sound was shaped by DIY dance culture over many years of friendship, seeing high-fidelity sound as conduit for connection through music. Both industrial designers and DJs, they design and manufacture loudspeakers that bridge acoustic engineering, furniture design, and the social experience of listening. Mo Yasin is a Sudanese-American DJ, speaker designer, and event producer from Virginia. Shaped by years behind the counter at record shops and driven by a deep passion for the sound system traditions of New York, the UK, and Jamaica, Yasin embodies a true do-it-yourself ethos. A quiet, decade-long career as a DJ in New York has evolved into an audio practice that merges technical precision with a wide-ranging musical sensibility, utilizing his custom-built sound system as a tool to explore and continually refine the dance floor experience.

For Part 2, enjoy a dynamic conversation where writer and curator Vince Aletti speaks with DJ partners and publishers Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele of Love Injection. Together with moderator Matthew Higgs, they’ll unpack the visual language of album covers, posters and flyers. Discover how music’s graphic design including typography, color, and production techniques help shape memories and history. Expect a lively show-and-tell as Aletti and Love Injection share stories and rare examples from their experiences documenting, collecting, and distributing this cultural ephemera.

From concert posters to record albums, phonographs to digital music players, handheld radios to sound systems, Art of Noise takes visitors on an exploration of how design has transformed our relationship to music over the past 100 years. Join us to learn more about this groundbreaking exhibition with a special introductory conversation with Joseph Becker, curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Gary Hustwit, a documentary filmmaker known for his work addressing design and music. Becker and Hustwit will reveal insights into the history and making of the exhibition, which travels to Cooper Hewitt from SFMOMA. At Cooper Hewitt, Art of Noise will feature more than 300 objects drawn largely from the collections of Cooper Hewitt and SFMOMA, as well as unique sound environments designed by Stockholm-based studio teenage engineering and multi-disciplinary artist Devon Turnbull.

HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 features a large-scale, handmade audio system by multi-disciplinary artist Devon Turnbull. Known under his creative pseudonym OJAS, Turnbull handcrafts high-fidelity audio systems designed to envelop the listener in sound that is as rich in texture as it is in emotion. Upon entering, visitors will experience realistic, natural sound from Turnbull’s sculptures and a chance to slow down and engage deeply with sound. The listening room is part of the upcoming Art of Noise exhibition.

Join multidisciplinary artist Devon Turnbull and renowned radio host and author John Schaefer for an evening conversation on music, their work crafting listening experiences, and Turnbull’s latest installation at Cooper Hewitt, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3. The installation features a large scale, handmade, audio system designed to envelop the listener in sound that is as rich in texture as it is in emotion. After a short introductory talk, experience the listening room as Turnbull and Schaefer operate the sound system and play a selection of music inspired by Schaefer’s iconic radio show New Sounds. HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 is part of the upcoming Art of Noise exhibition, opening in full February 13, 2026. Devon Turnbull, known under his creative pseudonym OJAS, is a Brooklyn-based artist and audio engineer. Turnbull handcrafts high-fidelity audio systems—monolithic works of functional sculpture that seek to express the natural and emotional essence of music. His work is the result of a lifelong dedication to experimentation, engineering, and explorations in the audio underground. His installations have appeared in cultural institutions such as SFMOMA, Cooper Hewitt, and Lisson Gallery; public spaces including Public Records, Patina Osaka, the Nine Orchard Hotel, and Supreme stores worldwide; as well as the private collections of some of the world’s top musicians and music producers. Through all these projects, Turnbull’s unwavering pursuit of sonic purity remains his defining hallmark. John Schaefer is an American radio host and author. He has hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 and the New Sounds Live concert series since 1986. Since 2002, he has also hosted Soundcheck, an arts and culture program engaging guests and listeners in conversations with people from New York City’s creative arts scene. Schaefer has written extensively about music, including the book New Sounds: A Listener’s Guide to New Music (Harper & Row, NY, 1987; Virgin Books, London, 1990); The Cambridge Companion to Singing: World Music (Cambridge University Press, U.K., 2000); and the TV program Bravo Profile: Bobby McFerrin (Bravo Television, 2003). He was contributing editor for Spin and Ear magazines, and his liner notes appear on more than 100 recordings, ranging from “The Music of Cambodia” to recordings by Yo-Yo Ma and Terry Riley.