Assistant Professors of Architecture Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann are recipients of a 2019 Slovene Research Initiative award as visiting exchange scholars this summer to conduct research on their project, "Faculty of Architecture, Ljubljana at 100 Years.” The Slovene Research Initiative award is granted by the Ohio State University Center for Slavic and East European Studies.

As part of their award, Bigham and Herrmann will spend two weeks at the Research Center of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia to study the legacy of the Faculty of Architecture in Ljublijana. Founded in 1919, the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana is widely regarded as one of the strongest architecture schools in Central Europe. Its founding members of the faculty included Jože Plečnik and Ivan Vurnik, who both left a significant architectural legacy in Slovenia.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of its founding, this research project will investigate the Faculty of Architecture’s pedagogical legacy through a study of three of its most notable living alumni: contemporary artist Marjetica Potrč, architect Saša J. Maechtig, and the architecture firm OFIS, founded by partners and alumni of the school Rok Oman and Špela Videčnik. After the completion of archival work and interviews in Ljubljana, Bigham and Hermann will produce a series of short interview featurettes, with a publication of their research a possibility as well.

In addition to their architecture appointments at the Knowlton School, Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann are co-directors of Outpost Office, a design practice which focuses on issues of formal genericism, digital aesthetics and material experimentation.