Walter Hood and Taneshia West Albert in conversation at the Auburn Forum for Southern Art and Culture, a symposium organized by The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University on February 3, 2024.Walter Hood is the creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. He is also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and lectures on professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. He is a recipient of the 2017 Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, 2019 Knight Public Spaces Fellowship, 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, 2019 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and the 2021 recipient of the Architectural League’s President’s Medal Award.Taneshia West Albert is an enthusiastic, award-winning educator and design practitioner in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn. Her research and creative scholarship explore cultural identity, meaning and trauma; diversity and inclusion; and methods to increase intercultural competency in design education and practice. Her design career is focused on design for healthcare environments, corporate interiors and higher education spaces with a unique background in Medical Equipment Planning and Facilities Design and Construction.
