In the House with Charlie Vinz
Saturday, October 15th, 2-5 PM EST at Ox-Bow House
Doors open at 2 pm, Talk begins at 2:30 pm, Drinks and social hour 4-5 pm
Join us on Saturday, October 15th for a fall “In-the-House” with architect-in-residence, Charlie Vinz. Charlie will introduce guests to his practice and past projects, take a closer look at his research on Ox-Bow House, and be in conversation with Executive Director, Shannon Stratton before opening the floor to a Q&A. Topics will range from: what is adaptive reuse to how arts organizations are rethinking architecture and more!
After the talk head over to Ox-Bow campus for our last Best in the West MI: Ramen Dinner! Reservations required. Purchase tickets here.
Ox-Bow and Charlie Vinz are embarking on a long-term architect-in-residence project together over the next 3-years as we research and learn more about the history of the Ox-Bow House site through historic, material and site studies that will help inform its future design. You can be part of that journey by following Charlie’s work on-site or online and participating in future workshops, public programs and symposiums.
Charlie Vinz (b. 1980, Wisconsin) is an architect, artist, and educator based in the Upper Midwest. In his approach, cultural production is an open-ended process. Charlie draws from ambient resources, materials, spaces, and narratives and applies them towards the construction of new contexts in objects and environments in order to reframe, transpose, and question them. Through processes found in architectural design and pedagogical models, Charlie’s projects attempt to buttress shared built environments and close loops on circular economies.
Charlie attended architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology (B.Arch ‘04) and studied abroad at the Bauhaus Universitat Weimar in Germany in 2002. From 2007-11, while working as a designer for Antheus Capital and then Tom Brock Architect, Charlie developed youth design-build apprenticeship programs with After School Matters entitled Learning in the Built Environment and Design Build Grow Eat, as well as co-founded a bi-monthly series for designers/educators working with people marginalized by design institutions called Potluck for Engaging Design. In late 2010, he began managing, developing, and designing projects for Rebuild Foundation and artist Theaster Gates, all with an emphasis on transforming marginalized spaces and objects currently deemed as liabilities into ones in which other systems of value could be understood and realized. With Theaster, he worked on projects in Omaha, St. Louis, and Chicago, culminating with the Stony Island Arts Bank.
Since 2013, Charlie has worked as an architecture and design practitioner under the name Adaptive Operations, which has been his primary focus since 2017, when he became a licensed architect in the state of Illinois. Adaptive Operations undertakes commercial projects such as the hospitality spaces Parachute, Wherewithall, and Life On Marz Community Club, art spaces such as Watershed, Buddy, and Narrow Bridge, in addition to private residential spaces and homes. He has exhibited in group shows such as Making Chances at Gallery 400, All Good Things Become Wild and Free at Carthage College, Spontaneous Interventions at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale and the Chicago Cultural Center, the 2018 Thailand Biennale, and Successful Failures at the Chicago Cultural Center. For Stockyard Institute’s 2021 retrospective at DePaul Art Museum, he designed and fabricated a radio station (WYSR) for use during the exhibition, which then traveled to the Union for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE.