FA C UL TY & S TU D E N T S
L IGH T PL AY Associate Professor Catie Newell explores light and darkness in her practice and in the classroom By Julie Halpert
CATIE NEWELL DIDN’T BECOME interested in architecture because she had a love for buildings. Instead, she was inspired by a long-held fascination with flying. “I had an interest in being up in the sky, and having different vantage points, and seeing different light and different landscapes,” says Newell, the director of the Master of Science in Digital and Material Technologies program and an associate professor of architecture. She has incorporated that perspective in her current projects, which have received notoriety for the way she repurposes spaces through innovative material processes and use of light and darkness. Newell has won numerous architectural prizes, including the 2011 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers. Dressed casually in steel-toed boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt, her demeanor is down-to-earth and her voice brims with enthusiasm as she describes the work that has become the focal point of her life. Her passion for flight led her to start out in aerospace engineering, but she quickly grew bored and craved an
“Secret Sky” harnesses light patterns in a barn in Michigan’s Thumb.
34
SPRING 2020 TAUBMAN COLLEGE
