Farzin Lotfi-Jam, the Taubman College 2013-2014 Sanders Fellow, spoke about architecture and his work at the Semi-Permanent Conference in Wellington, New Zealand on October 18. Semi-Permanent is a conference designed to inspire with a diverse range of speakers with creative, innovative and thought provoking presentations.

In conjunction with his appearance, Lotfi-Jam was also interviewed by ArchitectureNow, where he mentioned part of his goal was to move architecture to the center stage and to "flip" design students in the audience on to architecture. During the interview, Lotfi-Jam mentioned, "Architecture still has a really great role in transforming public spaces because people believe in public space… They are spaces that are essentially infrastructural in that they encourage certain types of activities and events to emerge. Formal manipulation of that space can have a real effect on how it is occupied and appropriated." Visit the ArchitectureNow website to read the entire interview.

In addition to being the 2013-2014 Sanders Fellow, Farzin Lotfi-Jam is Principal of FarzinFarzin. He holds a Master in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University and a Master of Architecture at RMIT University. Farzin has held teaching appointments at Columbia University, Pratt Institute, SCI-Arc and RMIT University. He has 10 years of professional experience at architectural practices in Australia, Germany and Slovenia.