Call Me If You Get Lost

Call Me If You Get Lost explores the domestic realm through the front porch. Featuring projects in Miami, FL, the location of Studio Barnes, this lecture highlights themes such as celebration, ritual, family, and love through Black spatial occupation of the front porch. Tangent to the lecture is a film, You Can Always Come Home that furthers the investigation and liberation Blackness in the architected environment. Inspired by the 2021 Architectural League Prize Housekeeping, which challenged participants to acknowledge systemic oppression in labor, gender and race, this film aims to dispel common tropes of trauma, pain and discrimination while promoting joy, delight and self-care.

Germane Barnes’ research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Community Housing Identity Lab (CHIL) at the University Of Miami School Of Architecture. He is the 2021 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize winner, Rome Prize Fellow and winner of the Architectural League Prize. His design and research contributions have been published and exhibited in several international institutions. Most notably, The Museum of Modern Art, Pin-Up Magazine, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/ Art Basel, The Swiss Institute, Metropolis Magazine, Curbed, and The National Museum of African American History where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

Image: Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown, photographed by Steven Brooke for Broward Country Cultural Affairs