In this interview, Ashley Schafer discussed her path toward co-founding Praxis. Raised in culturally rich New Orleans, she initially studied English before transferring to architecture at the University of Virginia. Professional experience strengthened her desire for further education, leading her to Columbia in the mid-1990s. There, figures including Stan Allen, Keller Easterling, and Jesse Reiser encouraged experimental thinking and engagement with new technologies, while seminars introduced theoretical perspectives influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Bruno Latour. Schafer described Columbia at the time as emphasizing function over form and meaning.
At Columbia, she became close to Amanda Reeser Lawrence, with whom she founded Praxis in 1999. The journal addressed topics including landscape urbanism, programming, and surfaces while seeking to sustain theoretical discourse in architecture. Schafer also recalled an editorial process shaped by the technologies of its time, with early issues assembled through fax exchanges. As architectural discourse shifted toward a paradigm of performance, Praxis eventually ceased publication. Its archive now documents an effort to connect architectural writing with building practice.