SUMMARY

This interview of Ashley Schafer explores her journey to co-founding Praxis. Schafer grew up in New Orleans where she was exposed to culture and went on to study English originally before transferring to architecture at the University of Virginia. Furthermore, she gained experience working in a professional practice though this experience increased her desire to pursue further education. She attended Columbia during the mid 1990s with voices such as Stan Allen, Keller Easterling, and Jesse Reiser. This environment pushed more experimental thinking and technological tools. She attended seminars where Deleuze and Latour influenced the discourse. In Schafer’s words, Columbia at the time was more focused on function rather than form and meaning. During her time at Columbia, she grew close with Amanda Reeser Lawrence and they founded the journal Praxis in 1999. Praxis focused on themes like landscape urbanism, programming, and surfaces. Praxis aimed to continue a theoretical discourse in architecture which at the time could be compared to a journal like El Croquis. In the beginning, the editorial process was much different than today as the first issues were produced via fax machine. As times changed, Praxis closed due to it being a paradigm of performance. Currently, it is an archive that provides an example of how to blend building and writing.