REPUBLISHED We Lost: Hawaii's Bid for the Barack Obama Presidential Center

This article was originally published in the Journal of Architectural Education JAE 70:1 by Maria Simon. A short description of the article is posted below along with a link to the original PDF. While the scale of this work is substantially larger than the work currently being pursued by NomiLab, the spirit of collaboration born out of this work helps drive the interdisciplinary philosophy of the firm.

There are few contemporary typologies in

which architecture serves as a publicly declared

provocation of hope and idealism. Presidential

centers harbor the potential to serve as

provocateurs created out of hybrid programs

balanced between public benefit and a president’s

individual legacy. From March 2014 through

May 2015, university-led teams from New York

City, Chicago, and Honolulu participated

in a competition to host the Barack Obama

Presidential Center. This article will examine

how key concepts of Hawaii’s team, of which the

author was a member, collaboratively developed

and facilitated the competition submission.

We Lost Hawaii s Bid for the Barack Obama Presidential Center.pdf

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