The Knowlton School welcomes Jackilin Ha Bloom and Florencia Pita as visiting faculty in the G3 Architecture Design Studio, Easy Office, with studio instructor and 2018–19 Lefevre Fellow, Emily Mohr (BSARCH ’13). The studio will look closely and critically at Rachel Whiteread’s works as examples of ways to enact new readings of materialized constructs and engage with an underlining disciplinary discussion of the studio, to define “easy” work as that which is in fact difficult, complex, excessive, transitional and implied.

Jackilin Ha Bloom is an architectural designer based in Los Angeles, California. She is co-founder of the research based collaborative, Pita & Bloom, and principal of JHB Studio. Bloom holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California School of Architecture and a Master of Architecture degree from the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design.

Bloom’s work experience includes ten years at the offices of Greg Lynn FORM and five years at Daly Genik Architects (now Kevin Daly Architects). In 2014, Pita & Bloom were one of five finalist of the prestigious MoMA PS1 YAP competition and in 2016 they were one of 12 offices exhibiting in the U.S. Pavilion at the International Venice Architecture Biennale. Bloom has taught as a guest critic at Syracuse University School of Architecture and she currently teaches at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Florencia Pita is a partner and co-founder of Pita & Bloom. She is also principal of FPmod. Pita graduated in 1998 from the National University of Rosario in Argentina, with a licensure degree. In 1999, she was awarded the 2000 Fulbright-Fondo Nacional de las Artes Scholarship to pursue studies at Columbia University, and in 2001 she received her Master's Degree from the MSAAD Program at Columbia University.

Pita's work experience includes the offices of Greg Lynn FORM in Los Angeles, Eisenman Architects in New York City, and Asymptote in New York City. Her independent projects have been part of several museum collections, such as MoMA, MAK Vienna and the Art Institute of Chicago, and have been recognized through publications and awards. She currently teaches Design Studios and Visual Studies courses at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and was recently appointed Graduate Thesis Coordinator.

The work of Pita and Bloom includes competition proposals for world-class buildings such as the Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki, Finland, a housing ideas project in Maribor, Slovenia, and an urban park scheme in San Francisco, California. In January of 2014, Pita & Bloom were called “two female visionaries” in Architecture Magazine’s "Next Progressives."

On October 9, Pita and Bloom will participate in “What’s Your Project?” - a component of the Baumer Theory Seminar - which aims to get at the intellectual, disciplinary, aesthetic and/or political ambitions that underpin the work of leading figures in architecture and adjacent fields. Moderated by Architecture Section Head Todd Gannon, the discussions are open to third-year architecture graduate students.