LAB—OR is a design practice that works as an ongoing record of the teaching and scholarly work of Jessica Garcia Fritz and Federico Garcia Lammers. Jessica and Federico are faculty in the School of Architecture (SoA) at the University of Minnesota. They are active members of The Architecture Lobby, and they align with other action-based programs. Details about their work are shared in news and events. Say hello, contact us.
LAB—OR's collective work is about the spaces between architectural labor and construction labor. These spaces connect instruments of practice with environmental, social, and political imbalances of power. Structuring our practice and teaching around forms of exposure, including self-exposure, gives us the space to support collective, action-based programs and projects.
Jessica Garcia Fritz (she/her/hers) is a citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (Itazipco). She has studied and practiced architecture in the United States and Europe, including the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. Her teaching and research challenge architecture’s role in nation-state building through the extraction of material territories in indigenous lands.
Jessica earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture with a concentration in Studio Arts and Construction Management from the University of Minnesota, where she also completed a Master of Architecture. Following graduate school she worked as an intern architect in New York City and began working as an exhibit designer at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
Jessica is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture (SoA) at the University of Minnesota, where she is also a member of the Design Justice Collective in the College of Design, and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of American Indian Studies. Before joining the SoA, Jessica was a founding faculty of DoArch, South Dakota State University, where she spent ten years helping to design the first accredited architecture program in the state.
Federico Garcia Lammers (he/him/his) emigrated from Montevideo, Uruguay to the United States in 2001. He has practiced architecture in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Lisbon, and New York City. His teaching and research connect expansive notions of citizenship with the labor systems that underlie architectural production.
Federico completed a Bachelor of Science in Architecture with a focus on Media Studies and Latin American History, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Minnesota, where he received the Henry Adams AIA Certificate and the Richard Morrill Memorial Thesis Award for Design Excellence.
Federico is an Associate Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Architecture (SoA) at the University of Minnesota. Before joining the SoA, Federico was a founding faculty of DoArch, South Dakota State University, where he spent nine years helping to design the first accredited architecture program in the state.
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