bldg|blog’s Geoff Manaugh along with Edible Geography have been hosting an independent design studio called Landscapes of Quarantine, which has been meeting every week at the Storefront for Art & Architecture with an expected show in the spring. Besides the interesting content which have been trickling out of the studio and posts Geoff has been writing on bldg|blog, what struck me most about this studio is that this should be happening more often that it does. Geoff makes this explicit point in his post, Landscapes of Quarantine and the Counterfeit University

But you need nothing more than a structure, a common topic, a place to meet up, a backpack full of the most basic office supplies, perhaps a bottle opener, and the will-power to see it through; with any luck, in other words, more “counterfeit universities” will be popping up here and there, their research published independently on blogs, their meetings hosted in apartments, offices, restaurants, bars, and other spaces in their after-hours, bringing more and more people into productive conversation.

Exactly.
That isn’t to say there isn’t prior art in this space: SwissMiss hosts Creative Mornings, a small group presentation/mixer Friday mornings (ImprovEverywhere’s Charlie Todd is up next. For awhile there was the 10 Minute Lectures in Brooklyn where I saw (and chronicled) Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat who published An Atlas of Radical Cartography.
I have been toying with a Critical Thinking/Theory syllabus for too long. After the holidays I think it would be a good time to restart planning for an Architecture Theory book club.
Any takers?