​Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus concludes today with our conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's final episode is a conversation with Sam Jacob​​.​

​Sam Jacob Studio​​ is a London-based practice that works at a variety of scales from urban planning to architecture, design objects, art, and curatorial work. Sam Jacob also currently works as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago​, and as a columnist for Art Review. Sam's installation for Exhibit Columbus is located on Washington Street. He treats the six city blocks as a design object in his project titled "Alternative Instruments," telling a story of Utopia from the perspective of both history and fiction, referencing a 16th century novel by Thomas More through symbolism, mapping, and the typography of the Utopian alphabet.

Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Olalekan Jeyifous​​.

Olelakan, who also goes by LEk, as I refer to him in this conversation, is a Nigerian-born visual artist with an architecture degree from Cornell​. His work​ has been widely exhibited at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA, Vitra Design Museum and the Guggenheim Bilboa. His work ranges from large-scale art commissions in public spaces and festivals to commercial installations. His contribution to this year's Exhibit Columbus is a fascinating hybrid of physical and virtual space entitled Archival/Revival. The installation directly references exhibits at the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, the site of the installation, from 1970, celebrating the Black and African arts.

​Archinect Sessions Next Up: Exhibit Columbus continues with sharing conversations with the recipients of The J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize. Today's episode is a conversation with Ann Lui and Craig Reschke of Future Firm​.​

Future Firm is a Chicago-based architecture and design research office founded in 2015. Their work spans a wide array of scales, framed by their tagline, "We design on behalf of the secret lives of cities." In the case of their installation for Exhibit Columbus, Midnight Palace, the secret lives represent the nocturnal community in Columbus, Indiana. The sidewalk installation will bring together people that work in manufacturing, one of the most common jobs in the regions, with restaurant workers, truckers on I65, parents of newborns, dedicated stargazers, students, and residents with families overseas.