Ten faculty members from design-related concentrations spoke to an audience of students Friday evening in Bowman Hall using the PechaKucha format.

“The way this will work is that each speaker has 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide,” said Steve Rugare, assistant professor in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design and co-host of the event. “The slides will advance automatically.”

The event was a part of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design’s ongoing spring 2014 lecture series, “Global Geometries.”

The format was designed to force creative individuals to be concise while talking about their work, said Mike Christoff, Kent State architecture alumnus, co-founder of PechaKucha Night Cleveland and the other co-host for Friday night’s event.

“As you may have noticed, your professors are not the most short-winded people in the world, so this is a bit of a test for them,” Rugare said.

William Willoughby, associate dean of the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Jeffrey Kruth, urban designer with the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, and Kelly Turner, geography professor, all discussed themes related to urbanization.

“Over the years, I’ve written multiple essays and have collaborated with others on issues of how cities are being transformed by wireless technology,” Willoughby said.

Not all of the speakers were from fields relating to architecture, including Jason Bacher, adjunct visual communication design professor and co-founder of the design resource website GFDA, or Good Fucking Design Advice, who presented on persisting as an entrepreneur.

“Even when we didn’t have money for models, we looked around to our friends who were willing to donate their time and their service,” Bacher said.

Other presenters included Steve Rugare, assistant architecture professor; Sue Hershberger Yoder, fashion faculty member; Jon Yoder, associate architecture professor; Claire Markwardt, graduate student at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative; Brian Peters, assistant architecture professor; and Samantha Ayotte, a senior architecture major and spokesperson for assistant architecture professor Beth Bilek-Golias’ “designers in service” outreach program.

For more information about PechaKucha Night Cleveland, visit http://www.pechakucha.org/cities/cleveland/.

Contact Justin Sheil at [email protected].