INTtalk: Roots & Rhythms with Darius Somers and Latoya Nelson Kamdang

Live in ST311 and on Zoom.

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Adjunct Associate Professor Darius Somers and Adjunct Professor Latoya Nelson Kamdang present Roots & Rhythms, a talk that reimagines Buffalo, New York’s Michigan Street Corridor as a site of food sovereignty, cultural memory, healing, and economic empowerment. Merging agriculture, spirituality, and the corridor’s musical and cultural legacy, the project proposes a framework for community-driven development rooted in care, agency, and intergenerational exchange.

Framed through a speculative lens, the work asks how architecture can draw from alternative histories of Reconstruction, imagining a United States in which its promises were fully realized as the foundation of civic life. From this premise, the project explores how land, institutions, and cultural systems might have evolved under conditions of sustained Black freedom and self-determination, using that speculative history as a tool to inform present-day spatial, social, and economic futures.

Grounded in archival research, site analysis, and design speculation, the project also responds to the racist mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store, confronting the vulnerability embedded within spaces of food access. In this context, the proposal repositions such spaces as environments of safety, dignity, and collective resilience—where nourishment, protection, and community are inseparable.

Through this synthesis of research and design, Roots & Rhythms positions architecture as both a cultural framework and an instrument of repair, offering a spatial approach to healing that is at once speculative, grounded, and actionable.

Darius Somers, AIA, is an architect and design leader at Moody Nolan, where he serves as Project Manager and Architect of Record on major civic and cultural projects, including the Lincoln Center West Initiative and gallery renovations at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. With experience spanning complex institutional work, his practice focuses on translating design vision into built outcomes through coordination, technical leadership, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Darius currently serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pratt Institute, where he has taught a range of courses focused on design, materiality, and the experiential qualities of space. His teaching emphasizes the integration of conceptual thinking with applied practice, encouraging students to engage architecture as both a sensory and cultural medium.

His research explores architecture as a medium for reparative justice, investigating how design can engage memory, land, and cultural narratives to support more equitable futures. His work has been featured by the Architectural League of New York, and he has led workshops on decolonizing design at the University of Michigan. His practice is grounded in a commitment to advancing culturally responsive and socially impactful design.

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Latoya Nelson Kamdang, AIA, is a senior operations and strategy leader at Ennead Architects, where she leads firmwide initiatives that bridge design excellence with operational performance. With over 20 years of experience across architecture, interiors, planning, and business strategy, her work focuses on building systems, workflows, and governance frameworks that enable creative practices to deliver measurable impact.

Latoya currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute, where she teaches professional practice and global perspectives in design. Her teaching emphasizes the integration of design ambition with real-world constraints—equipping students to navigate project delivery, interdisciplinary collaboration, and emerging career pathways in the built environment.

She is a Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholar and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects (At-Large Director, 2023–2026), where she also co-chairs the Board Knowledge Committee. Her leadership and teaching are grounded in a commitment to advancing equitable, sustainable, and future-focused practices across the design industry.

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This event is open to the public and will be recorded.