"Where Do Our Building Materials Come From?"
Have you ever asked yourself: where do our building materials come from, and was anybody harmed in their production? Noriko Maeda and Franca Trubiano answer this question by sharing the outcomes of their research project: “Ethically Sourcing the Ground: Investigating Forced Labor in Landscape Architecture Material Supply Chains.” Working alongside the New York firm, MNLA, they mapped the global origins and transportation of concrete pavers, synthetic turf, safety surfaces, recycled plastic lumber and geotextiles used on construction sites across the United States, and what they discovered was surprising, if not shocking.
Many of the material products we use to construct our buildings and landscapes are produced using labor that violates the human rights of millions of children, women, and men. Windows, doors, flooring, and roofing are manufactured under conditions of physical, emotional, and personal precarity; in so doing, they subtend an exploitative economy of building.
This lecture will discuss the extent of forced labor across a range of materials, including aluminum, granite, concrete, solar panels, and “luxury flooring.” It will introduce the City Tech student body to resources and data that help us identify questionable products; it will also outline a path to greater recognition of the problem and solutions to mitigate the risk of selecting materials that may have been produced using forced labor.
When choosing materials, architects are tasked with selecting aesthetically pleasing, structurally sound, and sustainable materials. They are also responsible for ensuring that no human rights violations occur during the production and installation of said materials. This lecture charts how we can all become better informed to ensure that forced labor in construction is truly a thing of the past.
Speaker: Dr. Franca Trubiano (UPenn Stuart Weitzman School of Design), Noriko Maeda
Moderator: Phillip Anazalone (Atelier Architecture 64)
Location: Voorhees Hall 2nd Floor Lounge
Contact: citytecharchitecturedept@gmail.com
AIA 1.5 LU|HSW will be provided
Dr. Franca Trubiano is associate professor of Architecture and Graduate Group Chair of the PhD Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Registered Architect with l'Ordre des Architects du Québec. She was the co-director of Penn's Mellon-funded Humanities + Urban + Design Initiative from 2021-2026. Trubiano is the author of Building Theories, Architecture as the Art of Building (Routledge, 2023), and editor of BIO/MATTER/TECHNO/SYNTHETICS: Design Futures for the More Than Human (ACTAR, 2023), Women [Re]Build; Stories, Polemics, Futures (ORO - ar+d, 2019), and Design and Construction of High-Performance Homes: Building Envelopes, Renewable Energies and Integrated Practice (Routledge Press, 2012). In 2025, she received the ARCC James Haeker Distinguished Leadership Award, and in 2014, the Weitzman School G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching. Trubiano’s research on Integrated Design Roadmaps for Building Retrofits and her work on the Solar Decathlon have been funded by the United States Department of Energy.
Noriko Maeda is a licensed landscape architect with over 30 years of experience in the field of urban design and landscape architecture. A fine artist whose multimedia work has been exhibited in both Japan and the United States, Ms. Maeda is based in New York City and concurrently serves as an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the New York City College of Technology. With a proven track record of balancing project goals and design excellence in projects for private and public clients, Ms. Maeda’s expertise is rooted in the leadership of multidisciplinary teams for public organizations with a focus on streetscape improvements, waterfront parks and urban plazas. Further, Ms. Maeda has an in-depth understanding of public permitting procedures and construction details for landscape architectural amenities. Ms. Maeda presented at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) National Conference in 2022 and presided in collaboration with the New York City Department of Transportation in December 2024 at The World Street Conference in Osaka, Japan presenting in a series entitled “People at the Center.” In addition, Ms. Maeda has contributed to the Japan Architectural Journal, publishing an article in the January 2025 issue entitled “Trees Build an Urban Ecosystem and Local Community.” [http://www.kj-web.or.jp/gekkan/2025/2501.html].