Houston Center for Contemporary Craft's SPRAWL Speaker Series features prominent individuals from city, county, academic, architectural and urban planning backgrounds who explore issues related to urban development. The series takes place during HCCC's major fall exhibition, SPRAWL (on view Oct. 4-Jan. 19, 2014), which includes 16 national artists whose works deal with the urban landscape.

Like the exhibition, the speaker series addresses three main topics: "Infrastructure of Expansion," "Survey, Plan, Build" and "Aftereffects," which loosely define the phases of urban growth. To supplement the art works in the show, the speaking events are designed to create a cross-disciplinary dialogue to address the complex issues raised by the exhibition and generate further public discussion.

Infrastructure of Expansion
Oct. 18 - Ed Emmett, Harris County Judge
Oct. 24 - Thomas Colbert, associate professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston; and Susan Rogers, director of the Community Design Resource Center and assistant professor at the University of Houston's College of Architecture

Survey, Plan, Build
Nov. 6 - Brian Crimmins, City of Houston Planning and Development Chief of Staff
Nov. 7 - Houston Urban Development & Improvement Panel: David Crossley, president of Houston Tomorrow; Peter Brown, director of BetterHouston; and Diane Schenke, president of Greater East End District.

Aftereffects
Dec. 17 - Sara Zewde, M.L.A. candidate, Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Jan. 9 - Carrie Schneider, Houston Artist