Lessons in Prosaic Form

Lessons in Prosaic Form is a research and building project by Rosalyne Shieh, assistant professor of architecture, which explores a diasporic sense of place along the migratory axis from rural Tainan to Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and later to the United States. The project draws on oral histories recorded in Taiwanese—a primarily oral language in rapid decline—alongside photography, archival records, and direct observation, centering the voices of elders recalling more than 80 years of displacement, labor, and daily survival.

This phase in collaboration with Hans Tursack (assistant professor, USC School of Architecture) takes the form of paired installations. Past-Present, in Kaohsiung, rehabilitates the remains of a house in a neighborhood settled by rural migrants in the post-war period, a site suspended for decades in anticipation of urban redevelopment that threatens to erase its social and cultural fabric. The construction will create an experimental open-air live-work space hosting a community storytelling evening and a public workshop in conjunction with the architecture school at National Cheng Kung University. Satellite, the MIT counterpart funded by the MIT School of Architecture + Planning (SA+P), will house audiovisual projections broadcasting activities from Past-Present and recordings drawn from the oral history archive.

The project timeline extends from November 2026 through spring 2028, with a planned publication compiling the oral historical and documentary research to follow.

Rosalyne Shieh is an architect based in Cambridge, MA, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and an assistant professor of architecture at MIT. Shieh’s work engages place at the intersection of material culture, oral history, and postcolonial identity; architectural projects are processes for thinking-with-site, and design is the extension and invention from the ordinary. 

Shieh has worked for Stan Allen Architect, ARO, and Ábalos & Herreros, and was formerly co-director of the collaborative practice Schaum/Shieh. She is co-author of Blanking: An Annotated Archive of Projects and Thoughts on Architecture (Park Books, 2025). Previously, Shieh taught at the Yale School of Architecture, The Cooper Union, and the University of Michigan, where she was the 2009–2010 Taubman Fellow in Architecture. She is a MacDowell Fellow, a recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Certificate, and a Fulbright Scholar. Shieh’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Center for Architecture, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Biography: MIT School of Architecture + Planning

Hans Tursack is a designer from Philadelphia, PA. Tursack’s work spans architecture, studio art, and electronic arts, reflecting a trajectory that began with a BFA in studio art from The Cooper Union (2008) and an MArch from the Princeton University School of Architecture (2015), and continues through his current PhD candidacy in Electronic Arts at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Department of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. His writing and scholarly work have appeared in Perspecta Journal, Pidgin Magazine, Plat, Crop Journal, Thresholds Journal, Log Journal, Dimensions Journal, Archinect, See/Saw, ACADIA, and The Architect’s Newspaper. His research has been supported by fellowships and residencies at institutions such as MIT, the University of Michigan, MacDowell, MASS MoCA, Art Omi, and Exhibit Columbus. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture.

Website: hanstursack.com
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