Events

Posts

ABC School Closing Plenary 2

This event will screen two videos from Sanjeev Sanjar - reflecting on and analysing two collaborative projects from india, which have explored collective potential within complementary contexts. 

“Jugaad” explored recycling and repurposing within an urban village of Delhi, and has inspired critical discourse on “resource” within the built environment. 

“Syrwet U Barim Mariang Jingkieng Jri Cooperative Federation Ltd.” is exploring an alternative development model through a Cooperative-based model in an Indigenous context.

This event will be facilitated by a member of the ABC School team. 

Sanjeev Shankar was born in the Nilgiri hills of Southern India.

As founder of a research-based studio, Sanjeev uses his training in architecture, design and science to merge traditional knowledge with contemporary patterns to nurture positive socio-economic-ecological impact. Over the last decade, he has inspired communities through rigorous field research, experimentation and an inclusive hands-on methodology. A recipient of National Geographic Society Expedition Council grant from USA, Chevening fellowship for Science and Technology from Britain, and DAAD fellowship from Germany, his critically acclaimed works have featured at Royal Institute of British Architects in London, Centre for Architecture in New York, International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering in Geneva, Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Cornell University in New York and Doors of Perception in New Delhi. He was shortlisted for Emerging Architecture award at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London in 2009, won the ‘10 Great Ideas to change the world’ competition at Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai in 2010, and has won ‘outstanding young engineer contribution’ award for the paper 

Living Root Bridges: State of knowledge, fundamental research and future application

 at the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering conference in Geneva in 2015.

Sanjeev continues to explore a critical and collective agenda for human ingenuity, challenging the way we live and impact our planet.

Nurturing Equal Value for All

The ABC Closing Plenary Event invites all participants, contributors and those interested to join us in this closing session, to discuss ideas from across the week and speculate on what's next. 

We hope you can join us at one of two time slots.

ABC event series, where the pressure is low, the people are friendly, and the space is made for low-key gathering and idea sharing.

ABC School Closing Plenary 1

In this workshop, we’re gonna talk about anti-capitalist pedagogy and architecture’s compromised role in envisioning the future.

I’m sharing two years of radical research and design work at RISD Architecture on a live public process in Somerville MA, what it means to run an anti-capitalist design studio, architecture’s positionality if we’re going to really do ethical community engagement, and relational over hierarchical frameworks of action. We’re gonna talk about it.

This is going to be a pretty low-key session. I want to:

What does it mean to construct a truly anti-capitalist pedagogy? Beyond utopias or “alternate futures”, what can we do within the academy to engage with the rampages of an inhumane system while still carrying hope? Is it possible to deconstruct the imperialist institution of academia and ethically engage research work in the real world? Central to this question is our potential as academics to build relationships of solidarity and trust with communities, while recognizing the potential intellectual extraction and academic colonization of that effort.

When the production of architectural discourse itself is commodified in a never-ending cycle of meaningless publication and production, is there room to use academic frameworks for real community change? Endemic to the “professionalism” saturating architectural education is a bourgeois ideology of “prettification” and intellectual dissociation that reproduces class divides, perpetuates intellectual elitism, and produces wave after wave of young designers unconsciously wielding technocratic professionalism as a crude club to undermine community voices and uphold self-perpetuating systems of predatory capital.

Through a series of two advanced studios taught at RISD Architecture, I’ve had the privilege of working with a cohort of 25 young designers seeking to tackle these questions. We're gonna talk about it.

To prep for this workshop, please check out the following material. It’s all optional BUT also fun, short, and pretty digestible:

course intro video for Common Ground, RISD Architecture, 2023

syllabus for Common Ground, RISD Architecture, 2023:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G9js0xvQ74dwD37_iv1ScCy7aPh0Fezx&usp=drive_fs

Black Socialists in America on creative practice twitter thread (2019)

https://twitter.com/BlackSocialists/status/1091112105821065216?s=20

Design Thinking is a Rebrand for White Supremacy

https://dabuzon.medium.com/design-thinking-is-a-rebrand-for-white-supremacy-b3d31aa55831

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GA_gJV84FxABZ2M7XWlG_GvUAVcEjQ6_&usp=drive_fs

is a young artist + designer who recently graduated with their M.Arch from the Rhode Island School of Design. Originally from Boston, MA, Kai currently resides in New York looking to improve the built environment for all.

is an interior and architectural designer and 2023 RISD M.Arch grad based in Providence, RI. She is passionate about practices of care in design, community storytelling, and bridging the pedagogical gap between interior design & architecture. 

is an emerging artist and designer, currently pursuing a Bachelor of Architecture at RISD. They have a strong interest in imaginative and and celebratory design that asks simple, but thought provoking questions.

is a fifth-year student at RISD Architecture. Previously a Housing Innovation Lab fellow at the City of Boston and a research assistant at MIT DUSP, she is passionate about affordable housing and harnessing the power of technology to improve communication and trust.

is a graduate student in architecture at RISD, her area of research is on residential architecture and the future of salvage/waste streams in remote areas as solutions to the housing crisis. She’s originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and has spent the last 11 years in New England. 

is a reformed architect and community organizer living and working in Somerville, MA

is an educator, activist, instigator, architect, and advocate. He is studio lead at Kin Design Studio, a radical design practice focusing on transformative social justice through policy, building solidarity, and constructing the civic commons. He teaches at RISD and Northeastern, where he is severely underpaid for his labor.

Viola Tan, John Lewtas, Yupeng (Terry) Chen, Jack Schildge, Victoria Goodisman, Lauren Blonde, Ruyue (July) Qi, Fiona Libby, Emily Lo, Jenny Zhang, Andrew Song, Chae Yeon Woo, Lauren Cochran, Uthman Olowa, Mackenzie Luke, Tia Miller, Lily Gucfa, Yuqi Tang, Abena Danquah, Phillip Schroeder, Jack Kostyshen, Abigail Zola, Shane Su, Elijah Trice, 

 are current and former students at RISD Architecture who created the work of the studio.

From the Ground Up: Building Solidarity in Somerville MA through Aspirational Design

If you have something to contribute to the ABC Hub, or would like to understand more about how it works, this event is for you!

We will allow the space and time to talk about the ABC Hub and to support interested contributors in uploading content or adding definitions.

ABC Hub Workshopping Event

 to collate collectives, people, readings, definitions and ideas that could be a part of the ABC Hub. [Re]search collaboratively in a convivial environment the who/what/where/why/how of liberatory practice and alternative 'sites' for architecture. 

ABC Hub Hive Mind

This is a participatory workshop that explores how everyday activities can be codified into our organizing practices.

What do you reckon? This is a participatory workshop that asks us to imagine interacting with one another outside of hegemonic narratives. References to ritual in architecture may often be informed by spirituality, cultist and alternative lifestyles, expressions and appropriations of indigeneity, or the corporate grindset. Here, ritual refers to small acts we undertake each day, and how these may contribute to our capacity to organize, and relate to each other. Participants will carry out a series of activities as a group that each attempt to codify a mundane ritual between the participants. We will hear a range of responses to these prompts, the responses themselves forming the basis of strategies for practice and organization that may be carried forward by the group within and beyond the temporary virtual window of the Zoom meeting.

Participants should be in a space they are comfortable to move around and make noise in, and are asked to bring a snack for a virtual pot-luck.

Demotic Ritual Practices: What Do You Reckon?

A discussion of the possibility for a Just Transition at the nexus of climate, labor, and the built environment.

As design workers, the building sector’s reliance on the fossil fuel economy affects us every day as we design projects that require material extraction, significant capital investment, and the installation of new energy infrastructure. On top of this, the value of our design work legitimizes capitalist expansion in the built environment. Our agency to change the building sector’s role in social, racial, and environmental violence is limited to our work on individual projects in individual offices. Decades of sustained climate action in the profession have proven that this incremental strategy is bound to fail, because it does nothing to challenge the foundational structure of our relationship to real estate-driven fossil capital.

Our real power lies in collective action centered on the creation of new ways of working, building, and living. This action must unify design workers, builders, and communities–groups traditionally siloed. The climate has reached a global tipping point, and a transition 

 happen. A Just Transition is our opportunity to envision what that change will look like, so that it can happen with us instead of to us.

We are stronger together! To win change in the building industry, we need to organize across the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction divide, with workers in a range of unions. Alone, our power is limited. Together, we have the power to shut the system down and demand immediate, aggressive climate action.

The GND working group formed in 2019 to focus on organizing for ecological justice as it relates to architectural labor, the built environment, and sustainable futures for all. Members of the Working Group reflect many different parts of the architecture, engineering and design industry employed in public, private, and university sectors, ranging from designers and engineers, to educators and researchers. We share a commitment to social and racial justice and a motivation to act urgently in response to the climate crisis. As a working group within the larger Architecture Lobby organization, we do not represent the interests of any single market, industry, or mode of building. We are motivated by the urgency of climate action and committed to long-term collaboration with allied people and groups across policy, practice, and advocacy.

Organizing Architectural Labor for a Just Transition

Eight members of the Academia Working Group, who organize ABC School, present on a collective book project they have been developing over the last 18 months. 

The Organizers Guide to Architectural Education

, builds on our experiences with the ABC school and distills our findings for others. Through the efforts of planning and hosting ABC School, the Architecture Lobby's Academia Working Group has realized that addressing shortcomings of architecture education requires revisioning education as a forum for teaching organizing skills that empower architects to address the needs of our global present and future.

In all areas of curriculum – studio, structures, history, theory, professional practice, environmental systems – the need for architectural education to put issues of environmental and social justice forward is clear. But more than thinking through specific thematic urgencies from within pedagogical siloes, students must learn to think systemically, across boundaries, in order to disrupt capitalism’s exploitations and imbalances. Power-mapping and organizing training are essential in that re-education.

The Architecture Lobby academia working group increasingly understands itself as a collector of organizations fighting for architecture’s relevance and a forum for learning and teaching organizing skills that can and must re-envision architecture education. It is establishing a public resource of organizing how-to’s.

The authors are Kirsten Day, Peggy Deamer, Andrea Dietz, Tessa Forde, Jessica Garcia Fritz, Palmyra Geraki, and Valerie Lechene, supported by Renzo Dagnino.

The Organizer's Guide to Architecture Education

A screening, conversation and workshop activity, around the short film: "Where the Facade Bends".

Which stories shape the stages of our everyday life? What are the narratives embedded in architectural practices, and what role do they play? Can we attempt to tell different stories, to expand the collective imaginaries of our cities, and to shift the perspective away from the one considered "neutral" by the market?

These are some of the questions Sophie Czich addresses in her practice and wants to explore together in this ABC Session. The session will start with a screening and open discussion around the video piece "Where the Facade Bends". It will then turn into a more hands-on workshop, testing how fiction and architecture are intertwined by playing with images, stories and words.

Part 1 — Screening and open discussion (~30-40 min)

"Where the Facade Bends" (2021, 7 min) is a video exploration of the ideal spaces depicted in architectural 3D renders. In this work, the artist questions the highly realistic representations of places that don't exist yet. These images stand halfway between an imaginary world and a future that will physically materialize. They play a role at several moments in the development of a place, whether it be for advertising to potential investors, communicating to convince the public, or creating a marketable image and storytelling. Happy human archetypes are pasted in the ‘perfect’ house, which is placed in an idealised environment. At the core of this peculiar world-building practice, the narrative of hyper-perfection fashions a sleek paradise, propels capitalist norms, and shapes our collective imagination of desirable lifestyles, cities, and potential futures.

Part 2 — speculative meaning-making activity (~1h)

After having discussed this dominant representation and narrative in the first part of the session, the second part will focus on the various subjectivities a place can hold. Through this workshop, we will create some fictions and attempt to involve more perspectives in the way we make and think through images. Can storytelling and fiction deconstruct and reconstruct ways to inhabit and imagine cities?

For this exercise, it is ideal to bring an image of your choice involving architecture/urban space in a way or another. It can be a personal picture, material found online, a drawing, etc. The workshop will make use of the platform 

 , please create your account there before the beginning of the session.

Where the facade bends — on narratives and fiction in architecture

We imagine urban metabolism, and how we could live and work caring for it. 

During this session, we will examine this place through the lens of "eco-history" and connect urban patterns to their origins. We will discover that the city is a blend of human civilization and natural influences, often blurring the line between the two.

Our journey will take us deep into the city, where we'll envision what a contemporary extension of its urban metabolism might resemble. We will delve into ecological challenges and brainstorm new infrastructures that would enable citizens to compassionately care for a hybrid of nature and technology, creating a more habitable environment.

Using 3D data, maps, eco-historical information, and various media, we will explore how we can integrate and reintroduce natural processes into the city. We will consider the design of these infrastructures, their potential to enhance urban living standards, and the practical aspects of maintaining them on a daily basis.

Ultimately, all the ideas we generate will contribute to an optimistic vision of urban metabolism. This vision has the potential to foster a resilient urban continuum that harmoniously blends nature and technology.

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVMm86CyE=/?share_link_id=348427220234

This event will be facilitated by Pino Heye 

Pino Heye: Hi i'm Pino Heye, i'm establishing an architecture studio on the cross-section of Urban planning, Art and governance, focussing on territorial planning. I am located in Paris and Tokyo, (currently preparing a PhD about territorial infrastructure networks in Tokyo). I am interested in the emergence process of infrastructure networks, that improve the environment, and social situation, and the aesthetics of living and working in such networks. I always attempt to build a community around projects.

Everyday Metabolism

A roundtable discussion around first-hand experiences with organizing unions within the architecture realm with architectural workers who have helped to lead several campaigns within the private sector.

Who are we? We are architects, designers, model makers, landscape architects, visualization artists, project managers, planners, and more working on the built environment, from multiple employers in the private sector. We are made up of volunteer architectural workers from multiple organizing committees previously and actively organizing in our respective workplaces. 

AWU is a collaborative campaign. Our goal is to build on the tremendous inherent value our profession offers the industry, a value that is not recognized nor rewarded. We believe we can do this by harnessing the leverage that organizing unions provides workers. We are inspired by and follow in the footsteps of the over six million union members that are professional workers in the United States, such as engineers, lawyers, graphic designers, writers, etc., who have organized before us for higher standards in their professions.

Join us for a roundtable discussion where we outline our experiences leading former and current architectural union campaigns. We will walk through our successes, our hardships, and all things union.

Architectural Workers United: Organizing Unions within Architecture

A screening and workshop about the role collective fantasies play in the development of housing methodologies through the lens of Judit Elek's 1969 film titled 

What is housing today? Is it a living fantasy attached to spaces, is it a cultural fantasy, is it archetypical, is it a process? The workshop is intended to explore new possibilities for habitat-making by experimenting with de-learning our already established attitudes and creating a new blank(ish) state for re-learning or re- dreaming notions such as the principal human right to housing and indeed what really is a “better” living condition. This utopistic proposition, attempts to challenge the tools we use to criticise systems (neoliberal vs. Marxist) and our obsession with ideologies (~ vs. ~). We'd also like to think about “semi-failed” housing utopias, and our emotional attachment to the meaning of better living conditions. As part of the session, participants will be invited to watch Elek Judit’s 1969 film titled 

, which is about finding a home in socialist era Hungary, where conflicting ideological-political elements illustrate how social systems in practice conflict with fantasies of better living conditions. We would like to invite participants to consider whether the unconscious (both collective and individual) mind has a role to play in the development of housing methodologies, living spaces, and common grounds, as not firmly fixed but constantly constructed concepts, shaped by (shared) narratives and (collective) imaginations. Therefore, in our daily lives, we are surrounded by a flux of external and sometimes forced knowledge. As part of this workshop, we’d like to explore the use of dreamscapes as an alternative to existing approaches used to decode urban morphologies and systematic displacements, and to dislocate what is known as the spatial realm, to explore the possibility of creating more liveable future spaces.

https://miro.com/welcomeonboard/SU1Sc0NDTzF4YXJybVJjQ0tDclFqWkdXYVJvMnQ5N1BENW9saVg0bzU0WkR6eDl1YzN0Mk5palV0U3laVGlaS3wzNDU4NzY0NTYzOTAwMDY5NDIwfDI=?share_link_id=613408348823

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yz4rDK1ycQi1E2N3Jn_8KAXVprdCZ3PU?usp=drive_link

Shani Haberman (b. 1996 Jerusalem) lives and works in London. She graduated from University College London in 2021 with an MSc Urban Studies and previously studied Culture, Criticism and Curation at Central Saint Martins. She currently works for Ark Resettlement Services, an organisation that provides supported housing for ex-offenders. She oversees housing projects and the organisation's programmes to help prison leavers reintegrate into society. As part and beyond this role, she is investigating alternative approaches to the problem of being unable to compete with the open (housing) market. Previously, she curated and participated in several cultural activities, including an archival exhibition at Pushkin House, London, where she is in the process of preparing an Eastern European film programme addressing displacement and housing issues.

Károly Tendl (b. 1989, Budapest) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2019 with an MA in Contemporary Art Practice: Critical Practice, and previously studied Contemporary Media Practice at the University of Westminster. He works with text, the emergence and dislocation of culture and identity, sound, new and old ideologies, dark nostalgia, speculative prose and installation. Károly fictions around the ideas of the urban and rural, planetary periphery and centre, and often around some of the shared sensibilities under oppressive regimes among the European non-homogenous working classes, the uncomfortable weight of class mobility and the dull sword of cultural capital.

At a certain point, we will dream about housing

pre:fab platform facilitates this Pecha Kucha session, inviting anyone who's interested to show up with their 20 slides and share what they're up to. Please email us at 

 if you would like to present. Viewing only participants welcome too!

Show us your Practice! An open Pecha Kucha

Join us in a miro board to collate collectives, people, readings, definitions and ideas that could be a part of the ABC Hub. [Re]search collaboratively in a convivial environment the who/what/where/why/how of liberatory practice and alternative 'sites' for architecture.

Low-key check-in group for independent architectural workers

Chill meet-up intended for architectural workers who are doing their own projects of any kind, whether loosely or not at all connected to companies 

 organizations. Ideally the first of a regular series of informal meet-ups that extend beyond the conference to give independent workers the chance to discuss the content and process of their work, to receive support and encouragement, to ask questions of each other, and to share resources (read: funding opportunities).

Marisa Cortright is an architectural worker based in Zagreb. She is currently a Guest Researcher at ArkDes in Stockholm and the Guest Editor of the Avery Review at Columbia University GSAPP. In 2021, she published a book of essays, “‘Can This Be? Surely This Cannot Be?’ Architectural Workers Organizing in Europe" with the VI PER Gallery in Prague.

We good?

Exploration of Architectures of Emergency, analyzing post Turkey-Syria earthquake processes, with emphasis on the Hatay Region. 

This session critically examines emergency architectures designed in the face of environmental crises and the response of communities following devastating disasters, exemplified by Hatay's response to the Turkey-Syria earthquakes. During the first part, we will delve into the declaration of emergencies outlined in precise protocols, shaped by global networks of experts striving to balance economic development and environmental concerns. Our discussion aims to reframe the concept of emergency by shifting focus from abstract norms to the lived experiences of disruptive events. In this context, in the second part, we will focus on Hatay province after the Turkey-Syria earthquake on 6 February 2023. Although Hatay was one of the cities most severely affected by the earthquake, it is worth examining the efforts of its citizens to reclaim the city and rebuild a future through the initiatives and platforms they established. On the other hand, the ‘reconstruction’ works and architectural/planning activities in the area need a critical lens on the ethical and social roles of architects. We will explore this tension between a normative human security framework, post-disaster regulations, and the efforts of society’s movements addressing social, environmental, and economic inequalities. Together, we'll approach spatially the concept of 'sentinel modes of care,' which embraces an affective connection to the environment and the potential for catastrophe. By doing so, we aim to rethink emergency protocols and discuss alternative approaches to managing crises, and we will seek answers to questions about different architectural potentials to the capitalist production mechanism that sees disasters as an opportunity for financial gain.

Estefania Mompean Botias is an architect and urban planner who is currently pursuing her PhD at ALICE laboratory at EPFL (2021-2025). Her research explores the emergency conditions, studies their ambivalences, and examines the new connotations of the regulation that the Emergency States are acquiring identifing how architecture and urban studies respond to these situations.

Nihal Evirgen has been a Member of the Executive Board at the Chamber of Architects Ankara Branch since 2018. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Department of Architecture at the Middle East Technical University (METU). Her articles have been published in various journals, and she is currently pursuing a PhD at METU. "Architecture and ideology," "urban politics," "critical theory," and "labor and class relations in architecture" are her fields of interest. She represents the Chamber of Architects of Turkey (CAT) as a congress delegate of the International Union of Architects (UIA).

Architectures of Emergency. Responses on the Hatay province after the Türkiye-Syria earthquake

This multi-voice dialogue explores the dynamic relationship among architecture, growth, and capital through an open-access interview and dialogue among participants.

A schizophrenic, ceaseless mode of production characterizes the current condition of architecture, from architects' increasingly long working hours to the approach tendentially adopted in design studios. As architectural production has started to imitate or explicitly serve growing capitalist purposes, both architecture and the planet have begun to degenerate. Inspired by degrowth scholars who emphasize reshaping imaginaries for post-capitalist societies, this session comprises an interactive dialogue aimed at engaging architecture with degrowth's distinctive viewpoints.

Degrowth scholars stress the urgency of dismantling both the symbolic and material aspects of growth-dependent capitalist societies. Architecture, inherently socio-cultural and closely linked to capital, is a fitting topic for this debate—one that can and must draw upon diverse interdisciplinary voices to rejuvenate itself.

This open-access, multi-voice dialogue delves into the interplay between architecture, growth, and capital, raising questions such as: how does architecture, in 

, perpetuate mechanisms inherent to growth-centered capitalism? Is our architectural production oriented toward the well-being of both humans and non-humans, as well as coexistence among different species? Does architectural production currently support human rights? Is it a valuable tool for preparing young architects for an increasingly precarious, uncertain professional world? How can we expose, self-criticize, and counter growth-centered mechanisms in architecture? What actors enable, support, or hinder the propagation of identified growth practices? Lastly, how can architects assume more influential, critical, and authoritative roles in addressing and combating these issues at a political level?

This event will be facilitated by Rebecca Carrai, Renzo Dagnino and Daniele Vico. 

https://miro.com/welcomeonboard/eXRMUDR0bXR3UkRvT01obVpPNzNTR3hvTGNQdUR3RDB3TkRvYnlTWXBIT09pS09pRVZwZXJXN2t4MFRtQ0Rmd3wzNDU4NzY0NTY0MjA2NjMwMTA0fDI=?share_link_id=574384723623

Rebecca Carrai: PhD researcher (Faculty of Architecture, KU Leuven Belgium) 

Daniele Vico: Degrowth PhD researcher (Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Barcelona)

Renzo Dagnino: PhD researcher (Faculty of Architecture, National University of Córdoba UNC-FAUD)

A Dialogue (Beyond Architecture) on Growth-Centered Capitalism

Inspiring Young Minds to Embrace the "Small": Exploring Their Immediate Environment

Teaching has presented an intriguing dimension of my career, allowing me to engage with students on a conceptual level, something that can be challenging to achieve in a professional context. This presentation revolves around my future aspirations, seen through the perspective of these young minds. We delve into their aspirations for the future and how they can translate these aspirations into design concepts. They explore the present, its underlying factors, and contemplate how their personal lifestyle changes can breathe new life into the immediate environment they inhabit. In the words of Achille Mbembe, the students are encouraged to incorporate every element, including human creations, into their design projects. These projects take the form of architectural studio assignments.

Throughout the course, we engage in discussions about how architecture is an essential societal need. We critically assess its disconnection from people and places and seek ways to address new societal needs. Our goal is to reestablish these connections, with a particular focus on addressing the challenges posed by climate change. The term "Retrofit" is deliberately chosen, as it neither signifies a mere renovation nor a simple repair. The studio acknowledges the environmental state of disrepair and uses this as a foundation to create something new, grounded in empathy. Architecture becomes a conduit for embracing ecology and making a positive impact.

 It would be helpful if the participants could document through sketches the environmental information of their immediate surroundings including the home. They could read The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh, The Dasgupta Review, Dipesh Chakravarthy on Climate change, and Achille Mebembe on Colonialism and the future for everyone and everything

I have been working as an architect in Bangalore, India, since 1991 under the banner of Biome Environmental Solutions (

). Our primary goal is to create environmentally conscious designs that seamlessly blend into the existing urban landscape. We achieve this by minimizing material usage, promoting water positivity, adapting to climate conditions, and fostering biodiversity.

Biome is a dynamic team comprising approximately 50 individuals who collaborate on projects in both the fields of architecture and water management, either collectively or independently. Our most recent endeavour is the publication of our book, Biome Diaries. This publication features contributions from various professionals involved in the construction industry, as well as insights from fellow architects and educators.

Environmental Retrofit: An Academic Journey

​We will allow the space and time to talk about the ABC Hub and to support interested contributors in uploading content or adding definitions.

Join the fight to take down the carpet plastocracy!

The significant innovations to reduce emission developed by scientists and technicians at Milliken and other companies, which if expropriated and placed under rational democratic control, could be an essential component of future industry.  While the political will to achieve this shows, at present, little sign of coalescing, such a movement will hopefully build strength. In the meantime . . . ,

Martin Weiner is an architectural worker with nearly 30 years’ experience, primarily in the commercial interiors sector. His current interests center around climate action and architectural labor. He is a longtime member of The Architecture Lobby and founding member of The Alternative Building Industry Collective. He tweets under the handle @m_hotmessgandhi.

Architecture in the Plasticene - Milliken and the AIA

This session aims to reveal the experiential and knowledge gaps between the design disciplines in the global North and South, and to suggest that “peripheral” practices in Africa, Asia, and South America provide the North a model for a post-capitalist future.

This panel discussion will gather practitioners and scholars from the global South engaged in non-capitalistic – that is to say, non-industrial, localized, and convivial – thought, design, and construction. The session aims to reveal the experiential and knowledge gaps between the design disciplines in the global North and South, and to suggest that “peripheral” practices in Africa, Asia, and South America provide the North a model for a post-capitalist future. 

The organizers will first give a brief introduction to the panel discussion. This will be followed by short video testimonies by a group of invited scholars and practitioners. This format is chosen to allow the guests the time and space to curate their own response to the session’s prompts and the opportunity to situate their work in the lived, concrete context of their specific locales. After the video viewing, the organizers and panel members will discuss the issues with the audience. Video contributors will include: Peter Mabeo and Beullah Serema (designers, Botswana); Marie Rose Ukwizabigiwa (civil engineer, Rwanda); Narayan Acharya (builder, Nepal); Claudia Muciño (architect & educator, Mexico); Nickson Otieno (architect, Kenya); and Norihisa Kawashima (architect, Japan). 

We will start with materials, and expand the conversation to the economic and cultural forces manifested in them. Materials as ubiquitous economic and aesthetic objects will allow the contributors to highlight the issues most pertinent to their activities, including ecological resilience, cost accessibility, and aesthetics. 

This discussion will be facilitated by Yutaka Sho of GA Collaborative and Tyler Survant of Building Bureau.

Director, Tecnológico de Monterrey Academic Architecture Program, Campus Puebla

Claudia is an architect and Director of the Academic Architecture Program at Mexico’s Tec de Monterrey Puebla campus. Prior to her directorship, she worked at the Urban Development Office of Celaya and taught energy efficiency and bioclimatic architecture courses at the Tecnológico de Monterrey campus Qro. Claudia has a Masters in Advanced Sustainable Design from the University of Edinburgh, specializing in Latin American Cities and Sustainable Development. She holds certifications in permaculture and sustainable cities and is a Fellow of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Local Pathways program.

Narayan is a Kathmandu-based rammed earth builder and Director of the green construction company Sustainable Future Nepal. In order to minimize the carbon footprint of Nepal’s construction industry, increase energy efficiency, and enhance indoor comfort, Sustainable Future developed a reinforced and stabilized rammed earth construction technique using locally sourced and affordable materials. This solution enables societies to build comfortable, earthquake-resistant buildings while reducing carbon emissions. Rammed earth construction also provides thermal mass which passively modulates indoor temperatures without the need for mechanical heating and cooling.

Nickson is an Eisenhower Fellow, registered architect, and sustainability expert committed to enabling the transition to a climate-smart, circular and green economy through design, research, training and technology. His company, Niko Green, specializes in Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), green building, climate change, circular economy, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), renewable energy and energy efficiency. Nickson previously served as co-founder and Environmental Design Director at Trine Architects Ltd; the Director, Green Africa Standards and Certification at the Green Africa Foundation; the President of the Executive Boards of World Student Community for Sustainable Development (WSCSD); and the Young Engineers Foundation for Sustainable Empowerment.

Architect, Principal & Founder, Nori Architects, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Meiji University

Norihisa Kawashima, principal of Nori Architects, is committed to designing and practicing architecture with nature. Nature here refers to the climate, including sunlight and natural winds, materials such as soil and wood, the earth, plants, insects, birds, animals, microorganisms, and all other forms of life. Kawashima believes that we live on the earth and in relation to various things. We pursue environmental design that allows us to reevaluate our values and behavior without losing this sense, even in densely populated cities such as Tokyo.

Kawashima graduated from the University of Tokyo and completed his master’s degree at the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo in 2016. After working at Nikken Sekkei, Kawashima is currently an associate professor at Meiji University and the director of Nori Architects, founded in 2017.

Peter Mabeo is a globally-recognized designer and furniture maker based in Botswana, whose Mabeo Brand has been collaborating with local artisans and international designers since 2006. The studio has collaborated with designers such as Patricia Urquiola, Patty Johnson, Claesson Koivisto Rune, Garth Roberts, and Luca Nichetto on sustainable furniture and interior design projects that celebrate African craft heritage and support local craft economies. Peter regularly participates in a variety of international design fairs and exhibitions, including Milan Design Week, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, and the London Design Festival. Peter founded Mabeo Studio as an offshoot collaborative design office with an interest in Botswana’s materials, traditions, and techniques. 

Ukwizabigira Marie Rose is a designer and a project manager at GAC-Rwanda. She has been part of several projects at GAC including Masoro Learning and Sport Center. She contributes to design, preparation of bills of quantity, and construction administration. 

Marie Rose was born and raised in Bugesera district, eastern province of Rwanda. She attended Kagasa Primary School not far from her home in Mwogo sector, Lycee de Kigali, and GS Kabare for secondary school. In 2013 she received a scholarship to study in China, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Beijing University of Technology in 2018. She received a master’s degree in Bridge and Tunnels engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2021. 

Marie Rose describes working in a male-dominated industry as both interesting and challenging. Her focus is in team-oriented design, communication, and general project management. She believes in a collaborative working arrangement in which male and female work together as partners for both professional development and improving participation of women in the engineering field.

Unmaking Capital: Alternative Practices in the Global South

Low-key check-in group for independent architectural workers 

pre:fab platform runs a version of Marisa Cortright's workshop of the same name, in a different timezone.

​Chill meet-up intended for architectural workers who are doing their own projects of any kind, whether loosely or not at all connected to companies 

organizations. A space to give independent workers the chance to discuss the content and process of their work, to receive support and encouragement, to ask questions of each other, and to share resources.

pre:fab is a platform for collective reimagining, resource and knowledge sharing, and experimentation in Architecture in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

​Marisa Cortright is an architectural worker based in Zagreb. She is currently a Guest Researcher at ArkDes in Stockholm and the Guest Editor of the Avery Review at Columbia University GSAPP. In 2021, she published a book of essays, “‘Can This Be? Surely This Cannot Be?’ Architectural Workers Organizing in Europe" with the VI PER Gallery in Prague.

We Good? With pre:fab platform

Have fun, Be in community, Build something together

The Opening sessions for the ABC School will cover administration and logistics, introduce the team, schedule and contributors and talk a little bit about what was behind this year's school. We will also launch the 

 - inviting participants to set up profiles and contribute to this growing community resource. 

 - so we hope these sessions will start imagining how we might belong to people and place, ways to gather, and how to have fun while organizing for meaningful change. The opening plenary will be active and participatory and open up a space to meet others and share thoughts, ideas and resources. 

We are hosting two opening events this year to capture a multitude of timezones. You are more than welcome to attend both to meet more people, however the content will be largely the same. 

ABC event series, where the pressure is low, the people are friendly, and the space is made for low-key gathering and idea sharing. 

ABC School Opening Plenary 2 - Have fun, Be in community, Build something together

ABC School Opening Plenary 1 - Have fun, Be in community, Build something together

The Michigan Chapter of The Architecture Lobby invites all area participants and members to join us for an in-person happy hour in Ann Arbor, Michigan following the conclusion of the 2022 ABC School. Come by Bill's Beer Garden anytime between 6:30-8:30pm EST to meet your local members, celebrate the work of the ABC School, and plan for future events together.

This event will be in-person only, located at Bill's Beer Garden, 218 S Ashley St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

ABC School Happy Hour: Ann Arbor, Michigan

​Organizers of The Architecture Lobby's Academia Working Group invite you to join us for the Closing Plenary of the 2022 Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC) School. We will provide an overview of the week, discuss outputs of the workshops, and collaboratively strategize our next steps.

Please note: This event may be recorded. The recording may be made public after the close of ABC 2022 and some of the imagery and content from this session may be used for academic publications, resources and other digital or print purposes. By attending this session you are consenting to being recorded. Please get in touch with an organizer if you would like to discuss this, or would like to attend but maintain your anonymity.

Closing Plenary

Our workshop is an act of engaging the self (no, not that Self) where you must design, draw, detail your utopian biography. Our work will explore individual ambitions as we attempt to author our professional lives and explore methods of alternative practice that have existed in the past and today. Prior to meeting, we ask that you complete your biography according to the guiding questions set forth in our workshop assignment plan. Additional, optional readings can also be found in the library.

Design, draw, detail your utopian biography - the you of 2030, unrestricted by realities. If you choose to represent your utopian biography through image, please provide accompanying text. We suggest a word limit between 250-750 words, even fewer if you’re supplementing with image(s). Let your creative juices flow, pick your medium of choice, and have fun!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J1RE-bj8qkLN12E0T4DuGd5oj4DO1yrx

Additional Resources (Readings/Practices/Peoples): 

This event will be facilitated by Alexandra Oetzel.

Together We Dream

This workshop will introduce a survey of methods around embodied design pedagogies on situating sites as a location, as a classroom, a political and lived knowledge through fieldwork, oral storytelling, and making. We will look at guerrilla tactics of telling and maintaining stories through oral traditions, comics, picture books, and artifacts. Attendees will learn and understand how design ways of inquiry, imaginaries, and creative acts come to embody oppressive ideologies.

This event will be facilitated by Tommy Yang.

Please note: This event may be recorded for internal purposes. The recording will not be made public but some of the imagery and content from this session may be used for academic publications, resources and other digital or print purposes. By attending this session you are consenting to being recorded. Please get in touch with an organizer if you would like to discuss this, or would like to maintain your anonymity.

Seeing, Hearing, Eating, Drawing, and All of the Above

Participants will be asked to consider in groups a community they feel is is on the verge of of collapsing or is vulnerable to any kind of climatic, environmental, political, social or technological threats or dissonance. They will then strategise and propose through graphs, patterns, maps and drawings their response as professionals through who, what, where, and how analyses.

Capacities to coordinate diversity, to incorporate various patterns, to make instant decisions in the multiplicity, to makeshift in the real time, might reveal propositions for an alternative approach to the practicing and educating of future architects.

This event has a participation cap. Registration is required. 

This event will be facilitated by Sadia Mounata.

Please note: This event will not be recorded, however some of the imagery and content from this session may be used for academic publications, resources and other digital or print purposes. Please get in touch with an organizer if you would like to discuss this, or would like to attend but maintain your anonymity.

Community After Collapse

The workshop "Decenter - Deconstruct - Design(?)" is divided into three parts each exploring and addressing disciplinary, ideological and spatial questions through the engagement of participants in mapping architectural curricula, collective critical thinking and design-driven strategizing, and aims to assess alternative modes of architectural education and production beyond conventional capitalist constructs.

https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOo3Znow=/?share_link_id=657572608254#

Requirements: Engagement with excerpts from the following texts is recommended:

Fitz, Angelika. 2019. Critical Care. MIT Press.

Frichot, Hélène. 2019. Dirty Theory. Baunach: Spurbuchverlag.

Lovell, Sophie. 2020. Agency. DPR-Barcelona.

Lydon, Mike. 2015. Tactical Urbanism. Island Press.

Storm, A. 2014. Post-Industrial Landscape Scars. Springer.

Troiani, Igea. 2020. Visual Research Methods in Architecture. Intellect Books.

Please see the library for readings and resources for this event as they are made available.

This event will be facilitated by Rebecca Carrai, Renzo Dagnino and Monica Tusinean.