Events

The climate emergency is not just an energy or environmental issue. It is a health crisis, a humanitarian crisis, and an economic crisis. We know that energy-efficient buildings could simultaneously assist with reducing carbon emissions, provide a catalyst to boost jobs & training to build back a greener economy and provide healthy, comfortable indoor environments. In looking at how the UK can get to net zero, the National Grid state in their 2020 Future Energy Scenario Report “Energy efficiency is a no-regrets measure in all scenarios”. Passivhaus offers a robust ‘oven-ready’ solution to make both our existing and new buildings highly efficient.

The professional packaging of the design discipline - intent on creating, projecting and transforming - may overlook the pertinence and relevance of being first and foremost curious observers and empathetic listeners, capable of celebrating and recognizing what already exists.

OHC 2020 community partner Hyde Park Art Center co-convenes this roundtable discussion about artist-driven community activations, creative projects and placemaking across Chicago, ahead of its forthcoming 2021 exhibition, “Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden.”

Oscillating between the past and present, original and referent, reconstructions are historiographic representations, yet inevitably also something new. Here, the propositional practice of constructing (and reconstructing) history is intimately linked to how we address challenges of the present. Drawing on diverse practices of reconstruction in fields from architecture and landscape to geology and archaeology, Aisling O’Carroll will share research and speculative design studies from her practice to explore the politics, truth, and affective nature of reconstruction and representation in framing knowledge and ideas of landscape.

October 14, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of Chicago’s first two landmarks: Glessner House and Clarke House. In celebration of this milestone event, we will explore how landmarking came into being and how its use and impact have gone far beyond preservation. Chicago’s diverse Third Ward, in which the two houses are located, will be used as a case study.

Architects love to talk about design, space, and buildings. Within the field, they have a language all their own; the way architects communicate is unique.

IEREK organizes the 2nd international conference on Utopian and Sacred Architecture Studies to be hosted in one of the most spiritual cities, the city of Naples. Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world which makes it a prime example that contains real-life models of sacred architecture, spiritual buildings and sites such as Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, Ravello, etc. To optimize the benefits of going through such an experience, visits to these cities will be designed alongside the conference's main activities.

Design | Thesis | Motivation – is a workshop by Thinking Hand NGO, with an intention to motivate young students from various disciplines and background of Architecture, Landscape and Urban Design. An online workshop conducted through panel members from three disciplines, who shall guide them on their respective verticals of design. Workshop emphasizes on understanding: what is design? What is Thesis? It’s Importance, It’s Process, their interconnection from macro level to micro level with respect to Place, Climate, Context, Time, Space and Activity.

Join Open House Chicago 2020 community partner the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society for this panel discussion moderated by Dio Aldridge, special assistant to the dean and provost on diversity, equity and inclusion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and virtual tour with CAC docent Mike McMains, pastor Robert Marshall and North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society chairwoman Blanche Suggs Killingsworth. Converted to a church in 1971, the Central Park Theater was reportedly the first to offer mechanical air conditioning and also marked the start of a fruitful partnership between architects Rapp and Rapp and the Balaban and Katz cinema empire, which would give rise to numerous landmarks including the Chicago, Oriental (now Nederlander), Riviera and Uptown theaters. Go virtually behind the scenes and learn more about the currently closed 1917 building which, despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, faces an uncertain future.

Open House Chicago 2020 community partner Preservation Chicago co-convenes this roundtable discussion about the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. After decades of disinvestment, what does Roseland need to rebuild its community health and vibrance, and how might historic preservation be leveraged as a means toward such progress? Presenters include Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce founding executive director Andrea D. Reed, Preservation Chicago director of community engagement Mary Lu Seidel, City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development coordinating planner Erika Sellke, Roseland Heights Community Association president and Red Line Extension Coalition member Clevan Tucker, Jr. and historian, musician, photographer and lifelong Chicago resident Paul Petraitis.

From October 13-16, Guiding Architects offers a series of free virtual tours to highlights of modern architecture in Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest and Turin, guided by local members of the network. Join us on visits to pioneering projects of modern architecture and the Bauhaus movement!

The School of Architecture (SoA) is pleased to present its Fall 2020 lecture series, featuring five public events offered virtually. The series opens on September 25 with Jack Travis, FAIA, NOMAC.

The School of Architecture of the Universidad Finis Terrae (Chile) is pleased to announce the Between Van Eycks and Smithsons Symposium: Theoretical Convergences, Practical Divergences. Thresholds, Doorsteps, Transitions, seeking to delve into specific conditions of the architectural works of Aldo and Hannie van Eyck and Alison and Peter Smithson, and to discuss their broad conceptual problems.

Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and IIT College of Architecture would like to invite you to join us in a book launch of Being the Mountain, published by the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture & Actar Publishers

Perkins and Will’s design, Tubes ‘n’ Tunnels was selected as a winning entry to be built as an immersive experience at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s 16-acre Arboretum. The design competition, named “Fortlandia,” seeks to inspire adults and children to explore outdoors with an appreciation of art and nature in a series of temporary installations along the one-mile walking path. To amplify the beauty of the natural environment, Perkins and Will’s Tubes ‘n’ Tunnels installation bridges a connection between nature and the built environment to highlight how humans view the world, framing a series of landscape vistas in a playful interactive installation.

This is the second in a series of panel sessions launching the fourth volume of Bracket, titled Takes Action. Bracket [Takes Action] collects essays and projects that question how actions can be designed, accommodated for, and encouraged through both creative practice and design citizenship.

We spend more time indoors due to COVID-19—limiting social contact to reduce disease transmission. Even before this era of quarantine, 80% or more of our time as a society was spent indoors. This has significant impacts on health and wellbeing. Now more than ever, attention to indoor environmental quality and how it affects people is critical to architectural design and building operation.

Architects are inherent problem solvers and research is baked into their design process. Matter & Opinion: Practice-Based Research is a one-day virtual conference featuring firms and individuals who will share successful business models, discuss barriers to adoption, and help define real value for research within the profession.