United States

BAIDA, the Black Architects & Interior Designers Association, is a non profit organization of planners, interior designers, architects and students that aims to support diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession of architecture and interior design. One of the only organizations within Toronto connecting Architects and Interior Designers, BAIDA seeks to create opportunities for other minorities through advocacy, mentorship, networking and outreach.

In 2014, social theorist Brian Massumi authored What Animals Teach Us About Politics?, "an extended thought experiment in what an animal politics can be". Seven years later, humanity's belonging to the natural realm has never been so asserted, as human-induced climate change renders the entanglement of causes and consequences even more visible and epidemics expose how intimate are the transactions that continuously take place across different life forms. If the logic of "us" [humans] learning from "them" [animals] needs to be questioned alongside other extractivist legitimisations, it may also be time to widen the reflection on other-than-human politics to understand what other politics and ethics can living and non-living beings shatter, inaugurate and reveal. In this talk, I will explore the possibilities and limits of viral political wisdom and discuss what they disclose of our present and near future.

Sputniko! (Artist/Designer, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Respondent Georgina Voss (London College of Communication)

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The research platform Justicia Espacial is organizing this virtual discussion to address and prioritize urgent and relevant topics concerning spatial justice and gender.

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The cumulative effects of agriculture, industrialization, and urbanization are unequivocally changing our climate and producing globally unprecedented challenges related to food production, building materials, and human and ecosystem health, and exacerbating conditions that promote the spread of pandemic diseases, and these challenges are disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color. This is not new. Our built environments create impacts on all of the above forces, and play a critical role in the creation of, and potential dismantling of, inequitable conditions of living and human and ecosystem health. How do we as designers of buildings and cities contribute to climate change and its deeply-rooted, systemic impacts, and what can we do now to turn our impact positive? How do we recognize, through our planning and building processes, the links between human health in our communities, particularly in communities of color, and the health of the planet and its ecosystems? How do we designing for climate justice, carbon neutrality, and equitable impact of positive change? And how do we reform our pedagogical approaches in our academies to ensure equitable climate considerations “go without saying”?

Videos

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture is pleased to announce its Spring 2021 Lecture Series. With speakers hailing from across the globe, this semester’s lineup represents an exciting range of contemporary voices and international perspectives. Featuring a new, dynamic slate of speakers each semester, the School of Architecture’s lecture series plays an integral role in fulfilling the school’s commitment to fostering lively intellectual curiosity and the open exchange of ideas.  
 
Starting Monday, January 25 and continuing throughout the semester, lecturers representing a broad cross-section of cultural practices—including Pritzker Prize Laureates, video game designers, filmmakers, and beyond—will present talks that push the traditional boundaries of the design disciplines, address some of society’s most pressing challenges, and help us reimagine the relationship between ourselves design and the world around us.

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Videos

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