Although the world is becoming ever more synchronized and connected, we still lack a common narrative about how to put design know-how to work as a dispersed, co-creative agency among designers, policy-makers, and users to the benefit of all terrestrial stakeholders. Moreover, it seems all but impossible to alter our abusive habits of inhabiting the planet, given the overpowering incentives to prolong status-quo forms of building and development. But if the way of framing our world condition is not inevitable, then neither is the outcome of our actions. We need not resign ourselves to the laissez-faire privileging of market forces in constructing the built environment any more than we have to consent to a singular way forward in moderating our environmental footprint. Alternative ways of thinking and making are still possible! The operational imperative of considering new ways of constructing coexistence and postulating different futures of environment-making calls for a novel consciousness, novel habits of the heart, and a novel willingness to cooperate in solidarity with others and with the natural systems of which we are a part in order to survive and thrive as a civilization.
The 2021 Frontiers of Architecture Lecture Series takes up the urgent cause of devising future-viable pathways for design practices in a world long overdue for change. Speakers from around the globe are invited to share their unique perspectives on how design agencies might be re-channeled to better means and ends. For if the preferential ways of thinking about our world habitat have left us unable to respond effectively to blatant problems, then it is time for fresh insight.
