SATURDAY, MAY 11, 12–5 pm CT
CLICK HERE to register to attend the in-person live-stream in Chicago at the Graham Foundation
CLICK HERE to buy tickets to attend in-person in New York at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to buy tickets to attend in-person in New York (SOLD OUT)
CLICK HERE to register to live-stream the event

Join us to watch the live-stream of the The World Around Summit 2024—a convening of global architecture’s “now, near, and next”—in the Graham Foundation’s ballroom. The World Around Summit is a conference featuring luminaries from architecture, design, and beyond presented online and in-person at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. This all-day program curated by Beatrice Galilee, presents a year of architecture and design in a day, introducing the best of contemporary buildings, and exploring cutting-edge and inspiring new projects and initiatives in landscape, technology, and design—all through the lens of social and ecological justice. The 2024 World Around Summit is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation.

An international and interdisciplinary line-up of speakers will present new approaches to landscape and urbanism, material innovation, synthetic spaces, housing, museums, and community. The World Around's format of short, singular presentations are intended to share the exciting and extraordinary ways in which architects are addressing the critical topics of our time. As part of the nonprofit's mission to make its programming accessible to all, the summit will be live-streamed in partnership with Dezeen.

SESSION ONE: AN EXAMINED WORLD
12 PM CT 
Beatrice Galilee — Welcome
Cyra Levenson
Neri & Hu —  RE:
Germane Barnes — Watch the Tone
Nguyễn Hà — Dao Mau Museum and Temple
Ernesto Picco — Lithium Chronicles
Mae-ling Lokko — The World Around with Coconuts
SO–IL — In Depth
Emanuele Coccia — Homes: How to Design for Our Moral Topography

SESSION TWO: A FLUID TERRITORY
2:30 CT 
Jakob Kudsk Steensen — Ephemeral Lake
Niklas Bildstein Zaar — Manticore
Alexis Sablone —  Skatespace: Underexplored Terrain
Sameep Padora — Looking for Context
Ma Yansong & Sandra Jackson Dumont — In Conversation moderated by Asima Jansveld

SESSION THREE: A PLANETARY LANDSCAPE
4 PM CT 
Béatrice Grenier
Yu Kongjian — Turenscape
Joe Christa Giraso — MASS Design Group
Lisa Switkin — Field Operations
Beatrice Galilee — Close

PARTICIPANTS

Germane Barnes, Studio B-arn-S – An architecture practice disrupting the status quo, committed to hands-on, research-driven design in service of social transformation in the USA

Niklas Bildstein Zaar, Sub – A Berlin-based studio with a synthetic approach to design that encompasses emerging technologies, semantic analysis, and behavioral research alongside traditional architectural techniques

Joe Christa Giraso, MASS Design Group – A design group on a mission to promote social and environmental justice, advocating a deeper approach to “sustainability” rooted in place, community, and care on ongoing projects in Rwanda

Emanuele Coccia – A philosopher revealing the dependencies between all life on earth to write an aesthetics for the Anthropocene Era in his new book, The Philosophy of Home

Nguyễn Hà, ARB Vietnam – A landscape architecture studio reading the natural poetry in an orchard site to preserve a space of spirituality at the Dao Mau Museum and Temple on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam

Mae-ling Lokko – An architectural scientist, designer, and educator from Ghana and the Philippines working with agro-waste and renewable bio-based materials

Jing Liu & Florian Idenburg, SO–IL – An architecture practice envisioning new urban housing models in Brooklyn, New York through homes that allow the outdoors to enter into nurture connection

Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art – A curator, author, educator, and public advocate bringing her vision to redefine the role of art museums today to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles

Sameep Padora, Sameep Padora & Associates – A landscape architecture firm based in Mumbai, attending to the landscape’s material histories to shape an architecture at one with its context in South India

Ernesto Picco – An investigative journalist documenting the destructive race to power the green transition in South America’s Lithium Triangle

Alexis Sablone – An Olympic athlete making “skateable” public art across Europe and the USA to invite urban communities to play in their cities

Lisa Switkin, Field Operations – A landscape architect behind some of New York City’s most revered public parks, including the High Line, Domino Park, and Gansevoort Peninsula

Rossana Hu & Lyndon Neri, Neri & Hu – A Shanghai-based architecture studio bringing their characteristic tactile minimalism and attention to massing to the extension of Xi’an’s Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts

Ma Yansong, MAD Architects – An award-winning Chinese practice drawing on nature to design a landmark arts institution, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, into the cultural fabric of Los Angeles

Kongjian Yu, Turenscape – A China-based landscape architecture and urbanism practice, building on tradition to reconnect communities to the earth and steward the environment for future generations

Founded in 2020, The World Around (TWA) is a global nonprofit platform headquartered in New York, with a simple but ambitious mission: to rethink architecture. Taking the most critical issue of our time—the climate crisis—as the lens to view all of their activities, TWA connects with global institutions to craft unique public conversations that look beyond buildings to investigate the often-invisible forces that shape our homes, cities, landscapes, and lives. The World Around Summit 2024 is co-presented with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

To learn more about the 2024 Summit and browse past presentations, click here.

Note: This event will be held in the ballroom on the third floor of the Graham Foundation, which is only accessible by stairs. The first-floor galleries and bookshop are accessible via outdoor lift. Please contact us at 312.787.4071 or info@grahamfoundation.org to make arrangements.