A creative director reflects on the power of story and public engagement to influence design when creating spaces and experiences that connect people in a designed environment. Explore the power of story, public engagement and site-responsive design work featuring the exhibited project “Do Something GOOD for your Neighbor” in the Como community in Fort Worth, TX and more.
Columbus and Milwaukee are illustrating how innovative transit solutions can strengthen regional connectivity, expand access to opportunity, and serve as models for communities nationwide. Since 1992, MobiliSE has championed innovative ways to connect Southeast Wisconsin through a range of transportation alternatives. In Columbus, Ohio, the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) is reshaping regional mobility with initiatives like bus rapid transit expansion, first/last mile connections, and partnerships with community organizations.
Fed up with permanent housing crisis and real estate greed? Join the co-founder of the LA Tenants Union and co-author of Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis for an in-depth discussion of the housing question and the resurgent tenant movement. Why do landlords claim the majority of our wages while they work only four hours a month? What if the housing crisis was a crisis of exploitation and domination? How can we turn the shared misery of paying rent into shared power to win the housing we deserve?
Palmyra Geraki will discuss recent work through both her academic and professional practice.
Creating vibrant and engaging communities helps communities recruit and retain residents, supports public gathering places in the heart of our communities, and fosters community connections. Learn about the WEDC Vibrant Communities grant and how projects create accessible locations for programming and amenities desired by local residents, with the additional benefit of boosting foot traffic for nearby businesses.
This event will include three parts: a contextualizing introduction to Nora Wendl’s book “Almost Nothing: Reclaiming Edith Farnsworth” (University of Illinois Press, 2025) by Professor Adrienne Economos-Miller; an illustrated reading of excerpts of this book by Wendl; and a conversation between Professors Wendl, Economos-Miller, and Sam Schuermann on the themes and topics of the book. Almost Nothing is a critical history of the Edith Farnsworth House (Mies van der Rohe, Plano, Illinois, 1951) written in the form of an auto-theoretical memoir. As such, it engages in topics and questions related to architectural historiography, feminism, preservation, memory, and authorship.
Commoning is the act of sharing and managing resources—cultural and natural—with minimal reliance on the market or state, and where each stakeholder has an equal interest. User-managed governance of the environments we inhabit—from land ownership, to buildings, to domestic spaces—enables residents to be key agents in how resources are distributed, valued, and maintained. This lecture will focus on a series of design experiments by THE OPEN WORKSHOP that explore a range of commons—both in type and scale—that use architecture to catalyze and frame the mechanisms for commoning.
The 2025-26 Urban Edge Symposium On Housing asks how we might re-consider the single-family typology for our contemporary housing needs and domestic desires. Participants are asked to respond to the image, aesthetics, values, materials, constituencies, legalities, and/or histories of the single-family lot and home in the American context to critically examine how we live today.
The SARUP Graduate Info Session is a wonderful opportunity to learn about the possibilities and potential of a graduate degree with us, tour our facilities and student studio spaces firsthand, as well as meet with faculty, staff, and current students.
Learn how food markets and food hubs provide economic and overall health benefits. Hear how managers are integrating activities to boost personal health while attracting customers. National research will illustrate the continuum of markets that exist, and how the food system is evolving with new/hybrid forms that do not always fit into simple zoning and planning categories. Examples of how to integrate and support markets in municipal zoning and planning can make integration in your community easier and more accepted.
Explore career opportunities within the architecture and urban planning disciplines at our annual Career & Networking event. Engage with professionals from multiple firms from the Midwest and beyond to discuss internship possibilities and postgraduate positions.