About the program
The Everything Chicago Symposium is a one-day public event organized by the Chicago Architecture Biennial that brings together architects, designers, students, educators, and community leaders to explore how design can shape a more just and imaginative future for the city. Throughout the day, the program will highlight leading Chicago practices and visionary ideas, sharing work that responds to pressing urban challenges and expands our collective imagination. It will also engage directly with architecture schools and academic leaders to examine how the studio, as a space of experimentation and inquiry, influences the city and helps shape what comes next. Together, these conversations offer meaningful opportunities for the public to learn, reflect, and actively participate in envisioning Chicago’s future.
9:00 AM — Welcome
Coffee, conversation, and opening remarks from Florencia Rodriguez, artistic director of the sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Lisa Key, Executive Director of the Driehaus Museum, and Iker Gil, founder of MAS Context.
9:30 AM — Common Chicago: Public Space
Ideas about transforming shared outdoor environments into spaces for collective life, moderated by journalist and critic Anjulie Rao. Panelists include Chicago practices: Ross Barney Architects, Future Firm, Resolver Studio, Site Design Group, Studio Becker Xu.
10:30 AM — Revitalizing Downtown Roundtable Discussion
Roundtable discussion moderated by Nora Daley, co-chair of the Chicago Architecture Biennial board of directors, on ideas for the future of Chicago’s downtown.
11:30 AM — Common Chicago: Infrastructure
Projects that reimagine systems, networks, and frameworks that shape how cities function. Panelists include: Nowhere Collaborative, Tom Lee Studio, UrbanLab, and Vladimir Radutny Architects, moderated by urban designer and landscape architect Anya Domlesky.
12:30 PM — Lunch
1:30 PM — Common Chicago: Buildings for People
A discussion on designing spaces that center community and care. Participants Norman Kelley, Civic Projects Architecture, Converge Architecture, LBBA Architects, UrbanWorks, and Drumlin, moderated by Associate Curator Chana Haouzi (Architecture for Public Benefit).
2:30 PM — From the Studio to the City Panel Discussion
Academic visions and experiments highlighting the vital role that architecture schools play in shaping the city’s built environment, moderated by Florencia Rodriguez, including Illinois Institute of Technology’s Reed Kroloff, University of Illinois Chicago’s David Brown, School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Tristan d’Estree Sterk and Briah Afzal Chowdhri, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Joseph Altshuler, and University of Chicago’s Andrei Pop.
3:30 PM — Common Chicago: Collective Space
A discussion about spaces that center social connection, storytelling, cultural memory, and collective activation. Participants include: Studio Gang, Wheeler Kearns Architects, Latent, Could Be Design, X, Nilay Mistry, and Chicago Public Art Group, moderated by architectural historian and writer Elizabeth Blasius (Preservation Futures).
5:00 PM — Reception
A celebratory close to a day of ideas and dialogue with a 15-minute film presentation of “Songs About Buildings & Moods” accompanied by a live music performance.
This event is presented in collaboration with the Driehaus Museum.