Fall 2024–Spring 2025
ACTIONING SUMMITS
The ACTIONING SUMMITS are an unprecedented effort to affirm how architecture, planning, development, and preservation are anticipating desirable and alternative futures. During a period of eight months, these summits will convene activists, architects, artists, designers, developers, ethnographers, historians, planners, policymakers, politicians, thinkers, and community organizers from around the world to address together eight crucial methodological shifts in the way the disciplines of the built environment operate and collaborate with each other.
The summits offered a space and opportunity to situate specialized knowledge within specific histories and contexts. During the ACTIONING SUMMITS, participants discussed concrete methodological shifts elaborated through the tools, practices, protocols, and forms of engagement that have unfolded as part of specific projects or processes they have actively participated in.
ACTIONING SUMMIT 1
How to work collectively now (in cases of community engagement)
With Supawut Boonmahathanakorn (Jai Baan Studio, Community Architects Network), Alejandro Echeverri (URBAM/TEC Monterrey), Allyson Martinez (Brooklyn Level Up), and Chelina Odbert (Kounkuey Design Initiative)
Interventions by Erica Avrami (GSAPP), Joseph Zeal Henry (GSAPP, Sound Advice), and Kaja Kühl (GSAPP, youarethecity).
ACTIONING SUMMIT 2
How to speed up the response to urgent crises (in facing the eviction and housing crisis)
The second ACTIONING SUMMIT gathers experts working across activism, design, housing, politics and urban planning to share responses and approaches to various housing crises. ACTIONING SUMMIT 2 invites Carles Baiges (Lacol), Ada Colau, Renato Cymbalista (FICA), and Barika Williams (ANHD) to Columbia GSAPP, with interventions by Juan Herreros (GSAPP, estudio Herreros), Adam Lubinsky (GSAPP, WXY), Hilary Sample (GSAPP, MOS), and Tom Slater (GSAPP).
ACTIONING SUMMIT 3
How to connect local-AI with local knowledge
One-day summit (9AM-6PM) organized by Laura Kurgan, Director of the Masters of Science in Computational Design Practices Program and co-sponsored by the AI Activation Network and the Data Science Institute at Columbia University.
ACTIONING SUMMIT 4
How to scale up (to make carbon sequestration impactful)
The fourth ACTIONING SUMMIT discusses the methodological approaches to “scaling up” in the context of carbon sequestration, featuring experts in the space David Benjamin (GSAPP, The Living), Timothy Bushman (Carbon Removal Canada), Mehrdad Mahoutian & Yuri Mytko (Carbicrete), Aidin Sadr (Carbon Capture), and Albena Yaneva (GSAPP, Politecnico di Torino)
Interventions by Lola Ben-Alon (GSAPP), Michael Bell (GSAPP, Bell Seong Architecture), Lydia Kallipoliti (GSAPP, ANAcycle), and Philippe Rahm (GSAPP, Philippe Rahm architectes)
ACTIONING SUMMIT 5
How to think through/as more-than-human intelligence
The fifth ACTIONING SUMMIT will tackle the methodological questions surrounding more-than-human intelligence with experts James Bridle, Michael Marder (UPV/EHU), Laura Tripaldi (NYU Shanghai), and Anna Tsing (UC Santa Cruz).
Interventions by Catherine Griffiths (GSAPP, Catherine Griffiths), Marina Otero (GSAPP), Lindy Roy (GSAPP, Roy Projects), Anthony Vanky (GSAPP), Michael Wang (GSAPP).
ACTIONING SUMMIT 6
How to bring science, spirituality, and politics together (acknowledging indigenous knowledge)
ACTIONING SUMMIT 7
How to project disability forward The session is co-curated with Ignacio G. Galán
The seventh ACTIONING SUMMIT, co-curated with Ignacio G. Galán (Barnard), will discuss the expert knowledge and methodological questions required to project disability forward. Speakers will be Edmund Asiedu (DOT), Ignacio G. Galán (Barnard College, Columbia University), David Gissen (Yale), and Aimi Hamraie (Vanderbilt).
With interventions by Virginia Black (GSAPP, f-architecture) and Mario Gooden (GSAPP, Mario Gooden Studio).
ACTIONING SUMMIT 8
How to repair
The eighth and ultimate ACTIONING SUMMIT will discuss the expert knowledge and methodological that surround questions of repair, with several key experts on the topic of repair and reparations: Dr. Ron Daniels (NAARC), Marjetica Potrč, and Paulo Tavares (autonoma, University of Brasília), with an intervention by Mabel Wilson (GSAPP, AAADS).