September 5–November 12, 2025
Austin TX 78712-1009
USA
The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture presents Planetary Imaginaries: an expansive series of public engagements for the fall 2025 semester starting on September 5. Invited architects, landscape architects, planners, and historians continue the school’s legacy of intentional rooted practice through critical conversations that respond to the increasingly urgent conditions of each field.
The notion of the planetary encompasses a framework for reconsidering our relationship with the environment. It calls for a radical reimagining of our ethical and ecological responsibilities in the Anthropocene—a world-ecology beyond human-centered boundaries, beyond mapped territories, and beyond the habitual rhythms of our disciplines. Here, the environment is more than a background; it is a dynamic and cultural project—one that demands imagination, urgency, and new modes of engagement. The Planetary Imaginaries event series convenes distinguished speakers whose work interrogates planetary conditions through diverse modes of design and knowledge inquiry, representation, practice, and theorization.
In response to the prompts of this theme, this semester’s public lectures include Toshiki Hirano of Theoretical Hole Design (THD) and the University of Tokyo; Anthony Acciavatti of Somatic Collaborative and Yale University; Marion Weiss & Michael Manfredi of Weiss/Manfredi; Bryan C. Lee of Colloqate Design; Rob Holmes of Auburn University; Nader Tehrani of NADAAA and the Cooper Union; a conversation between Eve Blau of Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Eric Mumford of Washington University in St. Louis; and Faranak Miraftab of The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
On Friday, November 7, the school's Interior Design Program is hosting the 2025 Interior Provocations Symposium in collaboration with Pratt Institute. Entitled “Weather”, the 2025 iteration of this annual event provides a public forum for critical thinking about the design, theory and history of the interior. The symposium keynote speaker is Paris-based architect Philippe Rahm, known globally for his multi-scalar explorations of the built environment in the age of climate change.
At the start of the semester on September 5, the exhibition Anomalies & Order: Grammars of Anonymous Architectures by Patrick Danahy, the schooll's 2023-2025 Emerging Scholar in Design, will be presented in the Mebane Gallery in Goldsmith Hall. An opening talk will be given by Danahy at 5pm.
All events are free and open to the public and will occur in person at 5pm in the Goldsmith Lecture Hall (310 Inner Campus Drive, Room 3.120) unless noted otherwise.
Lectures
Toshiki Hirano, Theoretical Hole Design (THD) and the University of Tokyo
September 29 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Anthony Acciavatti, Somatic Collaborative and Yale University
October 1 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Marion Weiss & Michael Manfredi, Weiss/Manfredi
October 6 at 5pm
Harry Ransom Center Prothro Theater
Bryan C. Lee, Colloqate Design
October 27 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Rob Holmes, Auburn University
October 29 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Nader Tehrani, NADAAA and the Cooper Union
November 5 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Eve Blau, Harvard University Graduate School of Design & Eric Mumford, Washington University in St. Louis
November 10 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Faranak Miraftab, The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
November 12 at 5pm
Goldsmith Lecture Hall
Exhibition
Anomalies & Order: Grammars of Anonymous Architectures by Patrick Danahy
September 5, opening talk at 5pm
Symposium (in partnership with Pratt Institute)
“Interior Provocations: WEATHER”
November 7
Keynote lecture by Philippe Rahm at 5pm
Harry Ransom Center Prothro Theater
