Bartlett CRUNCH seminar series 2025–26

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s flagship seminar series, CRUNCH, returns for the 2025—26 academic year with a thematic focus on “imminence”—what’s just around the corner, what feels too close, or what may already be here.

Against a backdrop of multiple overlapping crises, the series asks how architecture can imagine futures beyond urgency, cultivating practices of care, resilience and repair.

CRUNCH is curated by the school’s Co-Directors of Public Programming, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar and Déborah López Lobato.

Please note: CRUNCH takes place from 6:30–8pm on Mondays at The Bartlett School of Architecture, 22 Gordon Street, London. The events are free and open to all, but registration via Eventbrite is essential.

Geology of Imminent Repair
September 29, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Kathryn Yusoff and Kabage Karanja, curators of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, discuss repair, restitution and renewal in architecture through geology, joined by The Bartlett’s Eva Branscome and Murray Fraser.

Extraplanetary Habitats: An Imminent Frontier?
October 6, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Barbara Imhof, Irene Gallou and Alan Smith explore the architectural challenges of extraplanetary inhabitation, from lunar and cislunar programs to sustainable living on Earth, with responses from The Bartlett’s Marjan Colletti.

Oblique Architectures: The Combinatory Urbanism of Iwona Buczkowska
October 13, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Paris-based architect Iwona Buczkowska reflects on her radical housing projects and oblique spatial designs, in conversation with architect Nichola Barrington-Leach.

Site: Form, Structure and Technique
October 20, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Luis Callejas presents projects that transform layered site readings into tangible forms, mixing digital data and lived experience, with responses from The Bartlett’s Diana Salazar and Tamsin Hanke.

Imminent Energies
October 27, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Julia Barfield, Iain Macdonald and Ele Carpenter debate nuclear futures and architecture’s role in energy transitions amid global crises, chaired by The Bartlett’s Luke Olsen.

The Imminent Practitioner
November 17, 2025, 6:30–8pm
RIBA Stirling Prize winner Níall McLaughlin considers the necessary connection between education, design and building culture in architecture, with responses from Izaskun Chinchilla. Chaired by Prof Amy Kulper, Director of The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Architecture and Environment
December 8, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA reflects on the practice’s distinctive architecture of lightness, space and fluidity, tracing its Japanese and global influence in the wake of receiving the 2025 RIBA Royal Gold Medal.