October 29–31, 2026
New Haven CT 06511
USA
World Ecologies in Formation: J. Irwin Miller Symposium, October 29–31, 2026. Yale School of Architecture, 190 York Street, New Haven Connecticut 06511.
Engaging contemporary framings of our climate and economic crises, World Ecologies in Formation investigates the social and environmental dialectics that have given rise to both historical and emerging twenty-first-century built cultures, including material ecologies, building technologies, energy regimes, landscapes, waterscapes, atmospheres, labor systems, and data infrastructures. Departing from a dual framing of human and non-human systems as discrete processes, the symposium investigates the complex internalization and externalization of socioecological transformations within contemporary built ecologies as active constituents in shaping each other.
By framing “world-ecology” as a system in formation, the symposium engages how transdisciplinary and cross-cultural socioecological concepts are deconstructing, enriching, and reconstituting the fundamentals of future design. We will commit to an investigation of emerging and novel relational models and how they might alter power dynamics in the shaping of environments. The three-day event, organized by Anna Dyson and Mae-ling Lokko of the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture, brings together an interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, architects, artists, scientists, activists, historians, economists, engineers, philosophers, and scientists to investigate how historical, contemporary, and emerging world ecological paradigms continue to shape existing built ecosystems and material artefacts.
Symposium schedule
Thursday, October 29
9:30am: Biogenic Material Value Chains, Just Labor, and Climate Adaptation: Planetary Heutagogies in the West African Afrotropics, featuring participants Telesilla Bristogianni, Glenn DeRoche, Mamadou Dia, Ernest Dione, Nebyu Haile, Nzinga Mboup, Ibrahim Niang, Faidra Oikonomopoulou, Igazeuma Okoroba, John Oschendorf, Liz Ricketts, and Samuel Siaw.
2pm: Built Ecologies and Information Flows: International Drought Resilience Observatory, featuring participants Anthony Acciavatti, Dana Cupkova, Jefferson Ellinger, Carla Leitao, Peter Osborne, Flávio de Andrade Silva, Anthony Titus, Andrea Toreti, and Daniel Tsegai.
6pm: keynote lecture by conference organizers Anna Dyson and Mae-ling Lokko.
Friday, October 30
9:30am: Introduction and Metabolic Invention and the Synthetic Commons, featuring Ron Eglash, Ariane Harrison, Lydia Kallipoliti, Kiel Moe, and Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen. Moderated by Anna Dyson.
11:45am: Towards New Design Paradigms for Biodiversity, featuring Keller Easterling, Jane Mah Hutton, Fernando La Posse, Paul Lewis, Peter Osborne, and Katie Ulrich. Moderated by Mae-ling Lokko.
2:30pm: Towards New Networks for Reading, Making, and Co-Evolving World Ecologies, featuring Laurens Bekemans, Christian Benimana, Ana María Durán Calisto, and Elihu Rubin. Moderated by Paola Antonelli.
Saturday, October 31
9am: The Listening Room: A Collective Reflection Session, organized by Mae-ling Lokko, Anna Dyson, Hind Wildman, Mustapha Zaouini, and Mouad Nadzi.
Exhibits
Yale CEA’s symposium team has invited early-career researchers, postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and master’s students to submit posters showcasing innovative research that advances critical understanding of socioecological systems, material flows, design paradigms, and world ecologies. Selected posters will be exhibited alongside the symposium’s panels and workshops.
An exhibition of work by the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and their collaborators from multiple AEC partners and universities, including U Penn, NYU, Weill Cornell, NYIT, CUNY, Kenyatta, U Nairobi, U Conn, and RPI will be on display at the Yale CEA lab space during the symposium.
World Ecologies in Formation is supported in part by the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund at the Yale MacMillan Center, the J. Irwin Miller Endowment at the Yale School of Architecture, and the re:arc Institute.
