Taking place in Copenhagen from July 5–6, 2023, the Greenhouse Sessions is a two-day series of conversations about sustainability that coincide with the UIA World Congress of Architects—an international event for architects and designers from around the world to discuss how architecture influences all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The series is hosted by re:arc institute, a Copenhagen-based philanthropy that grants funds to local, grassroots, and community-led architecture practices that address social issues and the origins of the climate crisis.
The conversations will bring together architects, designers, and activists working within the realm of ecological design and spatial practice to "imagine how we might together transform our relationships with the natural environment," according to the Greenhouse Sessions website. The first day features a conversation called "New Modes of Participation" between the director of Colombia-based Organizmo, Ana Maria Gutierrez, and the communications director of Romania's Arhipera, Silvia Niculae, where they will "discuss the importance of bottom-up participatory design interventions to address spatial inequalities and the well-being of our social and ecological fabrics," per the event website. In another discussion, "Understanding Architecture(s)," architect and founder of Heritage Foundation Pakistan Yasmeen Lari (who recently received the RIBA Gold medal) and curator and theorist Elke Krasny will talk about recognizing new forms of spatial practice and, according to an event description, addressing "the interconnectedness of socio-ecological crisis" at a global scale.
Highlights of the second day include a conversation between climate justice activist Mikaela Loach and In Futurum, a Copenhagen-based consulting firm that works with companies on sustainabilty and equity strategies, on critical areas of intersectionality within the climate justice movement. There will also be a roundtable discussion with Kenya-based firm cave_bureau, Amsterdam-based Afaina de Jong, designer Cherry Ann Davis, designer Nina Paim, and Mexico City–based Comunal: Taller de Arquitectura about care and design. According to an event description, "panelists will discuss the craft and pragmatics of caring, and ask: Who holds us accountable to the carework we set out to do in the name of planetary custodianship?”
The sessions will take place at one of the UIA pavilions, the Væksthuset (Greenhouse), a new youth-focused environmental education space "built around the transformation of the 100-year-old propagation greenhouses from the Copenhagen Botanical Gardens," per the event website. The talks are free to attend and open to the public. RSVP and view the full program here.
