AIA executive vice president and CEO Robert Ivy and 2018 AIA president Carl Elefante present the 2018 AIA Gold Medal to James Polshek.
Sara Johnson AIA executive vice president and CEO Robert Ivy and 2018 AIA president Carl Elefante present the 2018 AIA Gold Medal to James Polshek.

On the second and final day of keynote sessions at Radio City Music Hall, AIA executive vice president and CEO Robert Ivy, FAIA, declared that the AIA Conference on Architecture 2018 was the largest gathering of architects in United States history, with 26,000 attendees.

The themes of inclusion from day one continued in the speeches in day two. (The second day's keynote session also followed the Voices of Plurality Flash Mob held outside the expo at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center earlier that day.) At the evening's keynote session, Roy Spence, a cofounder and chairman of advertising agency GSD&M, spoke about the Promiseland Project, while Gabriella Gómez-Mont, the founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad, spoke about her work in Mexico City. "Cities should be built not only for the human body but also for the human imagination," Gómez-Mont said. Tod Williams, FAIA, and Billie Tsien, FAIA, spoke about their home city of New York and how it has changed. Additionally, Ivy and 2018 AIA president Carl Elefante, FAIA, presented the 2018 AIA Gold Medal to James Polshek, FAIA.

The headline keynote speaker, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) CEO and partner Sheela Søgaard, spoke about the business side of the firm, which has offices in Copenhagen, Denmark, New York, and London. "We have decided to view business and design as complementary forces," Søgaard said. She also quoted Heath Ledger's character in The Dark Knight: "If you're good at something, never do it for free."