UCLA AUD presents: "Transitioning Worlds" conference

Transitioning Worlds is a two-day conference hosted by UCLA AUD, reflecting on the changing global conditions that shape architecture and the evolving pedagogies, practices, and technologies through which AUD continues to engage them.

The conference includes a full day of thematic sessions, gathering panels of designers, instigators, and thought leaders to take up and debate the ground shifting beneath us all (Monday, April 20). On Day Two (Tuesday, April 21), we reconvene with a morning workshop and an afternoon student session, interrogating the insights and proposals from Monday's sessions and forecasting what we imagine next.

Transitioning Worlds celebrates sixty years of architectural experimentation at UCLA AUD, bringing together faculty, alumni and guests to explore how design responds to a world in flux. As climate, technology, governance, and urban life undergo fundamental transformation, the roles of architects and designers have never been more critical. These transitions demand new forms of thinking, designing, and visualizing our world. The symposium examines how architecture engages these shifts through four lenses: experimental practices that push disciplinary boundaries, educational models that inform design research and prepare future designers, building as both intellectual and material pursuit, and Los Angeles as a laboratory for urban futures.

Across lightning presentations and facilitated discussions, the event traces the trajectory of ideas that have defined AUD's intellectual culture while projecting into architecture's next chapter. Transitioning Worlds positions design as an active force in shaping planetary change, celebrating six decades of disciplinary risk while collectively imagining what architecture must become. The symposium is both retrospective and projective, honoring the bold thinking that has defined the department while speculating on what comes next.

All UCLA Architecture and Urban Design public lecture series events are free and open to the public. Please register here on Eventbrite to reserve your seat.

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