Alan Organschi | GOA Architecture | New Haven, CT | Alan Organschi is partner and principal at GOA, an architectural practice in New Haven, Connecticut recognized internationally for its integration of building design, construction, and environmental research. In 2021, Alan was appointed Director of Global Labs at the Bauhaus Earth in Berlin, Germany, an interdisciplinary initiative in regenerative building research and experimentation. He is a Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture where he teaches architectural design and building science and directs the Yale Building Lab. He has written and lectured extensively on the carbon storage benefits of biogenic material substitution and circular economic strategies in urban building. He is a co-author of CARBON: A Field Manual for Building Designers (Wiley 2022) and “Buildings As a Global Carbon Sink” published in Nature Sustainability in 2020. Alan was honored in 2012 for his design practice with an Architecture Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Armida Fernández | Estudio ALA | Guadalajara, MX | Armida is a Mexican architect and designer, co-founder of estudio ALA (est. 2012) with Luis Enrique Flores, based in Guadalajara. She holds a Master in Design Studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a concentration in Risk and Resilience, and a background in Industrial Design from Tecnológico de Monterrey, with studies at Linköping University in Sweden. She has taught at Tecnológico de Monterrey and Wentworth Institute of Technology. Often designing for industrial and agricultural contexts, the firm, in its own words, seeks to “honor culture and tradition while still questioning the significance of programs, methodologies, and materialities.” Through built work and research, estudio ALA explores migrant spaces and pathways, emerging dwelling typologies, environmental sustainability, and reuse and reprogramming. Their work has been featured in the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018, 2021), nominated for the MCHAP.emerge Prize (2016, 2022), and recognized with the Jalisco Architecture Prize (2023) and Obra Award (2024) at the BIAU. In 2024, Fernández and Flores were named Emerging Voices by the Architectural League of New York. She has lectured at Harvard GSD, MIT, IIT, CCA San Francisco, Chiao Tung University (Taiwan), Veritas University (Costa Rica), and others.

Nader Tehrani | NADAAA | Boston, MA | For his “contributions to architecture as an art”, Nader Tehrani is the recipient of The American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize, the highest form of recognition of artistic merit in the United States. With nineteen Progressive Architecture Awards, he is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Design, and recipient of the Design Visionary Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Tehrani is the Founding Principal of NADAAA, an interdisciplinary practice with works in infrastructure, urbanism, architecture, and installations. The former Head of the Department of Architecture at MIT (2010-14), Tehrani was also Dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union (2015-22). His work is featured in the permanent collections of the CCA and Nasher Museum, and NADAAA has been widely exhibited at MOMA, LA MOCA and the Venice Biennale.

Moderator: Lauren Gallow | Independent Design Journalist, Editorial Advisor for ARCADE | Seattle, WA Lauren Gallow is a Seattle-based design journalist, editor, and educator. With a background in architectural history and a keen interest in how people live with design, she covers stories about art, design, and architecture for outlets around the world. A regular contributor to the Art & Design section of The New York Times, Lauren is also a columnist for Dwell and Luxe Magazine and has bylines in Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Metropolis, Wallpaper*, The Architect’s Newspaper, and more. She has won numerous awards for her writing, including first place in the Best of the West Journalism Contest. Lauren serves as Editorial Advisor for ARCADE, a local non-profit design platform founded in 1981, and she is a lecturer at the University of Washington’s Department of Architecture, where she teaches courses on writing and storytelling in the built environment. Currently, she is working on a book on contemporary Seattle homes which will be released Fall 2026.