Thanks for the online event, “Designing Practice: A Virtual Roundtable Considering the Contemporary State of Design” by MIT Architecture Alumni on January 26, 2026. As an audience, my question was “what would you like to say and/or suggest for using AI in today’s architectural design practice to reduce climate change impacts for underserved, underrepresented communities in architecture?”. As Professor Choma responded to my question from the perspective on several arguments on AI in architecture, the presence of architects and multidisciplinary collaboration of his/her design practice are still important, and AI can serve as a tool in this process.
This online event introduction:
“How do we design? Design as a mode of work and
inquiry is becoming increasingly prevalent today. For those trained as
architects, planners and designers, it means not only the act of designing
itself but the process of designing and defining a practice. From re-thinking
how students of architecture engage with ever-evolving technology and expanding
perspectives in architectural history, to building firms whose mission is to
strengthen communities through support and collaboration in which the design
becomes a form of communal expression. Architects and planners today invent not
only form and space but also modes of work.
How do we design? Join six alumni from MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning Departments as they reflect on how they design and what design means to them. Through their work, they will share how they respond to priorities and challenges of shaping the built environment.
Over the past two years, MIT Architecture Alumni, through our State of Design programs, have sought an answer to the broad question of how we design through three simple prompts:
- How do designers best
respond to the challenges posed by climate change?
- How can we best
design advances in social equity and broaden inclusion through practice
today?
- How can we leverage AI to effect positive change within the practice of architecture?
Our six participants will seek to address each of these questions. We invite you to join us and our panelists for a discussion on the State of Design.”
Participants:
•Marie Law Adams MA '06, Co-Founder of Landing Studio, Boston; Associate
Professor of Architecture, Northeastern University
•Robert Benson MA '96, Partner, RACER Design Studio, Chicago
•Joseph Choma SM '11, Director of the School of Architecture, the Foldable
Structures & Materials Lab and Professor of Architecture at Florida
Atlantic University; Founder and Director, Design Topology Lab
•John Michael Desmond PhD '96, Professor of Architecture at Louisiana State
University
•Ann Lui SM '15, Founding Principal of Future Firm, Chicago
•Gustavo Rodriguez SM ‘02, Founder, GR Design Lab, New York
•Moderators and MIT Architecture Alumni Board
Members
Michael Joyce MAR '91
Andrea Lamberti SB '91
ElDante Winston PhD '22
https://alumcommunity.mit.edu/topics/27354/events/154154,
last accessed on January 26, 2026.