Panellists discuss how play can be a "powerful political gesture" at Venice talk

Promotion: at a talk organised by Therme Art at Venice Art Biennale last month, artists Sonia Boyce and Precious Okoyomon discussed how they use play in their work to bring people closer together.

In partnership with the British Council and the Serpentine, Therme Art's Wellbeing Culture Forum talk: The Impact of Social Practice saw moderators Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and artistic director of Serpentine Galleries, and Monilola Ilupeju, artist and curator at Therme Art, discuss the impact of social practice within communities.

Obrist and Ilupeju were joined by three panellists, British artist and educator Sonia Boyce; artist, poet, and chef Precious Okoyomon; and The Shane Akeroyd associate curator of the British Pavilion, Emma Ridgway.

The talk was part of Therme Art's Wellbeing Culture Forum talk series

Sonia Boyce's installation Feeling Her Way, which is on show at the Biennale until 27 November, was used as a point of departure for the conversation.

Exploring the potential of collaborative play as a route to innovation, Feeling Her Way brings together video works featuring five Black female musicians – Poppy Ajudha, Jacqui Dankworth MBE, Sofia Jernberg, Tanita Tikaram and composer Errollyn Wallen CBE – who were invited by Boyce to improvise, interact and play with their voices.

The video works are showcased among Boyce's signature tessellating wallpapers and 3D geometric structures. The Pavilion's rooms are filled with sounds – sometimes harmonious, sometimes clashing – conveying feelings of freedom, power and vulnerability.

Sonia Boyce received the Golden Lion for best national participation at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The Milk of Dreams. Photo by Andrea Avezzù

"We tend to think of play as an infantile thing and I think that for adults we find it incredibly difficult to play," observed Boyce. "It's almost as if we have anxiety about revealing our true selves in that moment."

"When I'm working with a group of people who don't know each other, in a space where I'm asking them to just see what can happen, to improvise without a script, to find a what to negotiate with each other, I'm also on that journey to the space between the known and the unknown, and that's what play is about – it's about trying to get to a place of innovation."

Artist, chef and poet Precious Okoyomon joined the conversation

Moderator Ilupeju responded, "To me, improvisation is also a way of playing, a way of being ultra-present in your body. I think in the world that we're living in today, that thrives off of desensitisation and living in projections and living in fear, to live presently in the body, to allow yourself to improvise, to improvise with other people, I think is a really powerful political gesture."

Precious Okoyomon, who also puts community as a central ethos in their work, spoke about how the living landscape installations they create not only provide a space for collective mourning and joy but also feed back into the community.

"To me, art isn't just what's in the space. It's how it lives and breathes and entangles with the earth," they reflected. "That soil goes back out to the community, and it's not just art anymore. It literally goes back into the earth and then someone's going to use that in their farm. That energy continues, building and going out, and that's the poetics of relation. For me, it's how it spreads, how it changes and grows."

Feeling Her Way is on show at the Biennale until 27 November

Currently on show at the Biennale, Okoyomon's installation, titled To See the Earth Before the End of the World, is a landscape planted with Kudzu vines and sugar cane. Streams of water flow through the soil and live butterflies flutter around the space interacting with the plants around them.

"I like getting out of the room and into the world, taking us out into a space that makes us a little uncomfortable," Okoyomon said talking about the temporality of their work. "It's the play for me; the freedom of getting malleable and loose and getting to dream in a different way that doesn't feel bound by anything. It's also just so fun."

The talk was the latest in Therme Art's Wellbeing Culture Forum talk series. Therme Art is the creative platform of Therme Group, responsible for outreach to creative communities, "focused on the production of wellbeing at the heart of art and culture".

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Therme Art as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

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The metaverse "will be equal parts fear and wonder" says Liam Young

A panel including Liam Young, Refik Anadol and Space Popular expressed both optimism and trepidation about the rise of the metaverse in a talk hosted by Dezeen in collaboration with NeueHouse during Frieze Los Angeles.

Speaking on a panel organised by Dezeen as part of [NeueHouse Hollywood](http://NeueHouse Hollywood's)'s programming during Frieze Los Angeles, Young explained that the potential for creative expression in digital spaces was matched by the threat posed by privatisation and surveillance.

"There's real opportunity and excitement there, but there's also incredible danger," said Young, a speculative architect and co-founder of think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today and research studio Unknown Fields Division.

Liam Young is a speculative architect

Young expects the metaverse to be a more mundane space than is often depicted in the media, which tends to focus on celebrity projects and luxury brands.

"The metaverse is not necessarily going to be a late capitalist Zuckerbergain fever dream," he explained.

"At the same time, it is neither going to be an escapist utopian fantasy or a flat world without the systemic horrors of the real."

"Metaverse will be equal parts fear and wonder"

"In a way, it'll be both of these things, because no technology has ever really been a solution to anything – it really just exaggerates the conditions that exist," he said.

"So the metaverse will be equal parts fear and wonder."

The talk, titled Building the Metaverse, was hosted on the rooftop terrace of NeueHouse Hollywood, and marks the first in a series of talks in collaboration between Dezeen and the workspace brand.

Hosted by design writer and Dezeen contributor Mimi Zeiger, the talk brought together a group of creatives working at the cutting edge of architecture, art and technology.

Appearing alongside Young were Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, co-founders of architecture practice Space Popular, and digital artist and director Anadol.

Anadol, held a more optimistic view of the metaverse's potential.

[

Read:

Liam Young's Planet City could tackle climate change by housing 10 billion people in a single metropolis

](https://www.dezeen.com/2021/01/06/liam-young-planet-city-climate-change-10-billion-people-metropolis/)

"I've got more hope than fear," he said. "We have web 2.0 problems right now, we are all profiles somewhere on Earth, and we are all predictable. Hardware-software systems know where we go, what we eat, where we read and see and feel. I think that kind of profile in the cloud is most likely the 21st century imagination."

"I think the web 3.0 and eventually the metaverse has the potential to detach the profile culture, and maybe bring anonymity first of all," he explained.

"We choose to instead call it the immersive internet"

Hellberg stated that Space Popular has pushed back against use of the word "metaverse", claiming that many of the innovations associated with the term are already being used.

"The term that we're discussing here today, 'metaverse', we've actually resisted over many years, because it speaks for something new and exciting, something imagined," he said.

"We choose to instead call it the immersive internet. It's actually just a three-dimensional version of the internet. A lot of these things that we are going to experience, they are kind of already there."

During an introductory presentation, Lesmes revealed that Space Popular is working on a project exploring wayfinding in the metaverse.

Space Popular have been designing architectural "portals' that can transport" digital avatars from one virtual space to another, while using design to convey information about the space that they offer access to.

"Moving from one web page to another basically involves clicking on that blue underlined text, those hyperlinks," said Lesmes .

"When you have to switch between one three-dimensional space to another, you're very quickly confronted with the question, how do you create that transition?"

"In our research, we're trying to start to think about what we think is a good portal, what is an inviting portal, what is a portal that is also giving you enough information about the space you are entering," she continued.

"That made us start to think about these portals made of virtual fabric that potentially could give you information about this very complex network".

The still from Renderlands is by Liam Young

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This talk was filmed by Dezeen for NeueHouse as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen's partnership contenthere.

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Watch our live talk with Stefano Boeri about his new book Green Obsession

Dezeen teamed up with Italian architecture studio Stefano Boeri Architetti to host a live talk marking the launch of Stefano Boeri's book exploring the relationship between nature and architecture.

Titled Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests, the book explores the work that Boeri's eponymous architecture practice has been doing for the past 15 years to redefine the relationship between the city and nature.

Moderated by Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs, the talk explored some of the book's central themes, including the role and importance of integrating nature with architecture and urban planning.

The book highlights the importance of architecture and urban planning co-existing with nature instead of replacing it

The book, published by Actar Publishers and supported by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, aims to give voice to an ecological transition within architecture, in which cities are designed to support not only human life but all living species.

"We have an obsession: that of creating buildings for trees, which can also be inhabited by humans and even birds," Boeri said.

"We are also obsessed with designing forest cities, where plants and nature have no less of a presence than humans, and where both create a habitat in which mineral surfaces are reduced to the minimum amount needed for life."

Boeri created an urban planning proposal called Smart Forest City in Cancun, Mexico, which is designed to host up to 130,000 inhabitants

Other topics explored in the book include the role that communication, politics and economics play within the climate crisis. It includes contributions from ethologist and conservationist Jane Goodall and American environmentalist Paul Hawken, among other experts.

Boeri is best known for designing plant-covered buildings to combat air pollution and counter the effects of deforestation while fostering the connection between humans and nature in urban landscapes.

Amongst his most notable architectural projects is Bosco Verticale, which translates to vertical forest, a pair of high-density residential towers covered in trees in Milan.

More recently, Stefano Boeri Architetti completed its first vertical forest in China, comprising two 80-metre residential towers covered in over 400 trees and plants.

Stefano Boeri Architetti's most notable project is the Bosco Verticale residential towers in Milan

The book also includes masterplans of Boeri's The Green River design, an urban reforestation project for Milan's unused railways which proposes 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide could be absorbed while producing 1,800 tonnes of oxygen.

Partnership content

This talk was produced by Dezeen for Stefano Boeri Architetti as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

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Tadao Ando and Open Architecture to take part in The World Around Summit 2022

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando, Chinese studio Open Architecture and Italian design studio Formafantasma are among the speakers at The World Around Summit 2022, a day of talks that Dezeen is live streaming on 5 February.

Throughout the day, experts will share recent architectural projects that explore a range of global issues, including racial and social equity, climate change, ecology and indigenous rights.

Founded by Beatrice Galilee, The World Around is an online non-profit organisation that hosts critical discussions with experts on design, architecture and culture.

This year's summit is co-presented by The World Around, the Guggenheim Museum, and Het Nieuwe Instituut. The in-person event will be held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, from where it will be live streamed.

Other speakers include filmmaker Matthew Heineman, curator Camila Marambio and author Amitav Ghosh.

Read on for the full line-up and register for more information.

Above: a video still from Cambio, 2020. Courtesy of Formafantasma. Top image: Open Architecture will discus its Chapel of Sound project

Session One
12:00am New York time (5:00pm London time)

The summit's first session will focus on educational projects and architectural ideas that "moved the world".

Curator Lesley Lokko will discuss the African Futures Initiative, a postgraduate school of architecture based in Ghana.

Author Amitav Ghosh will discuss his new book called The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, 2021, while artist Himali Singh Soin will speak about her series of works exploring ice.

Curator Camila Marambio will discuss the Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol, a project that aims to develop a community focused on peatland conservation.

Other speakers include designer Eva Pfannes, design collective Top Manta, artist Ursula Biemann and Italian design studio Formafantasma.

Tadao Ando will speak about the restoration of Bourse de Commerce in Paris

Session two
2:15pm New York time (7:15pm London time)

The World Around's second session, presented by Aric Chen, director of the Het Nieuwe Instituut, will explore how "visualising the networks and processes behind materials can generate action and visibility for complex or otherwise invisible issues".

Architect Tadao Ando will speak about the restoration of the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and its conversion into the Pinault collection.

Speaking from Beijing, Open Architecture will talk about the Chapel of Sound, an open-air rock-like concert hall located outside Beijing.

Design collective Design Earth will speak about its book called The Planet After Geoengineering. Other speakers include architect Dominique Petit-Frère, architect Winy Maas and designer Amie Siegel.

Rio Adentro photographed by Sebastián López Brach

Session three
4:30pm New York time (9:30pm London time)

The summit's final session will be presented by Cyra Levenson of the Guggenheim Museum and will focus on how opinions towards monuments and ecological preservation have changed over the past year.

Architect David Chipperfield will talk about the renovation of the Neue Nationalgalerie built by Mies van der Rohe in Berlin.

Designer Miriam Hillawi Abraham will present Abyssinian Cyber Vernaculus, a virtual reality project, and photographer Sebastián López Brach will discuss his photography of Rosario's forest fires.

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman will present The First Wave, a documentary exploring the effect of the pandemic in New York, while architect Chris Hildrey will discuss ProxyAddress, a digital platform created to address homelessness.

Other speakers include Monument Lab and architect Paulo Tavares.

The World Around will also be streaming a series of short films made by designers in Liam Young’s Film & Entertainment MSc Program at Sci-Arc university.

The World Around takes place online on 5 February. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

Partnership content

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Foster + Partners sustainability lead calls for more refurbishments and fewer basements to help fight climate change

Architects should reuse existing buildings where possible to reduce embodied carbon and emissions, according to Christopher Trott, head of sustainability at Foster + Partners.

Other ways of lowering emissions include not building basements, reducing spans, using less materials and making greater use of wood, Trott said.

"The kind of immediate things that we can do are things like reusing existing buildings and perhaps reducing spans in existing structures," Trott said. "You can simply use less material and perhaps avoid basements where they're not necessary."

Top: from left to right, Marcus Fairs of Dezeen, Cassie Sutherland of C40 Cities, Christopher Trott of Foster + Partners and Cécile Brisac of Brisac Gonzalez. Above: Trott said architects should consider the "carbon investment" when designing buildings

Trott was part of a live panel debate on Dezeen discussing the outcome of the COP26 climate conference, which he attended in Glasgow earlier this month.

Making buildings reversible is another way of reducing emissions, he said, although he felt that viable alternatives to steel and concrete are a long way off.

"Timber is a great material for the right types of buildings. It's not going to solve all buildings, it's going to solve certain types of buildings and it's come a long way," he said.

However, Trott added that mineral-based materials such as concrete and steel would still be used "for quite a long time yet", and said that architects should ensure that components are designed for long-term use.

The Tulip was recently rejected by the UK government

"Some of the things that are being built now, provided they can be deconstructed or reused well into the future, that's an investment," he said. "It's not a problem, it's an investment. It's still there to be used in future generations of exactly the same buildings."

Trott's comments came shortly after Foster + Partners had its proposal for the Tulip, a skyscraper tourist attraction in the City of London, rejected by the UK government partly over concerns about the "highly unsustainable concept of using vast quantities of reinforced concrete for the foundations and lift shaft to transport visitors to as high a level as possible to enjoy a view".

It is thought to be the first example of the government referencing embodied carbon in a planning decision letter.

In a conversation with US climate envoy John Kerry at COP26, Foster + Partners founder Norman Foster said "higher standards" on embodied carbon are needed.

[

Read:

Watch a live talk on what we can learn from COP26 as part of Velux's Build for Life conference

](https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/15/cop26-velux-build-for-life-conference-live-talk/)

"I think it's fair to say that the world is still catching up on embodied carbon... it's a journey that I think most [in the building industry] have been on for four or five years, they haven't been on for much longer than that," said Trott.

He added that changing the manufacturing industry to produce more environmentally friendly construction products is "really difficult and is going to take a while".

As sustainability lead at Foster + Partners, Trott said his job "is to help us make our buildings, our urban scale projects and our products more sustainable. I have a hand in all of the projects one way or another," he said.

Trott was speaking during a talk hosted by Dezeen as part of skylight manufacturer Velux's Build for Life online conference.

"Difficult to turn down projects"

On the panel with him was Cécile Brisac, co-founder of London studio Brisac Gonzalez, who said architects' hands "are a little bit tied at some points" when designing for private developers that do not have a strong environmental agenda.

"However much we try to drive change, our power is fairly little actually compared to the clients," she added.

Referring to a quote from prominent environmental lawyer Farhana Yamin that architects "are enablers of business as usual", Brisac said: "Well, it's quite difficult to sort of turn down every single project because it's not meeting all the climate targets. You know, you can only do as much as you can do, and you can try to push things as much as you can."

London-based Cécile Brisac warned that architects' power to reduce the carbon impact of new buildings is "fairly little" compared to developers

Also on the panel, Cassie Sutherland of sustainable urbanism network C40 Cities said that minimising embodied carbon in new buildings should become "the norm and not the exception".

"I think that now is not the time where we can kind of say, alright, we'll let that one go, I won't push back on that one... and it is very difficult when it comes down to a business decision and whether you're going to take that project or you're not," she said.

"Our time is to act now, we must act now, we must be taking strong action. And I think there is an issue... about the lag time between regulation coming in, and then the buildings being built. And I think, again, we're kind of running out of time to deal with that lag anymore."

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Final day of Velux's Build for Life conference features talks about designing sustainable buildings that last

A panel discussion on reinventing existing buildings and a talk focused on designing architecture in tandem with natural environments are among the highlights of the third day of Velux's Build for Life digital conference.

Throughout the three-day Build for Life programme, which runs from 15 to 17 November, architectural experts will discuss climate-related challenges and opportunities.

Dezeen is hosting three talks throughout the conference, which are being live-streamed on Dezeen and moderated by Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.

Velux's other talks will be delivered from the Compass stage and the Daylight Symposium stage in Copenhagen.

Find out about the Dezeen sessions here, see the full Build for Life programme here, register for the full conference here and read on for some highlights from today's programme.

How can environmental systems be conceptualised in harmony with architecture to support sustainable development?
9:00am London time (10:00am Copenhagen time)
Compass stage

The talk will focus on creating eco-friendly buildings that support sustainable development.

Fairs will be joined by Susanne Brorson, founder of Studio Susanne Brorson, Kasper Guldager, architect and co-founder at Home.Earth, and James Drinkwater, head of built environment at Laudes Foundation.

How can we design and transform existing buildings for quality and longevity?
10:00am London time (11:00am Copenhagen time)
Compass stage

Mette Tony, founding partner of Praksis Architects, will discuss how architects can develop existing infrastructure to shape buildings for longevity.

What is the latest research and scientific consensus on health in buildings post-pandemic and beyond?
2:00pm London time (3:00pm Copenhagen time)
Compass stage

Joseph Allen (pictured), associate professor and director of the Healthy Buildings Programme, and John Macomber, senior lecturer at Harvard University, will present the latest research on human health in buildings post-pandemic and into the future.

Contact to the Outdoors
9:00am London time (10:00am Copenhagen time)
Daylight Symposium stage

Mandana Sarey Khanie (pictured), assistant professor at the Technical University of Denmark, will lead a discussion titled Image-based Characterisation of View in Virtual Reality.

Also within this session, Femke Beute, an environmental psychologist at LightGreen Health, will deliver a talk titled The Benefits of Windows.

Daylight in Architecture (America)
3:00pm London time (4:00pm Copenhagen time)
Daylight Symposium stage

Cristián Izquierdo (pictured), partner at Izquierdo Lehmann Architects, will deliver a talk called Central Plans after the Dome.

Following this, José Fernando Gómez, founder of Natura Futura Arquitectura, will present a talk called Invisible City: the Identity of Suburbs.

Velux'sBuild for Life conference takes place online from 15 to 17 November 2021. For details of more architecture and design events, visit Dezeen Events Guide

Dezeen x Velux Build for Life

This article was written by Dezeen for Velux as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

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Watch our live talk on beauty in sustainable architecture as part of Velux's Build for Life conference

The second talk that Dezeen is hosting as part of Velux's Build for Life online conference focuses on the importance of quality and beauty in sustainable architecture and placemaking. Tune in from 8:00am London time to watch it live.

Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs will moderate the talk, which is titled Is the Future Beautiful?

Fairs will be joined by Mary Parsons, commissioner for the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, Lorenzo de Simone, coordinator for the New European Bauhaus' high-level round table, and Dana Behrman, associate director at UNStudio.

The panel discussion will examine the importance of quality and aesthetics in design and placemaking.

Speakers will also discuss sustainable settlements and consider the role of homes as major levers for future change in sustainable architecture practice.

Mary Parsons is a commissioner for the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission

Parsons is currently a commissioner for the UK government's Better Building Beautiful Commission and a member of the University of Cambridge's property board.

Parsons is also a trustee of the Ministry of Building Education and Innovation, commissioner for No Place Left Behind, trustee of Design South-East and chair of the Town and Country Planning Association.

Lorenzo de Simone coordinates New European Bauhaus' high-level roundtable

De Simone has a postgraduate in energy and climate from the University of Antwerp. He is part of the New European Bauhaus team at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and participates in the screening and analysis of public contributions.

He coordinates the activities of the New European Bauhaus' high-level roundtable, a group of advanced thinkers and practitioners in their field who act as community ambassadors for the New European Bauhaus.

Dana Behrman is associate director at UNStudio

Behrman holds degrees from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College at the University of London, the Architectural Association, the School of Architecture in London and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

She specialises in urban spatial analysis and joined the UNStudio in 2014 to lead the Urban Unit. She is also an urban strategist at UNStudio's start-up called UNSense. Her research focuses on the link between technology and the built environment.

Build for Life takes place from 15 to 17 November

Build for Life is a digital conference that will see more than 90 experts worldwide discuss climate-related challenges in the built environment.

Download the programme here and register for the conference here.

Velux'sBuild for Life conference takes place online from 15 to 17 November 2021. For details of more architecture and design events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

Dezeen x Velux Build for Life

This article was written by Dezeen for Velux as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

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Watch a live talk on what we can learn from COP26 as part of Velux's Build for Life conference

The first talk that Dezeen is hosting as part of Velux's Build for Life online conference focuses on what architects and designers can learn from the outcomes of COP26. Tune in from 9:30am London time to watch the live stream.

The talk sees Dezeen's editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs in conversation with Cécile Brisac, founder of Brisac Gonzalez, Christopher Trott, head of sustainability at Foster + Partners, and Cassie Sutherland, programme director at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

The discussion will focus on COP26 in Glasgow, which finishes on 12 November. Fairs, Brisace, Trott and Sutherland will discuss the outcomes of COP26 and what the built environment can take from it in order to reinvent cities.

The talk will also discuss how practices can work to develop community-friendly environments and the challenges that stand in the way of architects and designers in light of COP26's outcomes.

The talk is part of three panel discussions that Dezeen is hosting and live-streaming as part of Build for Life, a free online conference organised by Velux.

Find out about the other Dezeen sessions here, see the full Build for Life programme here and register for the full conference here.

Cécile Brisac is founder of architecture studio Brisac Gonzalez

Brisac graduated from the Architectural Association in London and founded London-based practice Brisac Gonzalez in 1999.

She has won numerous awards, including the ARHIVA Award for Women Architects in France, the AJ 40 under 40 Award in the UK and the NAJA Young Architects Award.

She is also a member of the Southwark Design Review panel and is an examiner at Central Saint Martins in London.

Christopher Trott is head of sustainability at Foster + Partners

Trott has engineering degrees from both the University of Wales and the University of Glasgow.

Trott joined Arup in 1981 and joined Foster + Partners' engineering team in 2011. Now head of sustainability, he guides the practice's social, economic and environmental sustainability strategies.

He also runs a sustainable network at Foster + Partner, which intends to ensure that all staff are knowledgeable of the practice's sustainability principles.

Cassie Sutherland is programme director at C40 Cities

Sutherland has degrees from Edinburgh University and Newcastle University. She is currently the programme director for energy and buildings at C40 Cities.

C40 Cities is an organisation that aims to "drive the world to avoid a climate crisis through the actions and leadership of the mayors of the world's leading cities".

Before joining C40, Sutherland led the London Environment Strategy, guiding the climate adaptation and sustainable development team, and managing London's climate risks and impacts.

Build for Life runs from 15 to 17 November

Build for Life is a digital conference that will see more than 90 experts from around the world discuss climate-related challenges in the built environment.

Dezeen is just hosting and broadcasting a few of the talks that make up the three-day conference programme. Download the programme here and register here to watch the full conference.

Velux'sBuild for Life conference takes place online from 15 to 17 November 2021. For details of more architecture and design events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

Dezeen x Velux Build for Life

This article was written by Dezeen for Velux as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

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Register free to attend the Velux Build for Life conference

Dezeen promotion: registration is now open for the inaugural Build for Life conference, organised by window manufacturer Velux to address climate-related challenges for the construction industry.

Taking place 15 to 17 November 2021, the free, fully digital conference will see 90 speakers from around the world present on sustainable building practices and potential resolutions to climate issues.

Velux developed the concept for the conference with Danish architecture studio EFFEKT, which is currently exhibiting its Ego to Eco installation at the Venice Biennale under the theme of How Will We Live Together.

The Build for Life conference will explore sustainable building techniques and innovations

The three-day series of talks aims to bring together architects, engineers, developers, housebuilders, students, researchers, and other opinion leaders to discuss some of the key challenges and opportunities facing the building industry today, and in the future.

"The key question at the centre of the conference is: How can we create well-being for people and the planet through building design?" said the organisers.

Remote presentations will be delivered from two main event stages: the Compass stage and the Daylight Symposium stage.

Talks and discussions will focus on creating spaces that benefit people and planet

Speakers on the Compass stage will focus on the seven biggest challenges and opportunities in the building industry, including the need for flexibility in design, the shifting role of buildings in our communities, and new demands for healthier and more sustainable living spaces.

A series of keynote presentations on the Compass stage will include Lidia Morawska's talk about the impact of air quality in buildings in a post-pandemic world, as well as Joseph Allen and John Macomber's business case for how indoor spaces can drive performance and wellbeing. ​

The Daylight Symposium, which has explored how daylight can create healthy and resilient buildings since 2005, will bring together 40 leaders in daylight research and practice as part of Build for Life.

As part of the conference, the Daylight Symposium will bring together 40 leaders in daylight research and practice

Interactive dialogues and panel discussions will also feature in the conference line-up.

Build for Life forms part of Velux's wider sustainability strategy, which involves "taking measurable steps toward positive change while focusing on how buildings can help to resolve global challenges with sustainable solutions and practical action".

For more information on the Build for Life conference and to register for free to attend, visit the Velux website.

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Therme Art's Basel talk examines architecture's potential to improve mental health

Dezeen promotion: curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and other industry experts came together to discuss the ways in which architecture and design can be utilised to create restorative spaces that improve mental wellbeing.
The talk, hosted by Therme Art, was titled Art and Architecture as Healing: Shaping a Mental Health Economy and took place during this year's Design Miami/Basel.

It comes as part of Therme Art's Wellbeing Culture Forum, a series of online and offline events examining how urban environments can be more connected with nature and, in turn, improve our health.

Therme Art's CEO, Mikolaj Sekutowicz, paired up with Obrist, who is artistic director of London's Serpentine Galleries, to moderate the panel.

They presided over five other speakers, including designer and meditation professional Franziska Kessler, artist Precious Okoyomon, neuroscientist Olaf Blanke, artist Torkwase Dyson, Lonneke Gordijn, who is co-founder of Studio Drift.

Studio Drift's Shy Synchrony installation was the backdrop to the talk

Gordijn suggested that indoor spaces can become more nurturing by making use of technology that is able to simulate the rhythms of the outdoors.

Studio Drift's recent Shy Synchrony installation, which served as the backdrop to this Therme Art talk, explores similar ideas – it is made up of several textile "shylights" programmed to hypnotically rise and fall in a motion that's reminiscent of blossoming flowers.

The work invited visitors of the Design Miami/Basel to become active participants of their built environment by observing the soothing effect of the artwork on their body signals, using Therme Mind's new MYND technology.

The technology is a collaborative project with digital neurotherapeutics platform MindMaze, and creates digital solutions, which interact with users' mind-body functions to promote mental and physical wellbeing.

"Technology can make something that comes close to feeling natural," said Gordijn. "Maybe that sounds weird because you could just take a walk in a forest – but not everyone can do that."

"Our studio uses technology as a learning tool; we try to figure out at what point you can respond to technology in an emotional way, in a way that brings you to a feeling or emotion that you're looking for because you're not getting it from the current environment," she continued.

Hans Ulrich Obrist moderated the talk alongside Therme Art's CEO, Mikolaj Sekutowicz

Kessler went on to propose that busy, high-pressure spaces like offices should include rooms where staff can regularly come together to practice mindfulness or do calming breathing exercises.

"When we have meetings in hostile environments, the energy in the room tends to exhaust itself," Kessler said. "We often forget the fact that we all came together to create something in the first place."

Okoyomon, meanwhile, spoke on the mentally restorative effect of green spaces and how this has come to influence her own artwork. Earlier this year she created a luscious, foliage-filled garden installation for the rooftop of the Aspen Art Museum.

"There are so few spaces where you're allowed to grant yourself a moment of rest and peace because of the constant ferocity of the world and the way it moves," Okoyomon said. "I'm always trying to think of portal spaces where you can find yourself in the world, but also out of time – for me, a garden is one of those."

Speakers included (from left) Franziska Kessler, Precious Okoyomon and Lonneke Gordijn

Therme Art is the cultural incubator of Therme Group. It works to help creatives across the globe realise their large-scale and long-term art projects.

Another one of the organisation's Art's Wellbeing Culture Forum talks took place last month at the Venice Biennale. It saw Stefano Beori, Joseph Grima and other experts from the architecture and design industry explore how we can reimagine our cities while simultaneously replenishing the natural world.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Therme Art as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

The post Therme Art's Basel talk examines architecture's potential to improve mental health appeared first on Dezeen.

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