The architecture and calendar is rarely quiet. There are launches, talks, panel discussions, openings, awards nights and dinners, often several competing for attention in the same week. Yet the events that stay with people are not necessarily the biggest or the most polished.
In the lead-up to , we asked members of the architecture and design community what would make events more engaging, memorable or valuable. Their answers returned repeatedly to the same idea: there needs to be a reason to gather beyond simply being in the same room. Meaningful conversation, unexpected perspectives and a willingness to move beyond polished presentations can give an event a life well beyond the day itself.
For architect , founder of Studio Orsi, smaller events remove some of the pressure to “work the room” and allow conversations to unfold at their own pace. “I think one of the reasons your events stand out is that they’re intentionally small,” she says. “You actually get to have meaningful conversations rather than trying to work the room.”
“Sitting around a shared table naturally brings together people who might never otherwise meet, and I’ve always come away with a few memorable conversations,” says Jahangiri.
She also values gatherings organised around a single strong topic or question. Jahangiri recalls an event centred on a book launch where everyone was invited to offer their own interpretation of its theme. “It was fascinating to hear how differently architects and designers approached the same idea,” she says. “Those conversations tend to stay with me much longer than simply hearing about someone’s latest project.”
A good question can do much of the work. It gives people something specific to respond to and makes room for contrasting positions, personal experience and ideas that have not already been refined into presentation form.
Related:
, Principal at Davenport Campbell, would take that thinking a step further by broadening who gets invited into design conversations in the first place. “I think the best events are the ones where you leave having learned something you didn’t expect to,” he says. “Our industry tends to circle the same handful of topics such as belonging, neurodiversity, . Each one important; however, it is refreshing when someone from completely outside design gets a platform.”
For Johanson, that could mean hearing from “a poet, a scientist, an economist” alongside architects and designers. “Those are the perspectives that actually pull you out of tunnel vision.”
inevitably intersects with , economics, technology, health and public life, so there is value in bringing those perspectives directly into the room. An outside voice can unsettle familiar language or expose assumptions that become harder to recognise when an industry is speaking primarily to itself.
Johanson is equally interested in hearing about the parts of practice that rarely make it onto a stage. Completed projects are generally presented as coherent success stories, even though uncertainty, compromise and work that never proceeded are part of everyday architectural practice.
“What actually stays with me is when someone’s honest about a project that didn’t work, or a decision they’re still unsure about,” he says. “That kind of candour builds far more connection than another polished presentation.”
The same applies to competitions and unbuilt work. “We often only ever hear about the winners,” says Johanson. “The runner-up, the unbuilt scheme, the project that didn’t make the cut – there’s often just as much ambition and risk-taking in those, sometimes more.”
There is useful knowledge in those stories precisely because they are unresolved. A designer explaining why an idea changed, where a project became difficult or what they might approach differently next time can open up a far more substantial exchange than presenting the finished photographs alone.
For Johanson, another missed opportunity is what happens once everyone leaves the room. Good conversations often end with the event itself, without an obvious way to continue them or reconnect with the people involved. “We rarely talk about what happens after an event ends,” he says. “You have a great conversation, and then it just stops – no thread to follow up on, no easy way to reconnect with people you met. It feels like a missed opportunity every time.”
This feels particularly relevant ahead of Saturday Indesign, where ’s architecture and design will move between showrooms, , launches and discussions across the city. The physical spaces and new collections provide the setting, but much of the value of gathering in person lies in what happens around them. They need enough room for people to contribute rather than simply observe, questions worth responding to, voices that are not already familiar and the possibility that somebody might say something unfinished, uncertain or unexpected.
That is difficult to replicate through a screen, and perhaps the strongest argument for continuing to get the industry into a room together.
Saturday Indesign returns to Sydney on 12 September 2026.
Saturday Indesign
The post appeared first on .
Related Posts
