School of Architecture & Design announces fall 2025 Architecture Lecture Series

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design Fall 2025 Architecture Lecture Series begins Sept. 12 with a lecture by Kay Sargent, an interior designer and author working at the forefront of workplace design and research.   

The explosive growth of remote and hybrid work in recent years has forced companies and organizations of all sizes to radically rethink the concept of the workplace. Now coupled with the rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI), there is an urgent need for workplaces to evolve to meet this moment. Sargent’s lecture, “Future-casting: Where are we now and how is the workplace evolving?,” will examine key factors that are currently or soon will be impacting the spaces where people work, live and play.  

The KU Architecture Lecture Series welcomes architectural and experiential design leaders to the University of Kansas to illuminate new ideas and inspire purpose-driven design practice. Lecturers bring a wide range of expertise in areas such as sustainable building, digital environments, public interest design, historic preservation, health and wellness design, and more.

Fall 2025 lecture series events will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the John C. Gaunt Forum in Marvin Hall on the KU campus in Lawrence.

Sept. 12: Kay Sargent 

"Future-casting: Where are we now, and how is the workplace evolving?"

Sargent is a practicing, licensed and certified interior designer, author, and director of thought leadership, interiors, at HOK. With 40 years of experience, she uses design to transform how and where people work. Sargent leads project teams that solve clients’ business and organizational challenges related to real estate business process, strategic planning, workplace strategy, change management and designing for inclusion. Sargent is author of the 2025 book “Designing Neuroinclusive Workplaces,” which addresses sensory processing, cognitive well-being and neurodiversity in the build environment and how to address it to create neuroinclusive spaces. 

Oct. 17: Albena Yaneva 

"The Venetian Experiment: An Ethnography of the Architecture Biennale"

Biennales — large international exhibitions held every two years — have occupied a central place in architectural discourse. The existing academic work on the biennale is scarce and commonly engages with curatorial themes and the transformative cultural agency of the event rather than the mechanics of planning and curating. Based on findings from an ethnographic study of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2025, titled “Intelligens,” Yaneva traces the work of curatorial assistants, exhibition designers, participants, graphic designers, editors, production and public program coordinators — not just the chief curator. Going beyond official press announcements and exhibition catalogs, Yaneva’s study directs attention to the whole “theatre of operations” of conceptual and technical work that takes place behind the scenes.

Yaneva is a sociologist and an architectural theorist whose research crosses the boundaries of science studies, cognitive anthropology, architectural theory and political philosophy. She is a professor at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Yaneva is the author of eight books, including “Architecture After Covid” (Bloomsbury 2023) and “New Architecture of Science: Learning from Graphene” (World Scientific Publishing 2020), co-written with Nobel Laureate in Physics Sir Kostya Novoselov. She is the recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects President’s award for outstanding research.

Nov. 14: Francesco Carota  

"Across Worlds: Architectural Design and Research in the Age of Pluralism" 

In an era marked by increasing cultural entanglements, global circulations and urgent socio-environmental challenges, architecture is compelled to rethink its epistemologies, methods and modes of engagement. This lecture explores how architectural design and research can embrace pluralism not only as a challenge to coherence, but as a generative condition for creative and critical practice. Drawing on projects and studies that span diverse scales, geographies and institutional contexts, the lecture will argue for an architecture that can operate across worlds: disciplinary boundaries, species, time frameworks and cultural realities. In this manner, the lecture will argue for a pluralistic ethos — an architecture that listens, adapts, and positions itself within broader struggles for environmental justice, spatial equity and epistemic diversity. 

Carota is an assistant professor at the KU School of Architecture & Design and co-founder and CEO of the multidisciplinary design firm Calibro Zero. He also serves as an associate member at the KU Center for East Asian Studies and affiliate researcher at the China Room Research Group at Politecnico di Torino. A licensed architect and writer, his work has appeared in d+a, Domus, Vogue and many other publications. He is author of the books "China Goes Urban. The City to Come" (Skira 2021) and "New Silk Road: the Architecture of the Belt and Road Initiative" (Birkhauser 2025), the latter of which is currently featured at the 2025 Venice Biennale international architecture exhibition.