Architecture Lecture Series
The Architecture Lecture Series welcomes architectural and experiential design leaders from around the country 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 Schedule
Fall 2025 lectures will take place at 4:30pm in the John C. Gaunt Forum in Marvin Hall.
September 12 | Kay Sargent
Future-Casting: Where are we now and how is the workplace evolving?
For the past several years, companies have been focused on the challenges at hand - shifting work patterns, an increase in hybrid work and what that means to their portfolio and work habits. But the world continues to evolve and what was once in the distant future is now on the near horizon. We need to understand the key factors that will be influencing the places we work, play, learn and live. From AI to shifting social dynamics, from policies changes and economic considerations to environmental initiatives - change is afoot and we need to understand what that means for our future and the spaces we design.
Kay Sargent is a practicing, licensed and certified Interior Designer, Author, and Director of Thought Leadership, Interiors at HOK. With 40 years of experience, she has a passion for using design to transform how and where people work. Kay 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. Kay is author of “Designing Neuroinclusive Workplaces” a book that addresses sensory processing, cognitive wellbeing and neurodiversity in the built environment and why and how we need to address it to create neuroinclusive spaces.
October 17 | Albena Yaneva
The Venetian Experiment: An Ethnography of the Architecture Biennale
Albena 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 Full Professor at the Politecnico di Torino and Adjunct Professor at GSAPP Columbia University. Yaneva is the author of eight books that explore the current conditions of architectural practice and the political outreach of design. Her work is translated in nine different languages. She is the recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) President’s award for outstanding research.
November 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.
Francesco Carota, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design and cofounder and CEO of the multidisciplinary design firm Calibro Zero. He also serves as an associate member at the University of Kansas 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.