BK Talks and BK Expo @ TU Delft

#upcoming BK Expo: This is practice - Spatial design, expanded 🗓 May 19 - June 23, 2026 📍 Orange Hall, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft Spatial design is practised in many forms. Buildings, urban plans and landscapes are among the most recognisable. They shape how the built environment is made and how lives are lived. Other forms produce books, exhibitions, courses, archives, journals, public programmes, films, scenarios and atlases. All of them are made with tools the Faculty teaches: drawing, mapping, sequencing, modelling, fieldwork, exhibiting and editing. All of them depend on spatial intelligence: an understanding of scale, structure, materiality and public address. The demand for rigour is the same, whatever the work ultimately leaves behind. This exhibition gathers more than forty contributions from across the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, selected from an open call sent in December 2025, as well as material from the archives of Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. The works on view share a question: how do our disciplines address the present? Climate instability, displacement, conflict, housing pressure, territorial transformation and the erosion of public life operate at scales and speeds that ask spatial design to mobilise everything it has. The works gathered here respond through evidence, participation, publication, teaching and speculation. Each is a way of acting through spatial practice. Five chapters organise the exhibition: Displaying evidence and spatial storytelling, Collaboration and public participation, Editorial practices, Pedagogical practices and Speculative design. They do not rank one mode of practice above another. They name the breadth of what is already being done. We invite you to walk through the exhibition as you would walk through a workshop in full operation: tables, tools, walls, ongoing arguments, each of them spatial.

#upcoming BK Talks: In Conversation with Tosin Oshinowo 🗓 April 20th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft As part of her Jaap Oosterhoff Visiting Professorship, Tosin Oshinowo will engage in a conversation with students of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Through her Lagos-based architecture firm, her work is grounded in a deep attention to local self-organisation and in leveraging constraints as drivers of creativity and societal impact within the built environment. Her approach challenges dominant notions of what architecture is, and what the values of the profession can be. This BK Talks is public and will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel.  Registration is not necessary. The event will be followed by a reception at 19:00.

#upcoming BK Talks: Dialogues on Depletion. What does it mean to design with, within and beyond depletion? 🗓 March 31th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft Dialogues on Depletion brings together contributors to the Journal of Delta Urbanism #6: Depletion and its accompanying Exhibition with a group of invited external critics to explore the political, ecological, and design implications of soil depletion. The event adopts a reversed discussion format in which guest interlocutors open the conversation by questioning and challenging the contributors’ positions, prompting reflections on the role and agency of design in contexts of resource exhaustion and environmental transformation. Structured in three thematic sections—with, within, and beyond—the conversation examines different ways to engage with depletion. Contributors include Lara Almarcegui, Jana Crepon Audrey Samson and Françîcco Gayardo (FRAUD), Armin Linke, Gintare Norkunaite (PosadMaxwan), and Antoine Vialle (TU Berlin) who are invited to respond to provocative questions from guest critics Kiarash Pashna (TU Delft), Ilmar Hurkxkens (Boskalis & TU Delft), and Erik Swyngedouw (University of Manchester), emerged from the essays and materials presented in the dedicated Journal issue and Exhibition. Moderated by Michele Francesco Bonato (POLIS student association), the dialogue foregrounds interdisciplinary perspectives and critically tests how research and design practices can respond to the material, spatial, and political conditions of depletion. The session includes reflections and questions from the audience, fostering a dialogue across the wider TU Delft community. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel.

#upcoming BK Talks: In Conversation with filmmaker Zack Godshall 🗓 March 17th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft Zack Godshall is currently a Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Architecture at TU Delft where he is researching and documenting stories in watery landscapes and coastal regions. He makes films about unsung people and places that exist along the fringes of culture, often set in his home state of Louisiana. His films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and been acclaimed by The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Time Magazine. Zack earned an MFA in film directing from UCLA and is currently an Associate Professor of film and screenwriting at Louisiana State University. During this BK Talks, we will watch excerpts from three of Godshall’s films set in Louisiana’s Gulf Coast and New Orleans—communities living with flooding, land loss, and life on the edge. The conversation will be moderated by Angeliki Sioli, and joined by Janina Gosseye and Jelmer Teunissen. Each of the panellist bring their own unique perspective on the politics of water, the unequal exposure to risk, and the differing conditions and water imaginaries of the Dutch and Louisiana deltas. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel.   #politicsofwater #documentary #floods #waterstories coastalregions

#upcoming BK Talks: Archiprix 🗓 March 10th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft On March 10th, BK Talks joins Archiprix 2026 to unpack a question that is quickly becoming unavoidable: what are the borders of architecture today—and what capacities should remain inside the realm of the designer? The future of the design professions will be defined less by fixed disciplinary lines and more by the architects ability to navigate complexity. As climate breakdown reshapes environments, economies, and everyday life, architectural work can no longer remain confined to buildings and the extraction of matter alone. Many —especially younger— practitioners are increasingly working at the edges of the discipline, moving between weather patterns, ecology, technology, policy, social activism, DYI strategies and collaborating with other than human animals. Working across disciplines requires different capacities from architects and their education. If material and CO2 reduction are the new drivers of spatial design, then we also need new roles and design attitudes—architects as systems thinkers, facilitators, coaches and/or stewards of resources— and being able to design with uncertainty, scarcity, and long time horizons. How do we expand the design field without losing what architecture is valued for: analytical judgement, spatial intelligence, craft, aesthetics and constructive responsibilities? These shifts come with frictions. If education isn’t radical enough to meet this moment of polycrisis, what is it for? And what would it mean, concretely, to work more collectively—without dissolving accountability? BK Talks x Archiprix 2026: a conversation about how architectural practice is changing. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #Archiprix #design #designeducation #education architecture urbanism landscape buildingtechnology geomatics

#upcoming BK Talks: Feminist Week - Women in Polycrisis 🗓 March 3rd, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment BK Feminist Week 2026 will once again celebrate feminism within our faculty. Building on the successful launch of BK Feminist Week in 2025, this edition revolves around Women in Polycrisis. As part of the week’s program, this BK Talks invites voices from a diverging range of disciplines. As a faculty, we have engaged with feminism in our practice across diverse timelines and approaches, but there is an open question: how do other disciplines engage with feminism? How are feminist values situated in their research, practice, and education? This talk brings together practices ranging from journalism and research to theatre, dance, and architectural design – each guided by feminist values. What can we learn from these plural perspectives, and how can feminist values be more firmly integrated into our faculty’s discourse? This talk aims to open the debate about what designing through feminist values means. Extending beyond the traditional understanding of designing safe spaces for women, it is a practice that can bring together questions of reciprocity, care, and justice, through acknowledging the interrelation between anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and decolonial thought. The conversation will be joined by Laura Cull, Mariya Khan, Neha Mungekar, and Elise Bos, moderated by Irene Luque Martin. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #feminism #designbyfeministvalues #designforjustice

#upcoming BK Talks: In Conversation with Warren Neidich 🗓 January 27th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment From the moment we wake up, we are constantly connected. We force ourselves “to stay updated” and always be available and online. By the end of the day, we feel tired, but also restless: have we done enough, learned enough, optimized enough? Warren Neidich asserts that this pressure to always be productive and optimised isn’t personal failure, but a system that he calls Neurocapitalism. As an artist, architect, and neuroscientist he explores how powerful platforms, tech companies, and even governments actively steer how we think, feel, and react. Our attention, emotions, and choices become raw material to be exploited for profit, influence, or social control. While the impact and power of these systems can make us feel powerless, Neidich sees room for resistance. Neurocapitalism relies on the assumption of a fixed, predictable brain – but the brain can function differently, experience differently, and learn differently. To explore this, Neidich evokes the image of a “brain without organs” to describe a brain that allows wandering, boredom, doubt, play, and care – qualities that neurocapitalist systems often deem inefficient, yet which form a counterforce. What if we deliberately redirect our cognitive capacities toward imagination and connection? Through art, stories, rituals, and philosophy, this panel creates space to dream, experiment, and imagine new forms of collective life. The conversation is moderated by Leon Heuts, director of Studium Generale, and joined by architectural theorist Andrej Radman and philosopher Ivana Ivkovic. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #architecturalphilosophy #architecturaltheory #neurocapitalism #warrenneidich

#upcoming BK Talks: In Conversation with Farrokh Derakhshani 🗓 January 13th, 2026 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Farrokh Derakhshani is Director of the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. He has been associated with the Award since 1982, where his work has brought him into contact with architects, builders, and planners throughout the world. He has collaborated on a large variety of publications, curated architecture exhibitions and has been involved in organising professional workshops and international architectural competitions. In conversation with Derakhshani we will be discussing the role of awards in shaping the architectural discipline. Do awards mirror or challenge existing architectural cultures? In what ways do they shape the design field? Which institutions and people are behind them? The conversation will be joined by Dick van Gameren and Marina Tabassum, who both have extensive experience in the field, and both won the Aga Khan award in 2007 and 2025 respectively. Klaske Havik will be sharing her experience as jury of the Latin American architecture prize Premio Rogelio Salmona and the Dutch National Archiprix. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #AgaKhanAwards #designculture #premiorogeliosalmona #archiprix

#archived BK Expo: The Other Tourist - Designing for Coexistence November 7th - December 12th Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment TU Delft Millions of people travel in search of recreation, relaxation and pleasure. This increased popularity of tourism has long been entangled with the ideals of modernity and progress and for many communities has become a source of income, employment, and identity. However, it also comes with heavy environmental, social, and political costs. Especially because in recent decades, tourism has grown to the stage of overtourism, when the carrying capacity of a place has been exceeded. The exhibition ‘The Other Tourist’ highlights the complexity of tourism and links it to design and the built environment. It highlights both the negative consequences and the opportunities and existing good practices. Moreover, it shows that a constructive approach to this problem is possible, in which every individual can play a role. This exhibition has been compiled and curated by master’s students and lecturers from the new Q5 elective ‘Curatorial Practices and Exhibition Design’ of the Building Audiences group. The Building Audiences Group is a research and teaching initiative at TU Delft that explores architecture as a spatial and public practice—capable of shaping discourse, constructing narratives, and staging conversations. CREDITS This exhibition is organized by BK Public Programs at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft, designed by the students of the Building Audiences Studio. Photographs by Jesse Verdoes. #BKTUDelft #Exhibition #BuiltEnvironment #architectureofhope

OPEN CALL This is Practice: Expanding Spatial Design 🗓 Deadline for submissions: January 15th 🕠 Exhibition dates: May 12th - June 23rd 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft This is Practice invites students, researchers, faculty and staff of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment to contribute work that expands how we understand spatial design today. Some of the most consequential forms of work unfold outside conventional production. This is Practice is interested in contributions that operate in this expanded field, where design knowledge is used to build conversations, shape culture, and intervene in public questions. These works unfold through exhibitions, films, publications, cartographies, workshops, community partnerships, legal or policy tools, and other forms of action that do not necessarily produce buildings, plans, landscapes, or physical objects — yet produce real impact. This is Practice brings these approaches together and asks: What does it mean to work as spatial designer today? How do we work when our aim is not to deliver a project but to engage a public, shift attention, or open a different way of seeing? What kinds of work are we looking for? - research and pedagogical work - exhibitions and public programs - visual, cartographic, and editorial tools - long-term engagements with landscapes, territories, and communities - spatial storytelling and cinematic work - projects rooted in localised and ancestral knowledge systems This Is Practice aims to gather this landscape into one exhibition — to show the many ways spatial thinking works today, and to encourage conversations about the futures we want to build. What to submit Please send a single PDF (max 10 MB) that includes: – a brief introduction to your project or practice; – images or excerpts that help us understand its format and scope; – contact information. The curatorial team will follow up if additional materials are needed. Contact [email protected]

#upcoming BK Talks: Intergenerations - Practicing spatial justice across the ages 🗓 December 9th, 2025 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment The interventions of spatial designers, planners, and developers reverberate for decades or even centuries. What we build now, significantly affects the generations yet to come. The climate crisis only makes this intergenerational responsibility more significant, if we fail to build at the right places or build adaptively, those in the future will endure the consequences. Similarly: we have to build in a way that limits the earth’s CO2-budget and fosters a lifestyle within the planetary boundaries. A rather daunting task, which might even lead to paralysis. But we see glimmers of hope. In policy making there is an increasing call to acknowledge the role of future generations. Designers are engaging practically and conceptually with the long-term. Citizen initiatives are taking responsibility for the future if governments fail to do so. And imagination is finally seeming to get the serious attention it requires, not as a silver bullet, but as a way to illustrate the absurdity of the present and guide the collective inquiry towards desired futures. This BK Talks is developed in collaboration with the Big Question Week of the section of Spatial Planning and Strategy. For this BK Talks the Big Question is: What if Architecture and the Built Environment took intergenerational justice seriously? This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #bktalks #bkpublicprograms #bkpublicprograms2025 #architecture #urbanism #landscape #buildingtechnology #geomatics #studentslife #buildings #bouwkunde #spatialdesign #design #builtenvironment #BKPublicPrograms #BKExpo #BKTalks #Bouwkunde #BK #TUDelft #Exhibition #BuiltEnvironment #lecture #designbyvalues #intergenerationaljustice

#upcoming BK Talks: In Conversation with Omar Degan 🗓 December 8th, 2025 🕠 17:30–19:00 📍 Oostserre, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment This session opens a critical dialogue on the role and agency of Western architecture education and research institutions when working in countries marked by long-standing colonial histories. Where is the line between meaningful collaboration and academic or cultural extractivism? Should Western institutions step back—or step in differently—and under what conditions? Using the occasion of Omar Degan’s visit to promote the first Pan-Africa Architecture Biennale, we will collectively reflect on how we might engage responsibly, redistribute power, and support autonomous architectural futures rather than reproduce old patterns. The conversation will be moderated by Irene Luque Martin, and joined by panellists Javier Arpa Fernandez, Jonathan Subendran, Laura Barnett, and Setareh Noorani. This BK Talks will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing on the BK TU Delft YouTube channel. #bktalks #bkpublicprograms #bkpublicprograms2025 #architecture #urbanism #landscape #buildingtechnology #geomatics #studentslife #buildings #bouwkunde #design #builtenvironment #BKPublicPrograms #BKExpo #BKTalks #Bouwkunde #BK #TUDelft #Exhibition #BuiltEnvironment #lecture #designbyvalues #PanAfricaArchitectureBiennale