Past Events

You can access teaching and educational videos organized and hosted by the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative. Recordings of meetings, roundtables, workshops, symposia, interviews, and design juries showcase contributors from around the world. Whether you select a video related to your area of interest or profession, or you are looking for materials to use in course development, these video resources offer a spectrum of free, informative content by knowledgeable speakers.

Organizing Change Toward Health Equity (October 2022)

This panel addressed a range of timely questions at the intersection of global health and the built environment provoked by the simultaneous challenges of COVID-19, inequity, and climate change. Moderated by Thomas Fisher, Director of the Minnesota Design Center and the Dayton Hudson Chair in Urban Design at the College of Design at the University of Minnesota; Panelists included: Giselle Sebag, International Society for Urban Health; Sharmin Kader, Environmental Design Research Association; Sharon Roerty, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Alan Logan, Nova Institute for Health. A recording of the event is here.

EUI Workshops: “Equity, Health, and Environment: Toward a More Just Global City” (June 2022)

Module 1: City and Urbanism
Module 2: Social-Ecological Environment
Module 3: Architecture

SAH Panel (featuring Epidemic Urbanism): “Rebuilding Community in Architectural History” (May 2022)

Panel: “Architectural Education and Design Pedagogies: Global Perspectives and Challenges of Inclusivity, Health, and Resilience” (May 2022)

This panel, which includes administrators from architecture schools from eight countries, provided a setting to discuss recent trends in architectural education in various parts of the world. See a recording of the event here.

EUI Deans Panel: “Learning from the Pandemic: Leveraging Architectural Education Toward Equity, Health, and Resilience” (March 2022).

In this session, Deans of five Schools of Architecture across the United States will respond to a range of timely questions for architectural education provoked by the simultaneous epidemics of COVID-19, racism and racial inequity, and climate change, including: How has architecture pedagogy shifted in response to issues of access and equity in an online setting? How does the practice of architecture need to change to confront the many precarities and vulnerabilities in urban settings rendered visible by COVID? What role can and should schools of architecture play in this shift? A recording of this event is here.

SAH Connects: Health Matters in Architectural History.

This panel showcases scholars from a range of disciplines whose work has productively pivoted with the application of a health-centered lens. Collectively, these scholars demonstrate how using a public health lens can—and should—shed new light on neglected aspects of architectural history and practice by placing human beings (rather than buildings) in the center of research and foregrounding new areas of inquiry and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. Such people- and health-centered partnerships and directives also have unique potential to foreground the inequities that have long accompanied and exacerbated the relationships between people, place, and health, and to better inform and work toward more just, equitable, and effective architectural interventions. Details here.

Announcing the results of the 2021 EUI Design Competition
Click here

Public Parks: Promoting Equitable Access to Shared, Open Spaces – Jury Review Meeting (October 2021)

How might we use this time of rebuilding and rethinking to envision, design, and inhabit built settings that are more just and equitable? How might we re-center health in all design practices and processes? In this meeting, shortlisted projects in the Public Parks category were discussed by the jury and a guest commentator.

Lead: Bud Shenefelt (USA)
Jurors: Renelle Sargeant (Trinidad and Tobago), Anna Grichting (Switzerland), Johann Sagan (Norway)
Commentator: Naomi Sachs (USA)

Neighborhood Schools: Building Community Among Diverse Groups – Jury Review Meeting (October 2021)

How might we use this time of rebuilding and rethinking to envision, design, and inhabit built settings that are more just and equitable? How might we re-center health in all design practices and processes? In this meeting, shortlisted projects in the Neighborhood Schools category were discussed by the jury and a guest commentator.

Lead: Irene Hwang (USA)
Jurors: Melinda Silverman (South Africa), Stefanie Eberding (Germany), Claire Latané (USA)
Commentator: John Clinton (USA)

Community Clinics: Increasing Healthcare Access for Underserved Communities – Jury Review Meeting (October 2021)

How might we use this time of rebuilding and rethinking to envision, design, and inhabit built settings that are more just and equitable? How might we re-center health in all design practices and processes? In this meeting, shortlisted projects in the Community Clinics category were discussed by the jury and a guest commentator.

Lead: Louisa Iarocci (USA)
Jurors: Rolf Haarstad (USA), Andrea Möhn (The Netherlands), Lusi Morhayim (UK)
Commentator: Thomas Fisher (USA)

Senior Housing: Aging Resiliently in Community – Jury Review Meeting (October 2021)

How might we use this time of rebuilding and rethinking to envision, design, and inhabit built settings that are more just and equitable? How might we re-center health in all design practices and processes? In this meeting, shortlisted projects in the Senior Housing category of the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative Design Competition were discussed by the jury and a guest commentator:

Lead: Katarina Andjelkovic (Serbia)
Jurors: Lynne Dearborn (USA), Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss (USA), Ruzica Bozovic-Stamenovic (Singapore)
Commentator: Debajyoti Pati (USA)

Symposium: International Perspectives on the Future of Architecture and Urbanism in the Post-COVID Age (January 2021)

The cities, workplaces, schools, homes, and spaces of recreation we inhabit will undergo large and small changes in the wake of COVID, and as we anticipate the inevitable next epidemic or pandemic. What might these changes look like? How might we use this time of rebuilding, of rethinking, to envision, design, and inhabit cities that are more just and equitable? Over two days, scholars and practitioners from twenty-one countries presented case studies of the impacts of COVID-19 on a range of spatial contexts and practices and, in so doing, helped imagine new possibilities for a post-COVID urban landscape. Topics included: Response and Experience, Ecology and Sustainability, Education and Pedagogy, Design and Interventions, Healthcare Design, and Social Justice and Equity. This online symposium was supported by the AIA Design & Health Research Consortium (DHRC).

In response to current conversations about social and racial inequity in and beyond the United States, and to extend the dialog about how epidemics exploit and amplify social inequities, the EUI organized this roundtable moderated by Dr. Ruth MacKay (author of Life in a Time of Pestilence: The Great Castilian Plague of 1596-1601) and Emily Webster (University of Chicago, USA). Panelists included Dr. Ann Marie Akehurst (Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, UK), Dr. Malo Hutson (Columbia University, USA), Dr. Edna Bonhomme (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany), Dr. Daniela Sandler (University of Minnesota, USA), and Carlo Trombino (University of Palermo, Italy). See the recording here.

Symposium: Global Visions on Cities and Historical Pandemics in the 20th Century (July 2020)

This event, held as part of the Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative (GAHTC) and moderated by Dr. Mehreen Chida-Razvi (Nasser Khalili Collections, London) and Dr. Fariba Zarinebaf (Univeristy of California, Riverside) featured the following conversations: Colonialism, Imperialism, and Urbanism; Politics, Policies, and Public Health; and Community and Domestic Space. A recording of this event is available on the EUI YouTube site. Additional materials from a related Teacher to Teacher Workshop sponsored by GAHTC are available here.

Symposium: Epidemic Urbanism: Reflections on History (May 2020)

In May 2020, the EUI organized an online symposium to bring together academics from a range of disciplines to present case studies from across the globe to demonstrate how cities in particular are not just the primary place of exposure and quarantine, but also the site and instrument of intervention. Presentations covered a range of illnesses and epidemics, geographies, time periods, urban interventions, observations on the impact of these epidemics on society and urban life, and insights to understand, critique, or complexify the current conception of and response to COVID-19. Each presentation shared the story of a city, an outbreak of illness, and the city’s response to the epidemic. Presentations were grouped into four sessions: Urban Governance, Urban Infrastructure, Urban Life, and Urban Design and Planning. Recordings of Day 1 are here and Day 2 are here on the Epidemic Urbanism YouTube site. This event was generously sponsored by SAH and GAHTC.