Innovators, ground-breakers, and inspirational leaders in politics, architecture, design, cultural production, and research whose work engages and negotiates the local impacts of challenging global issues of climate, leadership, housing, and displacement inform this season of the international public lecture series New Now Next, presented by the Irish Architecture Foundation and supported by Arup.

The Irish Architecture Foundation, supported by Arup, is delighted to present Thandi Loewenson in conversation about her groundbreaking work.

Thandi Loewenson (b.1989, Harare) is an architectural designer/researcher who mobilises design, fiction, and performance to stoke embers of emancipatory political thought and fires of collective action, and to feel for the contours of other, possible worlds. Using fiction as a design tool and tactic, and operating in the overlapping realms of the weird, the tender, the earthly, and the airborne, Thandi engages in projects which provoke questioning of the status-quo, whilst working with communities, policy makers, unions, artists, and architects to act on those provocations. In July 2024, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) announced Loewenson as the recipient of the prestigious Wheelwright Prize. The $100,000 grant supports investigative approaches to contemporary architecture, with an emphasis on globally minded research. In 2023 Loewenson was awarded a Special Mention for her participation in The Laboratory of the Future, La Biennale di Venezia.

Book now for New Now Next: Thandi Loewenson.

If you have any specific accessibility needs, please contact us at info@architecturefoundation.ie when booking and we will do our very best to facilitate you.

About New Now Next

New Now Next is a series of talks run by the Irish Architecture Foundation, supported by Arup, to inspire Dublin audiences who are interested in architecture and innovative research into people, politics and the environment. New Now Next is about disseminating NEW ideas regarding contemporary issues relevant NOW that can impact the NEXT generations. Speakers over the years have included innovators like Lacaton & Vassal, Eyal Weizman, Toni L. Griffin, Dorte Mandrup, Kunlé Adeyemi, Sou Fujimoto, Grafton Architects, Jeanne Gang, Tatiana Bilbao, and many more.

Photo by Niall Finn, courtesy of Thandi Loewenson.