Archtober, NYC’s Architecture and Design Festival, Launches 14th Year

Bustler has been a proud sponsor of Archtober since 2011

Archtober, a New York City-based platform that promotes the discovery of architecture and design through experiences and content, will celebrate the next installment of its annual festival from October 1–31, 2024. In collaboration with over 100 partners and sponsors across the city, the 2024 festival will gather events, exhibitions, resources, and activities across the five boroughs to raise awareness of the importance of architecture and design in New York City.

In recent years, Archtober has continued to grow and deepen its impact with the addition of an annual festival theme, which we launched in 2023. Our first theme, Bridging Divides, reflected a profound commitment to fostering inclusivity, innovation, and a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between individuals, communities, and the spaces they inhabit. This year’s theme, Tracing the Future, delves into the evolving landscape of NYC through affordable housing, sustainable design, infrastructure, and more.

Additionally, this year the festival has introduced its first design competition, the “Greetings From…” Archtober Postcard Competition, which invites creatives from all backgrounds (architects, illustrators, design enthusiasts, etc.) to cast a visionary gaze towards what lies ahead. We can imagine a focus on sensorial living or biophilic workspaces, or maybe you have an idea around accessible design or mass timber—whatever it is, we want to see. Submissions are open through September 3, with winners receiving $500 each and the opportunity to have their printed postcard distributed at the Center for Architecture throughout the course of the 2024 festival.

Archtober is also excited to continue to expand the Archtober Guide on Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app.

“As Archtober continues to grow each year, we’re eager to engage more New Yorkers from every borough in the discussion around architecture and design,” says Jesse Lazar, Assoc. AIA, Executive Director, AIA New York and the Center for Architecture. “We are thrilled to partner with 100+ organizations under this year’s festival theme, Tracing the Future, to offer programs that invite new voices and begin to tackle key urban challenges such as housing, infrastructure, and livability. Our new postcard competition hopes to challenge our community and the public to imagine a city shaped by collective creativity, with sustainability and equity at the forefront.”

“Tracing the Future is more than a theme; it’s an invitation to explore how our architectural choices today will define tomorrow’s New York,” says Katie Mullen, Director of Archtober and Director of Exhibitions and Programs, Center for Architecture. “This year’s festival is a call to action for innovators and creatives to rethink established practices and explore new possibilities in improving our built environment.”

Festival Theme: Tracing the Future

While reflecting on our past and celebrating our present, this year’s festival explores the blueprint of tomorrow’s architecture. Archtober 2024: Tracing the Future hopes to build a roadmap for how the spaces we inhabit will transform the future. We hope to spark dialogue and inspire collaboration among architects, designers, urban planners, and design enthusiasts alike, fostering inclusivity within innovation.

Programming within this umbrella includes the discussion Indigeneity and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Spatial Practices, developed in collaboration with the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning and Design (ISAPD), on Thursday, October 10, 6:00–8:00 pm at the Center for Architecture. The conversation will feature Anjelica Gallegos, Co-founder, ISAPD; Julia Watson, Author, Lo–TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism; Winona LaDuke, Founder, Winona’s Hemp & Heritage Farm; and Christian Hart Nakarado, Assistant Professor of Art, Wesleyan University; Founder, Slow Built Studio.

The Center for Architecture will also host the panel discussion Tracing the Future: Affordable Housing in NYC, on Monday, October 21, 6:00–8:00 pm, featuring a selection of award-winning affordable housing projects from NYSERDA’s Buildings of Excellence competition, which funds developers and architects around New York State who demonstrate a commitment to reducing carbon emissions while also creating innovative and cost-effective housing. The discussion will be moderated by Metropolis magazine Editor-in-Chief Avinash Rajagopal.

Additional programs include the continuation of AIA New York’s 2024 presidential lecture series, The Future of Public Space and Art, with a conversation on social equity taking place on Wednesday, October 2, 6:00–8:00 pm. The event will feature Karen Alexander, MPA, Director of Outreach and Education for the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics in the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Ann Marie Baranowski, FAIA, LEED AP, Founding Principal, Ann Marie Baranowski Architect PLLC (AMBA); Kendal Henry, Assistant Commissioner, Public Art, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; and Alex Zablocki, Executive Director, Public Housing Community Fund.

Program Highlights

The festival will feature numerous exhibitions across the city, including Goethe-Institut New York’s UMBAU. Nonstop Transformation, opening October 9, which presents more than 60 projects by the architects Gerkan, Marg, and Partners (gmp) that take a conceptual ecological approach to UMBAU (which refers conversion, or the ongoing transformation of existing structures). On view at the Center for Architecture, Built by New York, opening October 1, celebrates the work of architects, designers, and affiliated professionals in the New York City design community. Past, current, and future work from members of AIA New York, AIA Brooklyn, AIA Bronx, AIA Staten Island, and AIA Queens will take over three floors of the Center for Architecture galleries, providing a snapshot of our community’s impact on the city and the built environment at large.

Farther afield, 'T' Space features an installation of new large-scale wooden geometric sculptures, titled Shou Sugi Ban Sculptures, by James Casebere, on view through October 13 at ‘T’ Space’s dynamic Archive Gallery, designed by architect Steven Holl, the foundation’s founder. On view through December 15 at The Glass House, Shigeru Ban: The Paper Log House marks the first time in six years that the innovative house will be on display in North America. In collaboration with The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, 36 architecture students assembled the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban’s Paper Log House, a 14 by 14-foot enclosure made of paper tubes, wood and milk crates deployed to provide temporary housing for victims of disaster across five continents over the last 30 years.

For 2024, the festival’s popular Building of the Day series of architect-led tours will take place daily and includes:

• Bronx River Greenway/Starlight Park by NV5
• Gansevoort Peninsula by James Corner Field Operations
• The Refinery at Domino by Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)
• Institute for Studies on Latin American Art by Overhead Architecture
• One Domino Square by Selldorf Architects
• Lever House, restored by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
• Sunset Park Library and Apartments by Mitchell Giurgola

Several Archtober partners will also be offering tours outside of the festival’s Building of the Day series. On October 5, join architectural historian Matt Postal and the Art Deco Society of New York for a special autumn afternoon walking tour exploring West Village Deco, including a first-ever ADSNY visit inside the magnificent headquarters of the Salvation Army, a New York City Landmark. On October 18-20, the 22nd annual Open House New York Weekend will offer a behind-the-scenes look at new buildings reshaping the skyline, public works facilities keeping the city running, parks offering respite, state-of-the-art performance spaces, manufacturing workshops, private collections, and much more.

On October 30, Pumpkitecture will return to the Center for Architecture, as teams of architects go gourd-to-gourd to compete for the Pritzkerpumpkin.

Beyond timed and ticketed programming, the Archtober site continues to feature Anytime Activities, a section of ongoing resources for architecture lovers of all ages. Explore the assortment of offered experiences, from drawing activities to audio tours! While visiting the website, stop by the festival’s Archtober Shop, which features a variety of items—from t-shirts to baseball caps to fanny packs and even socks—for you to explore the city in style. New designs for 2024 will arrive on September 4.

The Archtober Guide on Bloomberg Connects

At its core, the Archtober festival is meant to encourage and inspire audiences to engage with the architecture and design that surrounds them. Building on our efforts to create year-round Archtober experiences, this year the festival continues to partner with Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and cultural app created by Bloomberg Philanthropies, to offer the Archtober Guide. Over the past 12 years, Archtober has toured hundreds of projects across the five boroughs. The Archtober Guide on Bloomberg Connects allows you to explore a selection of these sites from your phone, allowing you to dive deep into some of NYC’s most exciting contemporary and historical projects. View project images and listen to exclusive, app-only interviews with the architects and landscape architects who are shaping the future of New York City! Featured buildings include the Stapleton Library by Andrew Berman Architect, International Center of Photography by Gensler, Pavilion at Brookfield Place by Pelli Clarke & Partners, Adams Street Library by WORKac, and the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art.

You can also use Bloomberg Connects to explore Archtober partners, including the Judd Foundation, Magazzino Italian Art, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and the Neue Galerie New York, among many others.

Last year, we introduced our virtual Travel To series, which has since expanded for 2024. Designed to highlight Bloomberg Connects partners that feature iconic architecture and historically significant sites around the world, this year we visited institutions like The Burrell Collection in Glasgow, the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, and the Sir John Soane Museum in London, with curators, preservationists, and other experts guiding virtual travelers from around the globe through these remarkable spaces.