Living Dialogs

Can the buildings that we live in come alive? Could such living buildings help us to create a healthier, more sustainable future? Could they become adaptive, resilient structures that care for the planet while empathizing, comforting and inspiring us? The Living Dialogs series brings together scholars and thinkers to collectively reflect on living architecture and its implications for our changing world.

We believe that knowledge creation, like living architecture itself, is a collaborative and living endeavour – that meaning is not simply created through the exchange of information but that ideas are formed through open and emergent conversations.

Podcast S3E4: Emerging Voices: Living systems, ethical practice, and the future of architectural education

With recent M.Arch graduates Adrian Chiu, Iris Redinger, Abhishek Wagle, and Lena Mariella von Buren

1:10:02 — https://livingarchitecturesystems.com/podcast/s3e4

April 30, 2026

In this episode, recent Master of Architecture graduates Adrian Chiu, Iris Redinger, Abhishek Wagle, and Lena Mariella von Buren join Living Dialogs host Edgar Cardenas in a reflective conversation about architectural education, emerging design practices, and the evolving role of the architect. Drawing on their educational experiences and early professional life, the group discusses the pressures of architectural training, shifting ideas about what it means to be an architect, and the growing importance of ethics, ecological awareness, and care in design. The dialogue explores how new architects are thinking about architecture framed as a relational practice embedded within social, technological, and living systems, and what that means for their future and that of architectural education.

Guests

Supported by the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative and the University of Waterloo.

  • Toolbox Dialogue Initiative
  • University of Waterloo

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.