Campus as Test Site
Scenarios. Systems. Strategies.
On the occasion of the exhibition opening of Designing for Resilience, showcasing options for the new campus of the University at Buffalo, Aedes hosts international architects to discuss strategies for knowledge spaces.
University at Buffalo campus masterplans © Barkow Leibinger
Date: Fri., 27.03.2026, 17:00
Place: Aedes, Christinenstr. 18–19, 10119 Berlin
Registration: www.eventbrite.de
The event will take place in English. Admittance is free.
Introduction
On the occasion of the opening of Designing for Resilience, a panel of international architects comes together on the Aedes stage for a public conversation that deepens and expands the strategies behind different projects submitted to the University at Buffalo’s international design competition showcased in the exhibition.
Climate change and its attendant crises are reshaping how we design, inhabit and sustain the built environment – and the living landscape systems that support it. Within the context of a planetary polycrisis – the cascading, systemic and interconnected risks and impacts posed by global heating, biodiversity loss and human vulnerability – traditional, disciplinary-based approaches and design practices must be advanced. Using the University at Buffalo’s South Campus as a site, Designing for Resilience features the work of seven international design teams who imagined and visualised future scenarios for the campus in 2050 and 2080, based on a chosen set of assumptions about population, the economy and the climate. As a forward-looking academic environment, the South Campus becomes a testing ground that serves to advance generalisable strategies for planning and design disciplines and professions – inviting viewers to engage, evolve and extend this knowledge to other contexts.
Programme
Welcome and Introduction
Miriam Mlecek, Partner, Aedes, Berlin
Julia Czerniak, Dean and Professor, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning
Discussion
Sanne van der Burgh, Associate Director, Head of MVRDV NEXT, Rotterdam
Nina-Marie Lister, Professor, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University
Jason Sowell, Associate Professor of Architecture, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning
Frank Barkow, Partner, Barkow Leibinger, Berlin
Maia Peck, Clinical Assistant Professor of Architecture and Director of Exhibitions, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning
Moderator: Julia Czerniak, Dean and Professor, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning
After the discussion you are cordially invited to the opening of the Aedes exhibition Designing for Resilience – Prototyping Campus Futures.
The Exhibition Talk and the exhibition are part of the Aedes programme Knowledge Spaces.
In collaboration with
