Materials and Methods
For more than 40 years, AIA Baltimore and the Baltimore Architecture Foundation have been pleased to present an annual lecture series devoted to design and architecture in Baltimore, thanks to the loyal support of the architecture community.
We are excited to continue this tradition with the 2026 Lecture Series, exploring the theme, Materials & Methods. This spring we will explore the different materials and methods used to build the world around us. Speakers will touch on what materials are best for different climates, how to use materials in innovative ways, and different design strategies.
Click on a lecture to register!
ABOUT THE LECTURES
We are pleased to continue our partnership with the Maryland Chapter of ASLA to provide 1.0 LA CES HSW and a discounted member ticket for every lecture.
We will also continue to provide discounted member tickets to NOMA members, and free admission to students.
March 26, 2026 | 6:00 PM | MICA Brown Center
Doors open at 5:30 PM. Light food and drinks will also be available immediately following the lecture.
AIA 1.0 LU HSW and 1.0 LA CES HSW pending.
Materialism with Daniel Sundlin, BIG
We seek to reclaim the term materialism—not as a symbol of empty consumerism, but as a meaningful practice: shaping our future through form and matter. For most of our history, life adapted to the material world around us. That changed the moment we discovered tools, technology, and architecture. With them, we gained the power to shape the material world in service of the life we wanted to lead. Human history can be read as a story told through materials—each breakthrough marking a new chapter in our evolution. We named entire eras after the substances we learned to master: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Silicon Age. Our ability to manipulate matter has been one of the most powerful forces driving civilization forward. In this spirit, we invite you on an odyssey through the material world, as seen through the works of BIG—from the permanence of solid rock to the invisible flow of electrons.
April 1, 2026 | 6:00 PM | Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church
Doors open at 5:30 PM. Light food and drinks will also be available immediately following the lecture.
AIA 1.0 LU HSW and 1.0 LA CES HSW pending.
Bio_Lent Machines with Daniela Atencio & Claudio Rossi, Universidad de los Andes
The presentation examines the contemporary Latin American landscape as a complex, time-based assemblage of economic, social, cultural, and ecological systems, shaped by multiple forms of violence ranging from urbanization, extraction, and inequality to planetary processes such as climate change. Rather than treating these conditions as static problems, the lecture frames the collision between architecture, infrastructure, and landscape as a productive field for restitution and repair. Through the concept of Bio_lent Machines, the work proposes restorative architectural devices and pedagogical methodologies that integrate time, technology, and nature as mediators. Emphasis is placed on the use of robotic arms as both tools and conceptual mediums within design processes to explore mechanisms capable of reverting, recomposing, and redefining relationships within damaged territories. The lecture unfolds an open, transdisciplinary discussion of design strategies, technological workflows, and representational practices across scales, addressing architecture and landscape as active agents in reorienting violent processes toward regenerative futures.
April 8, 2026 | 6:00 PM | Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church
Doors open at 5:30 PM. Light food and drinks will also be available immediately following the lecture.
AIA 1.0 LU HSW and 1.0 LA CES HSW pending.
Crafting Excellence, with Caren Yglesias, AIA, Affiliate ASLA, University of Maryland.
National award-winning projects have something in common: not only are they designed to be sustainable and require zero-net energy once built, but they also respect and respond to the local community’s history and culture, as well as the Genius Loci. Further, they are designed while thinking about form and materials in creative and innovative ways. This presentation looks at thirty projects, large and small, by different architects and landscape architects, for the inspiring ways the traditional fourteen materials are employed reflecting 21st century needs and goals.
April 15, 2026 | 6:00 PM | Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church
Doors open at 5:30 PM. Light food and drinks will also be available immediately following the lecture.
AIA 1.0 LU HSW and 1.0 LA CES HSW pending.
Glenstone and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, with Thomas Phifer, FAIA, Thomas Phifer & Partners.
Architect Thomas Phifer will present the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland, and the Wagner Park Pavilion, a key component of the South Battery Park Resiliency Project in Lower Manhattan. Located on nearly 300 acres of rolling grassland and woodlands just outside Washington, DC, Glenstone offers a serene, contemplative environment for visitors to experience contemporary art. Glenstone presents post-World War II artworks in a series of indoor and outdoor rooms designed to foster meaningful encounters. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (MSN Warsaw) is the Museum’s first permanent home since its founding in 2005, when it was established as a collecting institution focused on art created since 1989. Defined by a luminous white concrete form and open civic ground floor, the museum brings art, public life, and history into calm, enduring dialogue. Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park and Pavilion reimagine Battery Park City’s waterfront as a resilient civic landscape. An elevated park conceals flood infrastructure while preserving views, access, and ecology. The Pavilion, designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners, frames harbor vistas and delivers climate-adapted, zero-carbon–targeted performance for year-round dining and community programming.
