Public lecture: Smaller Architecture, by Michael Meredith (After Bigness sub-theme)

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Through Small Architecture, Meredith proposes a critical alternative to the monumental scale, concentration of capital, and spectacular urban ambitions associated with architectural “Bigness.” Rather than treating scale as synonymous with significance, Meredith considers an architecture that is more local, concentrated, inclusive, attentive, and deliberate. The lecture will examine what becomes possible when architecture moves away from limitless growth and the production of ever-larger objects and systems. At the same time, it will consider how emerging infrastructures such as AI data centers complicate any simple return to smallness, revealing new forms of immense scale hidden behind seemingly immaterial technologies.