Designing the built environment puts us at a unique intersection. We span technology, economics, local and global regulation, environmentalism, and the health and wellbeing of society. We craft the stage where lives – billions of them – play out every day.

The privilege, magnitude, complexity, and responsibility of this role can sometimes feel daunting. With every innovation, every development in how we work, and each impactful project, the need for more, better, newer seems to follow. The world feels fast, vast, and often out of control. Despite the pioneering developments they may feature, when projects take years to come to fruition, it can feel as though there’s always more that could be done.

So how do we combat that overwhelming feeling? How do we even begin to make changes that keep pace?

We explore.

…and to explore in the most effective way? We have to connect.

Connectivity has become like oxygen – utterly essential to change. We are

in a world where most of us are never without a person to talk to; where an answer to a question is delivered in the blink of an eye; where we can collaborate in ways that time and distance barred us from in the past.

Whether aspirational, physical, or digital – our connections tap in to our desire to be useful, to share stories, and to progress. We’ve been doing this since our distant ancestors sat around a savanna campfire each evening.

Now, that campfire circle has grown; our global gathering is bigger than ever.