Registration opening February 23!
Speaker Line Up:
Please join us for the upcoming Design Forum XVII on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, 2026, at the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. You will hear from Marlon Blackwell, FAIA (Marlon Blackwell Architects), Patricia Gruits, AIA, LEED AP (MASS Design), Michael Reynolds (Earthship Biotecture), and Ronald Rael (Rael San Fratello).
Do you want to be a 2026 Design Forum Sponsor? Secure your sponsorship HERE and/or contact Jody Cranford.
Theme – Against the Grain:
There is no singular approach to being a designer. There is, however, a custom of practice built from centuries of institutional knowledge and experience. Convention provides comfort and stability in an evolving field, a traditional path for architects to follow. As the world shifts around us, Design Forum XVII looks to the vanguards of change, risk takers whose means of practice challenge the standards of what it means to be an architect. Designers that cross the organizational boundaries of traditional practice; that move outside the limits of traditional program typologies; that work to dismantle structures of embodied social injustice and inequality; that reinvent constructional traditions or return them to their origins; that recreate and restructure formal traditions.