Archtober's Festival Itineraries offer a curated selection of festival events, handpicked by a thought leader, editor, or creative mind we admire in New York City. Our third for the 2026 festival comes from writer and editor Lila Allen.

Allen’s extensive body of work includes time as the Associate Director of AD PRO, Architectural Digest’s digital vertical for the trade, Managing Editor of Metropolis magazine, and on staff at Rockwell Group and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2025, Allen launched Wrong House, a new voice-forward design publication, and in 2026, authored Post Company: Character Studies, a monograph on the award-winning firm's work through 16 remarkable projects.

Here’s what tastemaker Lila Allen is seeing and doing this Archtober! Join the fun and start planning your own itinerary.

1. Modern Playgrounds Tour: Central Park on October 11

I started paying closer attention to the design of playgrounds about a decade ago, when I was in the MA Design Research, Writing, and Criticism program at the School of Visual Arts—I find them to be fascinating places where our ideas about risk, learning, and sociability all materialize. This kid-friendly tour will take participants through three of Central Park’s 21 playgrounds: the Tarr Family Playground, built in 1973 and designed by Ross, Ryan, Jacquette; the Tarr-Coyne Wild West Playground from 1988, by Richard Dattner; and Dattner’s Ancient Playground, from 1973. Come prepared to walk and—if you’re a youngster—play!

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2. Judd Foundation Presents Guided Visit at 101 Spring Street on October 15

I will literally never pass up an opportunity to tour 101 Spring Street, Donald Judd’s work-live loft in SoHo’s cast-iron district. Introductory remarks from Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, the Judd Foundation’s recently appointed Director of Design (and a curator at large for the Cooper-Hewitt), are sure to give deeper insight into the significance of this space, which is inspiring to so many designers and artists I admire.

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3. The Municipal Sublime on October 16

Ohhhh, this one makes my heart pitter-patter. A “freewheeling discussion” of “underloved and undernoticed civic monuments”?! This event brings together the artist Cheyenne Julien, designer and researcher Lucas Vaqueiro, and editors Mark Krotov (of n+1), Mariana Mogilevich (of Urban Omnibus), and Samuel Medina (of the New York Review of Architecture—and my former colleague), who will illuminate the unsung glories of community spaces, senior centers, and park bathrooms. My magazine, Wrong House, is all about lifting up underppreciated objects, so naturally this one is right up my alley.

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4. Guided Tour of the Steven Myron Holl Foundation on October 18

I spend a little more than half my time in the Hudson Valley, so of course I wouldn’t miss a tour of Steven Holl’s woodland campus in Rhinebeck, New York—including the Architecture Archive’s whopping array of watercolors and models (1,200 of them!). While you’re there, you’ll also get to see Anne Lindberg and H. L. Hix’s installation Threads, which merges poetry with visual and experiential art.

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5. Docent Tour: Lefor-Openo on October 29

This guided tour of Poster House’s exhibition Cuteness, Conservatism, & Consumption: Lefor-Openo and Postwar France will familiarize viewers with the midcentury graphic design of the female-led studio Lefor-Openo. Smiley and sweet, the characters that populate Lefor-Openo’s posters conceal the tumult of France in the postwar era. I’m curious about instances where cuteness acts subversively, particularly when women designers are involved—which makes this exhibition a must-see for me.