Archtober's Festival Itineraries offer a curated selection of festival events, hand picked by a thought leader, editor, or creative mind that we admire in New York City. Our next itinerary is from Lindsay Harkema, an NYC-based architect, educator, and founding member of WIP Collaborative. WIP is an award-winning shared design practice whose projects engage community and the public realm. Harkema's work explores how urban spaces can be transformed to create opportunities for human connection and social equity. She is a co-curator of the recent Spatializing Reproductive Justice exhibition at the Center for Architecture and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for AIANY. She teaches architecture courses at Barnard College. Harkema lives in Brooklyn with her partner, three young children, and two cats. Check out what Harkema is looking forward to during the 2025 festival, and plan your own itinerary!

1. October 15: Not Just Livable - Lovable: Urban Quality, Human Reality and the Shape of Home

This panel looks great because they'll be discussing relationships between private and public spaces in the city—the reciprocity between them and how urban lives are shaped by both. Amidst the incredible need for broader access to and variety of housing in NYC, the panel asks: "What does it mean to create spaces that are not only affordable and functional, but also joyful, safe, sustainable, and ours?"

2. October 16: Softening the Grid: A Conversation with Emily Velez Nelms and David Lisbon

Emily Velez Nelms' practice explores themes of voyeurism and memory through immersive, multimedia works. I'm interested to learn more about her work and hear this conversation about the seen/unseen forces in shared urban settings, particularly through the lens of cultural tourism in southern Florida where Nelms grew up.

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3. October 18: Building of the Day: Jack Shainman Gallery Tour

The photos of this new gallery in the McKim, Mead & White Clock Tower Building in Tribeca look awesome with its carefully inserted new volumes within the massive, marble-clad space. I'm curious to see architect Gloria Vega Martín's renovation up close and check out how those new elements interact with the ornate, gilded interiors and coffered ceiling of the impressive banking hall. Also curious to learn more about the multi-year process with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to make it happen.

4. October 21: Visiting Lecture | Mary Miss and Bryony Roberts in Conversation

I'm looking forward to Miss' lecture and her conversation with Roberts, who I'm fortunate to know as a collaborator and friend. Mary Miss' work is compelling in the way that it moves between art, architecture, urbansim, and landscape, exploring themes of temporality, agency, feminism, and collaboration amongst people and nature.

5. October 25: Feminism and Fortune Telling: Women of the Lower East Side Trolley Tour

What's better for spooky season than true stories about witches?! Or rather, the entrepreneurism of working class, immigrant women fortune-tellers who were targeted and marginalized for their autonomy and countercultural ways. Expert and author of Mortimer and the Witches, Marie Carter, will tell the tale...