Archtober Returns This Fall for Its 15th Edition
The 2025 cycle of Archtober theme, Shared Spaces, celebrates urban public space and those who create and inhabit it.
Mark your calendars: Archtober, an annual architecture and design festival organized by the AIA New York Center for Architecture, returns at the start of October and runs through the entire month.
Now in its 15th year, attendees can expect, like past iterations, a packed schedule, with goings-on across all five boroughs. Free and paid offerings include daily architect-led building tours, open studios, talks, exhibition launches, parties, and playful diversions such as the second edition of the popular Archtober Postcard Competition and the Pumpkitecture! Architectural Pumpkin-Carving Competition. An extensive list of programming partners—Open House New York, the Van Alen Institute, the Architecture & Design Film Festival, Pratt Institute, the New York Public Library, and scores more—will stage Archtober events. On October 30, RECORD, a media sponsor of Archtober 2025, will return to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan to host the annual Innovation Conference. Confirmed speakers include Craig Dykers, founding partner of Snøhetta; MALL founder Jennifer Bonner; and Amin Taha, chairperson of London-based Groupwork. A full agenda will be announced later this summer.
In addition to the Innovation Conference, events of note include a day-long (out-of-town) celebration of Grace Farms 10th anniversary, featuring architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA (October 11); the Van Alen Fall Fest 2025, held in partnership with Gowanus Open Studios (October 18); a social mixer for architecture and design professionals hosted by the Female Design Council (date to be announced); an opening reception for the Center for Architecture’s fall-winter exhibition, Searching for Superpublics (October 3–March 28); and Open House New York Weekend (October 17–19).
This year’s festival is themed Shared Spaces, which as a press announcement details, “invites participants to re-envision how we move, connect, and live together in New York City.” It extends a generous nod to the “cast of collaborators who are actively shaping and experiencing the city: architecture firms, urban developers, civic organizations, activists, and the public.”
Shared Spaces also ties in with 2025 AIA New York President Benjamin Gilmartin’s presidential theme See You IRL: Designing Public Space and its corresponding event series, Designing for Public Life.
A full list of events will be revealed when the Archtober 2025 website launches on September 3. The Bloomberg Connects app continues its partnership with the festival for a fourth year, hosting the ever-growing Archtober Guide.
We’ll see you in October!
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