RECORD Hosts Chicago Edition of Sustainability in Practice Conference
A highlight of the Sustainability in Practice conference was a panel discussion moderated by RECORD editor-in-chief Josephine Minutillo that featured Jeanne Gang, founding partner of Studio Gang; Thomas Robinson, founding principal of Lever Architecture; and Andy Groarke, and Kevin Carmody, directors of Carmody Groarke (pictured left to right).
The conference's panel discussion with RECORD's Minutillo, joined by Gang, Robinson, Groarke, and Carmody (left to right).
Gang presenting at the conference.
Standing room only for Gang.
Gang meets with conference attendees.
Thomas Robinson, founder of Portland, Oregon-based Lever Architecture.
Kevin Carmody (left) and Andy Groarke, directors of London-based Carmody Groarke.
Dillon Pranger, assistant professor at IIT, where he directs the Deconstruction/Reconstruction Lab.
Panel discussion moderated by Minutillo (not visible) with Gang (obscured), Robinson, Groarke, and Carmody (left to right).
Standing room only for Gang.
Robinson, Groarke, and Carmody (left to right); Sustainability in Practice audience members.
Reed Kroloff, dean, Rowe Family College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, greets conference attendees.
Jeanne Gang presents at the conference.
A conference audience member asks a question.
On September 10th, nearly 200 architects and architecture students and faculty converged at Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago for Architectural Record’s Sustainability in Practice (SiP) conference. The day-long event, produced in collaboration with IIT’s college of architecture, began with Dean Reed Kroloff reminding attendees about the clarity of Crown Hall’s structural concept, how its vast column-free space is enabled by four massive steel girders, from which the building is suspended. “It was built to teach,” he said. What followed was an impressive roster of speakers—including Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang founding partner; Kevin Carmody and Andy Groarke, cofounders of Carmody Groarke; Thomas Robinson, founding principal of Lever Architecture; and Dillon Pranger, director of IIT’s Deconstruction/Reconstruction Lab—focusing on topics ranging from circular materials to mass timber to “architectural grafting” (AKA adaptation and reuse). Photos from the SiP conference, which was preceded by RECORD’s 2025 Women in Architecture Awards, also held at Crown Hall the prior evening, can be viewed in the gallery above.
Last week’s event was RECORD’s fourth SiP conference since 2023, but its first in Chicago. The previous three have been held in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Stay tuned for details on the next one, slated for early 2026, when we will return to MIT and Cambridge.
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