Innovation, sustainability, catalysis, multidisciplinarity, diversity, inclusivity, dialogue, community, urgency. Any disparate combination of these words and tenets (a non-exhaustive list) will yield the curatorial note for most architectural and design events and biennials that most of the world is familiar with. The raison d’etre for these recurrent showcases is the fact that design and architecture are often—and especially from a pedagogic perspective—laden with the ‘responsibility’ of innovation of envisioning and implementing a future emancipated from the issues of the present. Architecture and design events, exhibitions and fairs are as much projective exercises as they are reflective. They not only present the world as it should be, but also, through the agency of design, show what it could be.

These nerve centres of design discourse round the year have usually centred on the ‘capitals of design’ in the Western world—evolving from the historical tradition of the Great Exhibitions and Salones—chiefly Milan, London, Paris; all of these boast institutionally backed showcases including Milan Design Week, Maison & Objet, London Design Festival, and the alternating Biennales in Venice; a handful among a growing number of design and architecture displays that bring together galleries, designers and brands to offer ever more aspirational notions of sustainable design and a shared future. Only the ‘best of’ will suffice if humans are to survive.

Apart from pinning the hope of collective, worldly salvation on the next generation, these venues, while claiming to be inclusive and bursting at the seams with instances of the new, the next and the novel, not to mention the re-defined, the re-launched, the re-cycled, often present re-hashed arguments about the climate crisis, or resource parity, that rarely strays from majoritarian and self-reverential perspectives. “In architecture particularly, the dominant voice has historically been a singular, exclusive voice whose reach and power ignores huge swathes of humanity, financially, creatively, conceptually. It is in this context particularly that exhibitions matter. They are a unique moment in which to augment, change or retell a story whose impact is felt well beyond the walls or spaces that hold it,” Lesley Lokko proclaimed at the start of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, arguing for the fertile ground provided by such expos, able to hold the powers that be accountable while calling for mutual solidarity. The centre can no longer hold.

It is this discontent with a fatigued design pedagogy that has led several design events to increasingly look to specific and carefully curated programming in the last few years. This year alone saw many events disseminating architectural production, acknowledging that to be more equitable and responsive, architecture and design have to work with, and not for, nature, ecologies and the community.

A sizeable majority of these events, with their specificity of programme, also provided views from the ‘margins’, the road not taken by modernity, if you will. Spotlighting topics as vast as the Anthropocene, the issues of production and reproduction in architecture and even the mistakes of the modernist project, the programmes of these showcases demonstrated a way of doing that goes beyond the built. Instead, here, architecture as forms of speculation, research and storytelling, architectures rooted in context and territory and architectures of repair and care abounded.

Apart from the more theoretical aspect of these displays, they were also instrumental in positioning the cities they were located in within the wider world of design, constructing meanings of place and activating places that are actively othered by being termed ‘developing’. A lot of them took place in UNESCO-listed heritage sites. The context and narratives of such displays, hence, become as vital to their success as the creativity of individual practitioners taking part in them. Most imperatively, the nature of these exhibitions provides a way to conceive architecture through the lens of de-escalation and de-growth through their restrained outputs, particularly important for an increasingly resource-deficit world.

In the year that has passed, STIR's editorial had the opportunity to position biennales and shows that de-centre commonly held perspectives on architecture and design. Reflecting on these, we explore the events that looked at and were situated beyond mainstream discussions on sustainability and practised responsibility towards the planetary as the best of 2024.

1. Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Estonia

Staged at the Estonian Centre for Architecture in Tallinn from October 9-December 1, 2024, this year’s edition of the Tallinn Architecture Biennial presented versions of and justifications towards ‘Resources for a Future’. The curatorial theme examined and reconstructed the role of architecture programmes in a world defined by crises, questioning, “How [can we] conceive and construct an architectural program that remains stabilising enough to support architecture amidst ever-changing environmental conditions in perpetual crisis?”

In its seventh iteration, the architecture biennale in Estonia hosted a diverse programme, with the core focus being modes of operation for practitioners within increasingly unstable and deficient conditions. The various participants highlighted the relevance and resourcefulness of working with local contexts, techniques of reuse and repurposing and indigenous knowledge through three main events—a curatorial exhibition, a symposium and an installation showcase.

2. Beta - the Timișoara Architecture Biennale, Romania

The central architectural exhibition for the fifth edition of the Timișoara Architecture Biennale, on view from September 13 - October 27, 2024 in Romania was centred on the theme ‘cover me softly’ under the curatorship of New York-based architect Oana Stănescu. Taking the idea of covers (musical as well as enclosures), the event examined the many entanglements of ideas, systems and entities that work toward the production and re-production of architecture, design and art. Looking at and rethinking the act of production through a multidisciplinary approach, the festival included 70 architects, designers, musicians, artists, activists, photographers, writers and directors whose work is difficult to categorise.

The major objective, to foster interdisciplinary dialogue between different modes of practice and production, moved away from the idea of sole genius and a solution-based model prevalent when dealing with architecture and design. Instead, Beta attempted to highlight processes of making and thinking with contexts that are local and what this approach might entail for designers. Apart from an extensive showcase, the programme included film screenings and musical performances, adding to the many definitions of the theme. While abundant, the thematic variation made the programme particularly relevant.

3. International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2024, the Netherlands

‘The Nature of Hope’, that which we hold onto and that which drives innovation in design formed the basis for the Nieuwe Instituut's biannual design showcase, the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2024. Deconstructing notions of nature and hope, the programme (from June 29 –October 13, 2024) aimed to foster the potential of spatial design to move towards an architecture of ecologies.

The biennale in Rotterdam proposed an architectural imaginary that could recognise and respond to the current planetary conditions through alternative modes of being. Comprising three main events—an eponymous exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, a green route that connected various Botanical Monuments, and an extensive public schedule including talks and workshops—the biennale celebrated promising narratives for sustainable architecture that envision our relationship with nature as a reciprocal one. The exhibition dwelled on practice-based examples that explore emerging questions and new directions for spatial design, conceived by architects in collaboration with ecologists, philosophers, scientists and artists, while the symposium programme grounded these in real-world stories and theoretical speculation.

4. Tbilisi Architecture Biennial, Georgia

Currently in its fourth edition, this year’s Tbilisi Architecture Biennial proposed an exploration of ‘Correct Mistakes’ through its curatorial theme. While the programme incorporated an extensive exhibition that responded to the theme through models, research and installations, the schedule also made space for screenings, talks, workshops and ‘toxic tours’. These tours were conceived by the curators to present different stories about polluted and damaged places in different areas of Tbilisi.

Through the selected projects, the artistic directors of the biennale (on view between September 28 and October 19, 2024), Tinatin Gurgenidze, Otar Nemsadze and Gigi Shukakidze opened up a multiplicity of perspectives to understand the relationships between climate and the ‘disregard for climate change’, and the extraction and appropriation of resources, with the starting point being Georgia. The specificity and concern with the local context are noteworthy here, with the biennale critically examining forgotten ecologies and how landscapes are exploited for profit, positioning the urgent role and responsibility of architects, urban actors and activists in preserving urban commons.

The mistakes of the curatorial theme are reflected in these acts of exploitation and misappropriation. However, instead of asking for accountability for the past, the various projects demonstrate instances that work to correct these mistakes, a more hopeful than dour tone.

5. Sydney Design Week, Australia

The 28th edition of the annual Sydney Design Week presented a regimented (bordering on frugal) programme this year. The schedule included talks, visits and workshops that dwelled ‘In Between Worlds.’ Going beyond the realm of mere practice to engage with architecture as storytelling, speculation and bodies of research was the primary goal for the week-long design programme. Events were positioned across Sydney from September 13 – 19, 2024, bringing together multiple perspectives from designers pushing the boundaries of practice and their versions of world-building.

Carving out spaces of belonging, inclusivity and connection that hoped to break from the ongoing effects of (post) imperialism, the deleterious effects of the Anthropocene and pressing inequalities (social, economic and racial), the talks looked at ways to think with/alongside/otherwise to build upon a more hopeful future. The showcase was presented by Powerhouse, Australia’s largest museum group, with the support of the New South Wales Government, Principal Partners Holdmark Property Group, Foundational University Partners University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University, Festival Partners City of Parramatta and digital partners STIR.

6. Dundee Design Festival, Scotland

From September 23 - 29, 2024, Dundee Design Festival spotlighted pioneering Scottish design, with a particular focus on craftsmanship. Scotland has historically had an intrinsic connection to craft, reflected in Dundee’s thriving textile scene. With a focus on the fine act of making by hand and a certain understatedness to design production, the festival was a nod to the veritable advantages of smallness in scale of design. As part of its diverse programme, the design week boasted installations, interactive sessions with designers, talks and workshops, along with specially-curated exhibitions including BOOKENDS comprising 20 new eponymous objects commissioned to different designers and HYPER-LOCAL, which provided a more international platform for design, bringing together works from seven other UNESCO Cities of Design. The platforming of a city such as Dundee for an extensive design programme such as the design festival, adds to the idea that the centre of design is shifting, putting the light away from centres such as London, and focusing on the esoteric but also the novel.

STIRred 2024 wraps up the year with curated compilations of our expansive art, architecture and design coverage at STIR this year. Did your favourites make the list? Tell us in the comments!