About Summit 2020

Dedicated to discovering and sharing Architecture’s Now, Near, and Next, The World Around convened its first-ever public gathering on January 25, 2020, filling the Renzo Piano–designed TimesCenter in New York City to capacity. This inaugural, day-long conference brought together a truly global roster of practitioners and thinkers from architecture and adjacent fields—including ecology, performance, sculpture, gender studies, cinema, game design, and urban planning. Highlights included Junya Ishigami presenting his Water Garden, David OReilly exploring new digital landscapes, Bruce Mau on design optimism, Elizabeth Diller on the V&A East, and Xu Tiantian on rural regeneration in China’s Songyang County. The summit set the tone for The World Around’s mission: to connect visionary ideas from across disciplines and geographies, illuminating the most urgent and inspiring possibilities for the built environment today.