What does it look like when a generation of architects witness their profession fundamentally change over the course of their training – and, more importantly, what happens when we stop waiting for the industry to catch up and start changing it ourselves?

Freya Bruce, Yes Make at Tipping Point East, giving the 2026 RAI cohort a tour of the site earlier this year.

On Thursday 29th October, Architects Declare’s Next Gen Ambassadors will bring Regenerative Design 2026 to a close with Regenerative Design 2026: What Now?, a conversation bringing together voices from the emerging generation of architects and designers who are championing alternative sustainable practice.

Chaired by Eimear Kernan and Architecture Today’s Nelly Greig, the event will explore how collective action, new forms of practice and student-led initiatives can challenge established approaches to architecture and help shape a different future for the discipline.

The panel reflects the breadth of activity already taking place beyond the conventional structures of architectural practice. Tipping Point East, whose approach demonstrates the potential of collective action to address the environmental and social challenges facing the built environment, will ask what can happen when architects work collaboratively across disciplines, communities and scales, rather than relying on individual practice to deliver change.

EASA is a non-profit, student-led network that brings together architecture students, graduates, architects, artists, designers and creatives to learn outside of formal institutions. Organised around assemblies, each year a different country within the EASA network hosts the main 2-week long summer residency, with other smaller events happening throughout the year. In its 46th year EASA was held in Waterford, Ireland, for over 600 students across Europe.

The organisers of this year’s European Architecture Students’ Assembly, will bring a students perspective to the discussion. EASA provides a particularly relevant example of architecture’s next generation organising itself around shared questions and concerns, creating spaces for experimentation, exchange and collective learning outside traditional educational structures. Their contribution will consider how young architects at the star of their careers can become active agents in shaping the future of the profession rather than simply its future employees.

Rory Thomas has been invited to present his work on Umarell; an architectural publication that highlights radical projects in architecture and adjacent disciplines, offering another perspective on how alternative mediums can reinforce regenerative principles which can be translated into action.

Umarell – a colloquial Italian term for a retired man who spends his time watching construction sites with his hands clasped behind his back, often offering unwanted advice to the workers – was established in Glasgow in 2022. The manifesto set out was to highlight under-represented and radical projects in architecture and all its peripheries to create an accessible publication that would extend the reaches of architectural practice beyond what is the norm to many.

Together, the speakers will demonstrate that there is no single route towards a more regenerative architecture – but that meaningful change depends on questioning the assumptions, structures and practices that have brought the profession to its current position.

The discussion takes as its starting point a simple but urgent proposition: “The status quo is unsustainable.” For the Next Gen Ambassadors, the question is therefore not whether architecture needs to change, but how the next generation can help make that change happen.

The event will conclude with the launch of Future Ancestors, a new resource from Architects Declare’s Next Gen Ambassadors. Bringing together examples of best practice and practical information, the resource aims to help students apply regenerative design principles to university projects and, ultimately, to professional practice.

Regenerative Design 2026: What Now? takes place in the Glass Room on Thursday 29 October, from 2.00pm to 5.00pm.
The event is free to attend.

Regnerative Design: What Now? is part of Regenerative Design 2026, Architecture Today’s month-long programme of exhibitions and events.