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March 11, 2026
Abstract
This lecture, “The Architecture of Erratics and the Vanishing Cryosphere,” will explore the ways humans and glaciers imprint themselves upon emerging landscapes to unearth the expanding realm of places, identities, and landforms negotiating the precarities of a post-glacial world. From site-specific landscape interventions and new approaches to drawing glaciers to the anticipatory staging of scenarios, these research and design projects bring together archival research, urban analysis, and fieldwork with technological experimentation and artistic practice to draw architectural lessons for shaping new worlds and ways forward.
Bio
Joyce Hsiang is an architect, urbanist and an assistant professor at Yale School of Architecture. She co-founded the research and design studio, Plan B Architecture & Urbanism, to anticipate and rehearse new relationships between humans and the earth. Her work uses cartographic analysis, design experimentation, and architectural implementation to examine how humans have transformed the earth and to reimagine design at the planetary scale. Projects range from immersive exhibitions and landscape installations to urban plans and global models of urbanization. Joyce has exhibited worldwide including La Biennale Architettura di Venezia (2021 & 2025), Lisbon Triennial, Istanbul Biennial, and Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale as well as in Switzerland, Iceland, Abu Dhabi and at universities including Yale, Princeton, and Arkansas. Awards include grants and fellowships from Yale Planetary Solutions, MacDowell, the AIA Latrobe Prize, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Hines Research Grant for Advanced Sustainability, MacMillan Center, the Franke Program in Science and Humanities as well as the inaugural Miller Prize from Exhibit Columbus. Her work and writing has been featured in diverse forums from Atlantic Cities, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio program Future Tense, the Arctic Circle Assembly and Kulturplatz SRF to Log, [bracket], New Geographies, Al Manakh, Los Angeles Forum, and Wallpaper*.