Lectures

At this year’s World Cities Day held in Bogotá, Colombia, BIG NYC Associate Jeremy Alain Siegel presented strategies for integrating sustainability, climate adaptation, and nature into urban design. Aligned with the 2025 theme “People-Centered Smart Cities,” Jeremy focused on BIG’s coastal resilience proposal for Lower Manhattan, the BIG U – a 10-mile system of flood and storm protection developed after Superstorm Sandy – as a leading example of combining social infrastructure with climate-responsive design.

Organized by UN-Habitat, World Cities Day is held annually on October 31 to raise awareness and inspire action toward inclusive, future-ready, and sustainable cities.

During Salone del Mobile 2025 – Milan’s annual Design Week – Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director of BIG, was invited to speak at Drafting Futures. Conversations about Next Perspectives. The conversation between Bjarke and Annalisa Rosso, Salone’s Editorial Director & Cultural Events Advisor, centered around Bjarke’s approach to design, which transcends functionality to actively shape the human experience, and how materiality, technology, and human interaction can redefine the future of urban planning.