2025 Year End Message from Building Beauty
As 2025 comes to a close, we at Building Beauty can report our 2025-26 academic year is well underway and thriving with an exceptional class. We have made progress with spreading the word about what the program offers, and how people can get involved. Old and new collaborations with other institutions are taking shape to expand our reach into architecture education.
Our cooperation with the University of Hartford in Connecticut is going strong. We had 11 students from the architecture department take The Nature of Order course this semester. We are establishing a Study Abroad program in Sorrento with Hartford for Spring term 2027.
We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bin Jiang’s LivableCityLab at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou campus).
We participated in the International Making Cities Liveable (IMCL) conference 2025 in Potsdam, Germany, with a workshop allowing people to encounter and work with the concepts of Centers and Structure Preserving Transformations.
Isabel Potworowski, Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati, presented a paper about the Building Beauty Studio at the Architecture Media Politics Society (AMPS) conference on Pedagogy 2025 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oh_5fPyvts).
Posted to our new BB Youtube channel (www.youtube.com/@BuildingBeautyArchitecture) is a tour of the Medlock-Graham House, which now has 115,000 views. Also posted there are two videos with graduates of the program describing what the experience meant to them. We are developing more videos to show how the program works and plan to post them in January 2026.
We are collaborating with Angus Stocking and his Everything is Somewhere podcast on a series of in depth discussions about Building Beauty’s program with more to come. These episodes are now available:
#23 - Yodan Rofe on teaching The Nature of Order,
#22 - Susan Ingham on our Studio course,
#19 - James Maguire, on how Christopher Alexander’s ideas helped him bridge architecture, philosophy, mathematics and art.
#17 - Maggie Moore Alexander and Yodan Rofe on the mission of Building Beauty.
#14 - Jenny Quillien, architecture and anthropology, focusing on Alexander’s ideas about living structures.
If you’d like to be advised of new podcasts coming up, subscribe to the podcast and give Angus feedback here. It would also help both him and Building Beauty if you share these podcasts with your friends and colleagues.
We wrote to you earlier this year about Nico Lofredo-Rota, our student in Ecuador, and his plan to develop a “forest neighborhood” on his family’s land in Quito. His Studio project to design and build the first permanent structure is underway with the House for Oneself Project, and will continue into the Spring term’s Independent Project. Your support of our Scholarship fund makes this possible.
How can you help?
· Become a member and pay your annual dues. The Annual membership fee is 25 Euros. If you’ve taken one of our classes you’re already a member. All you have to do is to renew your membership by paying the dues. If you’re not a member and would like to be one, write to hello@buildingbeauty.org to receive a membership application form.
· Support Building Beauty by contributing to the Scholarship fund that allows us to work with students who are committed to making change in the world.
· Support Building Beauty with donations to help with the production of videos that promote our message.
Donations can be made here.
· Spread the word about Building Beauty on your social media channels, and with your friends and colleagues.
As always, we appreciate your support.
Wishing you the joys of the season and a happy, healthy New Year.