Together for a Living Future
By Kira Gould, Hon. AIA
As you consider the learning and gathering opportunities in the year ahead, I’m here to remind you about Living Future. This year, it is in Seattle -- the Pacific Northwest was the first home to the organization and its leading-edge certification program, the Living Building Challenge (which turns 20 later this year -- two decades of pushing boundaries and lifting standards!). Most of you know me as a COTE community member, but I am also a member of Living Future. As such, I’m eager to share a bit about why I will be at Living Future 26 in April in Seattle.
For starters, I’m pretty stoked about the theme: Designing the Next 100 Years. Perhaps it’s not a big shock, since I am someone who thinks about how we are collectively building our thriving future -- in my work and in my volunteer gigs, including my podcast (I’ve been hosting the pod, Design the Future, with Living Future CEO Lindsay Baker since early 2020).
With this theme, Living Future is inviting us to shift our mindsets from urgency to legacy. How will our buildings, communities, and systems look in 2126? What legacies will we leave for future generations of humans and all species? These are topics that I know are compelling to many in the COTE community -- including some of you who are already engaged in Living Future.
Action-Oriented Themes
Here’s a bit of what you will find at the conference:
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Regeneration in Action: Hear changemakers who are designing for today, tomorrow, and the next 100 years.
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Building What’s Next: Join workshops, tours, and sessions where ideas turn into action. Learn regenerative strategies you can put to work now.
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Where Partnerships Start: Meet the people shaping the future of the built environment; architects, builders, manufacturers, policymakers, and more. Spark collaborations that last long after the conference ends.
Regenerative design isn't about knowing the future, but creating the conditions conducive to life (it’s always useful to quote Biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus). Regenerative is a term that many organizations are beginning to use. I believe that the idea of regeneration (and the regenerative practices that it inspires) really calls us to be intentional. At Living Future 26, we will be asking, together: What does it mean to be a good ancestor? How do the places we design today heal past harms and restore balance for what lies ahead?
Compelling Questions
Living Future is asking challenging questions. Here are questions we’ll tackle together at Living Future 2026:
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Radical Climate Action: What would it take to make climate-positive design the baseline for every project?
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Thriving Communities: How do we design buildings that dismantle injustice and nurture belonging and wellbeing?
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Nature as Co-Designer: Must we always trade nature for progress? Or is it time to demand both?
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Catalysts of Transformative Change: What innovations and systemic shifts will rewrite the rules of development?
Part of what this means is continuing the movement building work together, even as we face headwinds. The conference will touch on the collective joy and much more. Baker notes that the event will be “a gorgeous moment to acknowledge progress, celebrate milestones, and build with strength upon that history as we accelerate the progress in the coming years. We can promise that acceleration because we continue to work toward alignment, strategic partnerships, and ways to scale our success.”
What’s on the schedule?
The session schedule has been announced, and it is robust: You can check it out here. I’m especially excited about Building Like Nature with the Power of AI (because I am deeply keen to leverage AI toward key goals)… Healing Homes through an Indigenous Lens (about affordable housing) … The Real Lives of Living Building Operators … and The Carbon Smart Future of Midtown Building Reuse (because material and building reuse are my jam) … but there are a bunch of others that also sound amazing!
Special Offer for COTE news readers
Living Future is offering a time-bound discount to COTE news readers (including AIA members and others): When you register from 12 January (when this issue of COTE news drops) through 28 February using the code COTE150, you will get $150 off a regularly priced LF26 ticket. Register here.
For a special perspective on what it's like to attend Living Future, check out this post about the Materials Summit before Living Future 25 by Laurel Chadzynski: https://loomandlever.substack.com/p/loops-buckets-and-boundaries?r=43whe.
And lastly, if you’ve been thinking of joining Living Future, the conference is a great way to get to know the community! I hope to see you there.