Keynote speaker September 2026

Talbot Sweetapple

Principal
MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects Limited

Regionalism as resistance: Reclaiming meaning in an era of global sameness

Join us at Design Experience in September to explore how architecture can reclaim depth, identity, and meaning in an era of global sameness by grounding design in the specifics of place, craft, and connection.

Drawing on the work of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, it asks what happens when climate, geology, and landscape are treated not as constraints but as primary design intelligence; when building traditions and material practices are seen as carriers of cultural memory rather than obstacles to innovation; and when architecture is understood as a way of strengthening relationships between people, land, and collective history. It is a call to rethink regional practice not as nostalgia, but as a contemporary and resilient form of architectural resistance—rooted, intelligent, and deeply necessary.

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