Archinect City Guide returns with an architect's perspective of Chicago! Our guide this time is Ann Lui, Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Michigan's Taubman College and one of the two founding principals (with Craig Reschke) of the architecture and design research office Future Firm based in the Windy City. Lui was a co-curator of the 'Dimensions of Citizenship' 2018 U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and Archinectors may also remember our Next Up: Exhibit Columbus podcast interview and the Studio Snapshot special with Future Firm. For our City Guide, Lui shares her insider tips on which Chi-Town eateries, bars, cafés, bookstores, and museums might be especially interesting for architects and designers visiting the city.  Are you a Chicago local with your own go-to spots? Or have a city you think we should cover next? Share your thoughts, suggestions, and favorite places in the comments.

In this episode of our Studio Snapshot series, Archinect connected with James Leng and Jennifer Ly, founding partners of Figure. While formally based in San Francisco, the studio enjoys great structural liberty by working mostly remotely — a strategy reflected in the geographic variety of the young firm's work.  Both partners bring a highly impressive portfolio of academic accolades to their practice, including the Burnham Prize, SOM Foundation Research Prize, Vilcek Prize, Rotch Travelling Scholarship, James Templeton Kelley Prize, Harvard’s Department of Architecture Faculty Design Award, and the Harry der Boghosian Teaching Fellowship (avid Archinect readers will remember our Fellow Fellows feature interview with James Leng on the outcome of his fellowship at Syracuse). Our conversation touches on the question of becoming a specialist vs. a jack of all typologies, how high costs affect the way they build, and what they value in new hires. (Figure is currently hiring a Job Captai...

Archinect is very excited to reintroduce Archinect Meets, our popular series of conversations with social media's leading architecture-focused tastemakers, curators, creatives, and influencers. — What inspires them? How do they choose their topics? Is social media shaping their view of architecture? — We'll cover these and many more questions in our lineup of must-know interview guests. In today's episode, we had the pleasure of chatting with Nino Ferrari-Mathis, better known as the host and creative mind behind his wildly popular Instagram account @ninosbuildings. For nearly 100 posts, he's allowed us fascinating access to stunning buildings around the world, taking us on entertaining video tours inside — and chatting with the architects of — some of our favorite designs.

Archinect's latest Studio Snapshot features the New York/Madrid outfit salazarsequeromedina. Founded in 2020 by Laura Salazar, Pablo Sequero, and Juan Medina, the firm has emerged on the international scene, culminating in recognition as one of six Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers winners for 2025. In our conversation, Sequero, who is currently a visiting critic at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, talks about how they integrate their collaborative approach into practice, their work in Peru, Spain, and the U.S., and the qualities salazarsequeromedina looks for in new hires aligned with their "playful, open-ended, conscious" culture.