On October 29 and 30, the 2025 edition of AZURE’s Human/Nature Conference is taking place at Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works. Returning for its second year, with tickets on sale now, the two-day event brings together architects, urbanists, designers and other innovators – as well as activists, environmentalists and business leaders – to motivate greater collaboration and share proven approaches to greener products, spaces and cities.

In 2025, the Human/Nature Conference builds on the success of last year’s inaugural event. This year, Evergreen’s Don Valley Brick Works offers a distinctly apt setting: a former quarry and heavy industrial site adapted into a resilient yet deeply welcoming multi-use cultural hub. Home to the TD Future Cities Centre, the Brick Works is an evolving exemplar of flood-resilient, climate responsive design — and an international thought leadership hub for sustainable city-building.

This October, the site will be animated by a diverse range of talks, events and activations — including an exhibition developed in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Architecture. While the full set of speakers and event partners is set to be revealed in the weeks to come, the 2025 Human/Nature Conference will convene a range of globally renowned experts — including the first two of our keynote speakers, Lisa Switkin and David Fortin.

A Partner at Field Operations, New York-based Lisa Switkin is a leader within one of the world’s most innovative and paradigmatic landscape architecture and urban design practices. Renowned for bold, transformative design across a variety of project types and scales, her metier ranges from large urban districts and complex post-industrial sites to detailed design projects. With a background in urban planning and landscape architecture, Switkin has helped to reshape public spaces for 25 years, including the design and delivery of the High Line since 2004, Domino Park in Brooklyn, Gansevoort Peninsula in Manhattan, Santa Monica’s Tongva Park, and the transformative master plans for Staten Island’s Freshkills Park, Seattle’s Central Waterfront, and The Underline in Miami.

David Fortin is an architect and Professor at the University of Waterloo. He has taught architectural history, theory, and design in the UK, U.S., and Canada and leads a boutique design practice primarily working with First Nations and Métis communities across Canada. In 2018, he became the first person of Indigenous heritage to direct a school of architecture in Canada, and he is the only person to twice co-curate Canada’s official entry to the Venice Biennale (2018, 2023). Fortin’s research investigates the intersections between Indigenous knowledge, design practice, pedagogy and speculative thinking, while his current teaching focuses on what reconciliation means for design. Born and raised in the Canadian prairies, Fortin is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.

In the coming weeks, we are excited to announce more details about the 2025 Human/Nature conference. In the meantime, our dedicated website is now live, and will be continuously updated in the coming days, and tickets are now available! The site also features a comprehensive look back at last year’s conference, as well as full videos of 10 sessions — including keynote talks by Kongjian Yu and Julia Watson — which are now available to stream via our newly launched continuing education platform, AZURE Learning.

Want to learn more? Our Human/Nature website features our full 2024 agenda, as well as descriptions of every talk and panel discussion from this year’s conference. Have questions? Get in touch at conference@azureonline.com. Thank you to our plenary panel sponsor Formica, and our workshop sponsors Evergreen Brick Works and Scavolini.