In this third of five online events, we explored possible ways that architecture can help to build positive interactions between tourist and host communities. The Urgent Situation team plus David Gianotten, Managing Partner-Architect at world-leading architectural firm OMA, Eleena Jamil, founder and owner of Eleena Jamil Architect (EJA), one of Malaysia’s leading architectural practices and the writer and curator Shumon Basar, co-author together with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist of the books, The Extreme Self: Age of You (2021) and The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present (2015) probed the ways that tourist architecture and design shape visitors’ understandings of and interactions with local communities, culture and ecologies.

The event included a short presentation by each panellist, a panel discussion moderated by Vere Van Gool, curator, writer and former Associate Director and Curator at New Museum’s IdeasCity program in New York (2015-2020), followed by audience Q&A.