Jimenez Lai will be the third speaker for Seriously Cute, the RSA/RDA Fall 2015 Lecture Series.

Cute architecture? How could architecture — the embodiment of order, permanence, and bigness — be cute? Then again, read any post or tweet about the influence of technology; the common refrain is that the world is getting smaller, faster, and more complicated. Design and construction are impacted; but new tools alone are no assurance of innovation. For that, architecture must find relevance in a world changed by technology.

To keep up, those strong, enduring assumptions about architecture are shifting, and a less tended pillar—delight—is staging a comeback. Even in architecture, little things have influence, the nimble need not be facile, and the big picture just might be low-res. A new repertoire for a small, complex and dynamic world is surfacing, and some of it is Seriously Cute.