How might a world beyond gendered binaries actually reshape our built environment? What are the archival histories of this world? How can critiques of normative structures inform new interpretations of the built environment? And how might such ideas lead to less static planning frameworks and defy dominant planning histories and logics of (re)production?

The 2024 Toolkit for Today explores imaginative, material, and methodological paths to collectively navigate how queer and trans* theory can offer critiques of power that allow for the revision of some of the core concepts and ontologies of architectural history. Cross Wor(l)ds/Queer Wor(l)ds is organized in collaboration with a group of researchers invested in the historical intersections of architecture, urbanism, and the built environment. The collaborative group includes S.E. Eisterer, Favor Idika, and Janus Lafontaine Carboni, Sergio Villanueva Preston, and Malcolm Rio. The program extends over five days during the week of 22 July and is anchored by a public event on the evening of 25 July.

This Toolkit for Today accounts for the fact that global narratives on queer spaces are direly needed in architecture discourse and practice alongside concepts and methods that have emerged beyond and in addition to those advanced in Europe and the United States. Participants in the CCA’s Doctoral Research Residency Program engage with ideas that stem from queer diasporic thought, Indigenous gender/sex systems, global south-south movements, and anti-colonial thought, as well as queer and trans* theory to build cross wor(l)ds that can respond to affirmative and inclusive worldbuilding practices. The topics of the first part of the week is anchored by an engagement with archives and stories, including how states and empires construct notions of sex, gender, and sexuality. Participants then move to discussions about queer environments and infrastructure, and finally notions of practice and pedagogy framed through perspectives from queer diasporic thought. In addition to the collaborative group above, contributors to the 2024 Toolkit for Today include Lafayette Cruise, Sage Gerson, Brian Horton, Davy Knittle, Mehammed Mack, Mary Pena, SA Smythe, Paul Soulellis, and Olivier Vallerand.

The Toolkit for Today workshop is made possible in part by the support of Jean Labatut Memorial Fund through Princeton University’s School of Architecture.