May 11, 2024
The World Around 2024

On Saturday May 11, Principals Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg spoke at The World Around Summit 2024 at The Guggenheim.

Watch the recorded livestream here as Jing and Florian share our upcoming housing book and the urgent need to redefine the practice of housing from the quantitative to the qualitative. 

October 26, 2023
Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu in conversation with critic Christopher Hawthorne

Principals and founders of SOIL, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, will join critic Christopher Hawthorne for a discussion about how architecture influences the way we experience art. The talk will take place at the Yale Club of New York City on October 26 at 6pm. 

https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/architects-conversation-build-art-so-il

October 19, 2023
Florian Idenburg to Speak at TONGJI University

SOIL’s Founding Partner and Principal, Florian Idenburg, will be speaking at Tongji University - College of Architecture and Urban Planning on October 19 at 7pm!

October 13, 2023
Florian Idenburg's Lecture at TODAI University in Japan

Florian Idenburg will be lecturing at TODAI University as part of the 2023 Fall Special Event series co-hosted by SEKISUI HOUSE - KUMA LAB. The lecture will take place on the 13th of October at 6pm. 

https://ut-iaep.net/en/

October 10, 2023
Florian Idenburg to Speak at Seoul National University

SOIL’s founder Florian Idenburg will speak at Seoul National University on the 10th of October at 4.30pm. Through the notion of ‘depth’, Idenburg will touch upon some of SOIL’s recently completed projects as well as some in development. 

https://architecture.snu.ac.kr/main/snu-daae-autumn-lecture-series/

August 2, 2023
Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu joining the Armenian Architecture Festival

Florian and Jing are joining the Architecture Festival in Yerevan this week. The Festival will take place on 3-6 August 2023 and has been organized by the NPATAK Foundation with the mission to support the young generation of architects in the region and create a platform for knowledge sharing.

May 17, 2023
Florian Idenburg to Speak at Benaki Museum Athens

April 20, 2023
SOIL in the lecture series at UIC

SOIL will present at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts as a part of the school’s lecture series. Florencia Rodriguez, the school’s director, will lead a conversation after the talk.

https://cada.uic.edu/schedule/lecture-so-il-irl/

April 16, 2023
SOIL at DROPCITY Center for Architecture and Design in Milan

March 27, 2023
SOIL in the lecture series at Auburn University

March 26, 2023
Florian Idenburg and Aaron Betsky discuss about the design of the workspace

Most people today spend a third of their lives sleeping, a third of their lives living, and a third of their lives working. Our work environments significantly impact our lives. For centuries, designers, philosophers, and management experts have debated how best to design our workspaces. The recent pandemic has also considerably shaped our ideas about how to work.

In his new book, The Office of Good Intentions: Human(s) Work architect Florian Idenburg examines this history and offers some design thoughts of his own. 

A critic of art, architecture, and design, Aaron Betsky is the author of over 20 books on those subjects, including Fifty Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright (2021) and the forthcoming books The Monster Leviathan: Anarchitecture, Re-Imagining Buildings and Re:Assemble. Betsky recently reviewed Idenburg’s book, and the two will continue the conversation in this captivating program at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Pete.

We sometimes take for granted that everything around us, if not part of nature, has been “designed,” from the phone in your hand to the road you drive on to the workspace you may spend a third of your life in. The By Design series will look at the world around us and the impact design has on the way we live.

https://mfastpete.org/event/office-space/

March 17, 2023
Florian Idenburg spoke with Shohei Shigematsu at AIA Louisiana

Symposium: Leading Time

Operating in a profession built around planning, scheduling, and projecting the outcome of projects years in advance, architects are naturally inclined to be optimistic and forward-thinking. The speakers at Celebrate Architecture 2023 possess an outsized interest in interrogating their roles in the construction of the future. Generating novel, and often unexpected, relationships in their work, it appears as though OMA and SOIL are setting precedents more often than referencing them. The recent Guggenheim exhibition “Countryside: The Future,” curated by OMA’s founder Rem Koolhaas, exemplifies the investigatory process that the office undergoes while evaluating the broader contextual impact of the practice’s historically metropolitan focus. Likewise, the enigmatic leading statement in SOIL’s bio, “we produce future culture,” should emphasize the easily overlooked truth that what is shaped today influences the behaviors of tomorrow. LA Tech’s Will Doss explores the role of technology as an investigator and mediator in new procedural methods for project development. CA23: Leading Time features speakers engaged in the practice of holding the future front-of-mind, and asks that attendees do the same.

Full Press Release

February 21, 2023
Elastic and inclusive. Jing Liu presents SOIL at POSITION China

弹性,包容,有趣:SO – IL的“简章”

Jing Liu, the partner of SOIL, presented the lecture “Elastic and inclusive. SOIL: An Overview” on February 21, 2023, as part of the POSITION Lectures series. Jing thoroughly presented the design ethos of the studio, focusing on the studio’s history and recent projects across the globe.

https://www.archiposition.com/items/730b002369

February 15, 2023
Jing and Florian at The Dallas Architecture Forum

Jing and Florian presented SOIL in the Dallas Architecture Forum as a part of the 2023 Lecture series.

https://dallasarchitectureforum.org/so-il/

July 28, 2022
Jing and Florian at Monterey Design Conference 2022

Jing and Florian spoke at the famed Monterey Design Conference this fall, a gathering which brings together architects in an informal setting on the Pacific Ocean. 

For more info: http://www.montereydesignconference.com/

February 11, 2021
SOIL in Conversation with the director of Beijing’s UCCA, Phillip Tinari

In conversation with Philip Tinari, director of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, SOIL presented recent and under construction work in Shanghai and New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z-kTq4h-C4

September 29, 2020
The Role of Artistic Interventions in Architecture. WAC’s Live Interview

In WAC’s new Live Session, Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg will discuss the role of artistic interventions in architecture and contribution to the identity of cultural institutions exploring dynamics between active participants, the building itself and the public space.

The session, themed as “The Role of Artistic Interventions in Architecture”, will explore the latest works of SOIL: Murmuration and Beeline, while discussing other works and design approach of the studio. 

https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/egzfv/soil-founders-to-discuss-the-role-of-artistic-interventions-in-architecture-in-wac-s-live-interview.html

September 9, 2020
Design in Dialogue #57: Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu

Frame 5

Inaugurated on April 1, 2020, Design in Dialogue is a series of online interviews hosted alternately by curator and historian Glenn Adamson (Wednesdays) and designer Stephen Burks (Fridays). Conversations are held on Zoom for 1 hour, beginning at 11AM EASTERN STANDARD TIME, including a participatory Q&A. Please join leading voices from the field — designers, makers, critics, and curators — as they discuss their work and ideas.

Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu of the architecture and design firm SOIL discussed their international practice, which ranges across scales from the object to the city. Whether designing seating or an entire museum, SOIL’s work is always activated by the core principle of increasing public awareness about our social and physical surroundings.

Watch the recording here: https://vimeo.com/456239963

Follow Design in Dialogue here: http://www.friedmanbenda.com/exhibitions/current/design-in-dialogue 

April 20, 2020
SOIL Attended 2020 Virtual Design Festival

Running from 15 April to 10 July 2020, Virtual Design Festival was the world’s first online design festival. SOIL participated in a live interview with MAAT executive director, Beatrice Leanza, and Dezeen’s founder and editor-in-chief, Marcus Fairs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q3tvkmdzQA