Beyond the Building: Architecture, Agency and Urban Change

You are cordially invited to attend the lecture by Daliana Suryawinata:

Date: 19 Oct 2026
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Venue: SDE3 Level 4, LT426

Beyond the Building: Architecture, Agency and Urban Change

Through SHAU’s projects, I argue that architectural agency is more than the capacity to design: it also means shaping the conditions that enable architecture to drive environmental and social change. The microlibraries’ context-sensitive interventions provide a testing ground for urban acupuncture, bringing communities, government, sponsors, manufacturers, and other stakeholders together to identify opportunities, mobilise resources, and realise projects. In Kampung Mrican, the focus shifted from individual buildings to the relationships among architecture, public space, infrastructure, ecology, and the urban fabric. At a different scale, complex commissions—including the 14.8-hectare Vice Presidential Palace in Nusantara and the 44,000 sqm RuBIK Performing Arts Centre in Jakarta—require simultaneous negotiation of environmental, social, institutional, and architectural ambitions. The knowledge generated through this practice and research also informs my teaching, where I bring these methods of inquiry, engagement, testing, and negotiation into the design studio.

Daliana Suryawinata is co-founder of SHAU, an architecture and urban design practice established in Rotterdam in 2009 and in Bandung in 2015. Her practice has delivered internationally recognised projects ranging from microlibraries and public spaces to cultural facilities and major government commissions. Her practice-based PhD at RMIT examined how architects initiate, design, secure funding, construct and sustain public projects through stakeholder engagement and architectural agency, using SHAU’s microlibraries as case studies.

Before founding SHAU, she worked at OMA Rotterdam, MVRDV and West8. She has taught at TU Delft and the Berlage Institute, curated and lectured internationally, and is currently Associate Professor in Practice at Monash University Indonesia. Daliana also co-founded the Liveable Cities Diaspora platform and the Microlibrary Foundation. SHAU has received numerous awards, including Seoul Design Award 2026, the Ammodo Award for Social Architecture 2025, ARCASIA Gold Award 2024 and Holcim Asia Pacific Award 2017, and has been shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Daliana is featured in RIBA’s 100 Women Architects in Practice (2024).