Future Friday: Los Angeles (VIRTUAL)

Los Angeles has long been shaped as a creative frontier, formed by migration, ambition, and reinvention. As it confronts intensifying wildfires, housing pressures, and cultural transformation, LA offers powerful insight into how communities adapt, build resilience, and create belonging in a city defined by the pursuit of prosperity. This Future Fridays session brings together artists, organizers, and civic voices who are shaping the region’s evolving identity. Through lived experience and conversations, participants will explore how place and identity evolve together to influence opportunity, culture, and community. About the speakers Steven Lewis is an architect, urban designer, facilitator, and a tireless advocate for social justice and diversity within the field of architecture. His current practice, Thinking Leadership, leverages years of experience ranging from architecture and urban design to community engagement and leadership facilitation. He was most recently a principal with the firm ZGF Architects, where he led the Los Angeles office’s urban design practice. Prior to joining ZGF, Steven was appointed by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, to the position of Urban Design Director for the City’s Central Region, where he played a key role in shaping the vision of present and future development. Steven is the AIA 2016 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award recipient, and was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in December of 2015. His desire to make the profession of architecture more accessible to people of all backgrounds led him to run for AIA National President in 2023. While unsuccessful, Steven was able to engage with architects from all around the country and many from abroad to deliver his message of hope and relevance through service to those most in need. In 2008 after serving four years with the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of the Chief Architect in Washington, DC, Steven returned to Southern California to join Parsons as a Design Manager. Steven…