PRS Europe Opening Event & Keynote Address

Join us from 6:30 pm for refreshments to celebrate the opening of PRS Europe May 2025! 

The formalities will commence at 7:00pm with a welcome from PRS Europe Chair Fleur Watson, School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT Australia and Dr Marta Fernandez, Executive Director, RMIT Europe. This will then be followed by a keynote address by Dr. Harriet Harriss, Pratt Institute.

Architectures of Solastalgia: Climate Grief, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Posthuman Futures explores the entangled affective, spatial, and philosophical dimensions of living through ecological collapse. Grounded in interdisciplinary inquiry, this keynote examines how individuals and communities—both human and more-than-human—navigate experiences of grief, loss, mourning, and resistance in response to accelerating climate breakdown. Engaging with Indigenous epistemologies & posthumanist theory the talk considers how architectures—both literal and conceptual—can hold space for collective reckoning, resilience, and the reimagining of relational futures amidst planetary crisis. 

Dr. Harriet Harriss, (ARB, RIBA, (Assoc.)AIA, PFHEA, FRSA, Ph.D) is a tenured Professor at Pratt Institute, NYC and a Public Director of the AIANY. An award-winning educator, researcher, writer, and UK-qualified architect, Dr. Harriss has established an international reputation for pioneering spatial scholarship that draws upon queer, feminist, post-humanist, and anti-colonial theories at the intersection of social and climate justice.The author of 10 successful books and contributor to over 20 other publications, Dr. Harriss’ most recent texts include Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South and, Architects Afterlife: the multi-sector Impact of an Architecture Degree - the latter funded by a 330,000-Euro Erasmus Plus research grant.  Her most recent title - 100 Women Architects in Practice - was voted by Dezeen Magazine as one of the Top 10 Architecture and Design Books 2024. 

Location: Colegio de Arquitectos de Cataluña (COAC) Plaça Nova, 5, Ciutat Vella, 08002 Barcelona, Spain 

Please note this event will be delivered in English.