Produced by Building 21

Projects & Partnerships

We host special long-term projects that run alongside the BLUE Fellowship. Conceptualised, designed, and built at Building 21.

The Future of Cities (2022 - Current)
Reimagining cities that maintain the good. Led by Nakiya Noorbhai.
Radical Futures (2019 - 2023)
A desire to re-invent how we interact with the future. Multi-part project spanning 4 cohorts.
Poetry and VR: “Scène de la Mer” (2023)
A brief, atmospheric poetry experience in French and English, created by scholars at McGill's Building 21.
The "Matterless Matters" Talks (2022 - 2023)
There are some questions that sound pointless, but aren’t. In the Matterless Matters talks, the answers don’t matter very much – but the questions, surprisingly, do.
The "I'm Not Sure" Talks (2022 - 2023)
What is beauty? What is knowledge? Are there limits to human understanding? Can a machine create moving poetry?
EDUHACK Nigeria (2022)
An Educational Hackathon to support transformational ideas in education
Virtual Open House (2022)
Created as part of a summer research project at McGill's Building 21: "Foundations of a Better World"
Poetry and VR: Ollivier Dyens & John Mac Master (2021)
What are poetry and literature when transformed and modified by technology?
Letters From the Future (2020)
Letters from the Future are archeological fragments of a time to come. The future is like quantum theory, all possibilities existing simultaneously until one collapses into an event. These fragments are both.
The BLUE Magazines (2018-2019)
A review of the Summer '18 & '19 BLUE Programs and scholars' projects, produced by Rebecca Brosseau

Podcast

Check out our podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

McGill's Building 21: Thinking beyond the acknowledged, the recognized and the comfortable

Speaker Series

We invite a diverse range of people at the forefront to engage with our community and enrich their pursuits.

Check out the full playlist on YouTube.

Dr. David M. Peña-Guzmán: When Animals Dream
RadicalFutures
Betty Edwards: Learning to Draw for Thinking's Sake
RadicalFutures
Artist Karen Tam: Eating Gold Mountain Dreams
RadicalFutures
Author Alexander Weinstein: Creative Writing Workshop
RadicalFutures
Professor Paula Williams: The Psychology of Awe
RadicalFutures
Professor Darryl Haggard: Observing Black Holes
RadicalFutures
Michael Lapsley: Founder of the Institute for Healing of Memories
RadicalFutures
Prof. Michael Levin: Planarians and Intentionality
RadicalFutures
Professor Leah Price, Author & Book Historian
RadicalFutures
Francesca Panetta, Creative Director at the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality
RadicalFutures
Professor Angus Fletcher: The Brain and Narratives, The Limits of AI
RadicalFutures
Professor Paul Yachnin: "What did we do right?"
RadicalFutures
David Krakauer: President of the Santa Fe Institute
RadicalFutures
Professor Frédéric Gilbert: The Ethics of Implantable Brain-Computer Interfaces
RadicalFutures
Refik Anadol, Media Artist & Director
RadicalFutures
Azeem Azhar, Founder of Exponential View
RadicalFutures

In the News

Read about Building 21's features in the news.

Ôde à la créativité en milieu académique
Le Délit, 2024
Research by Darius Valevicius, a Building 21 alumnus, covered by the Guardian
The Guardian, 2023
Repenser le monde avec Building 21 et Ollivier Dyens
Mon Carnet, 2023
We need boldness and daring in our education system
University Affairs, 2023
Building 21: Make zines, not research papers
Culture Days, 2020
Building 21: An innovative space for academic play
McGill University News and Events, 2019
Introducing Building 21, a building with no structure
The Tribune, 2017
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