Interested in a subjective, confrontational approach to architecture, Israeli writer-architect Eyal Weizman seeks to expand discourse in his field and put it in dialogue with disciplines like military strategy, forensics, and humanitarian law. In advance of his October 3 lecture, the Walker’s Yesomi Umolu caught up with Weizman to discuss his ideas on confronting politics through architecture.

In its design work and on its blog, Minneapolis’ ROLU explores ideas at the nexus of architecture, landscape design, and conceptual art. Artists-in-residence at Open Field this month, they aim to link the digital and the actual. “We are interested in reaching into [the Web’s] river of images and make something tangible from them,” says ROLU’s Matt Olson. “Creating something physical—taking an action.”

A new kind of planning process is focusing on cultural organizations, creative placemaking, and the insights of artists in order to reinvent downtown Minneapolis’ Hennepin Avenue. In the process, it’s bringing artists to the fore, and developing a sustainable alternative to traditional, big-money revitalization efforts.

A graphic designer, guerrilla artist, and urban planner, Candy Chang has spent the last decade instigating site-specific interventions, from chalk stencils indicating nice spots for trees to a boarded house turned into a chalkboard for New Orleanians to share dreams. In advance of her Minneapolis visit, she paused to discuss street art, listening to community voices, and reclaiming public space.

Uncharted territories, even in a relatively sparsely populated state like Minnesota, are few and far between. But each January, when the average temperature lingers around 7 degrees Fahrenheit, one such place comes into being, briefly, on the frozen surface of Medicine Lake, where artists reimagine ice-fishing shacks as the locus for a vibrant pop-up community.