This fall, two exhibitions will bring more than a century of architectural ideas into conversation.

At the Village of Industry and Art, DesignPhiladelphia’s The Architecture of Us looks at one of Philadelphia’s most familiar architectural forms, the rowhome, and asks how the city might adapt it for a changing population. Opening October 1, the exhibition features the history of the Philadelphia rowhome styles that make up our urban fabric, award-winning work from the 2025 Stewardson Design Competition and the national Single Stair Competition winners, alongside housing models that explore more connected and attainable ways to live.

A day later, at Carpenters’ Hall, the 2026 Stewardson competition exhibition, Grounds for Debate, will open with a different question: how can architecture create better spaces for civic life? Centered in the Historic District and timed with the 250th anniversary of the United States, this year’s competition asks emerging architects to imagine a place for gathering, debate, disagreement, listening, and collective imagining.

Together, the exhibitions offer two perspectives on a shared question: How can architecture help us live together?
 

From the rowhome to the civic space

The Architecture of Us begins at home.

Philadelphia’s rowhomes have housed generations of families, welcomed newcomers, and shaped the character of neighborhoods across the city. Today, the city faces a housing shortage alongside growing concerns about isolation and affordability. The exhibition looks at how familiar housing patterns could evolve through small-scale housing types such as accessory dwelling units, co-housing, and single-stair apartment buildings.

The 2025 Stewardson entries featured in the exhibition expand that conversation, offering architectural ideas for housing that supports connection while maintaining the human scale of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.

Grounds for Debate takes the conversation into public space.

For the 2026 competition, participants were asked to design an architectural intervention at Independence Mall that supports the messy, essential work of democracy. The proposals consider what it means to create a space where people can gather, listen, disagree, debate, and imagine a shared future.

The scale changes, but the underlying question remains familiar. Architecture creates the places where people encounter one another, whether that happens across a shared wall, on a neighborhood block, or in one of the country's most significant civic spaces.

A tradition of imagining Philadelphia's future

Both exhibitions also offer a glimpse into the ongoing legacy of the John Stewardson Memorial Fellowship in Architecture.

Stewardson was an emerging Philadelphia architect when he died tragically in the Schuylkill River in 1896 at age 37. The fellowship established in his memory has supported emerging architects for more than a century, challenging each generation to think critically about architecture and the world it serves. More than 100 years later, the questions have changed with the city but the purpose remains the same.

Two exhibitions. One city.

The Architecture of Us and Grounds for Debate move conversations forward about what is best for our city and its communities.

One asks how we can create places where people can live with greater connection. The other asks how we can create places where people can come together, even when they disagree.

Both point toward a broader role for architecture in Philadelphia: creating the physical conditions for people to build lives, encounter one another, and participate in the life of their city.
 

The Architecture of Us
Opening October 1, 2026

On view October 1–31, 2026
Village of Industry and Art
320 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia
10 a.m.–5 p.m., with exceptions for evening events
Presented by AIA Philadelphia, Community Design Collaborative, and DesignPhiladelphia.

Grounds for Debate
Opening October 2, 2026
2026 Stewardson Design Competition exhibition

On view October 2-11, 2026
Opening Reception October 2, 6-8 p.m.
Carpenters’ Hall
320 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia