French 2D and Future Firm
Part of the 2026 Emerging Voices lecture series.
March 5, 2026
12:30 p.m.
Left: French 2D | Bay State Cohousing, Malden, MA, 2023. Image credit: Naho Kubota; Right: Future Firm, Revolution Workshop | Revolution Workshop, Chicago, IL, 2025. Image credit: Daniel Kelleghan
The Architectural League’s biennial Emerging Voices program spotlights North American architects, landscape architects, and urban designers who have significant bodies of realized work and the potential to influence their field.
Founded in Boston by Anda French and Jenny French in 2012, French 2D’s work spans large-scale multi-family and micro-housing projects, public infrastructure, and cultural institutions. The firm employs what they call “strange housing types” across residential developments and installations, which challenge familiar domestic ideas through radical organizations and typologies. In their own words, French 2D’s work is grounded in “the pursuit of new forms of collective resilience, with a focus on the social consequences of material, thermal, and formal effects.”
Ann Lui and Craig Reschke founded Future Firm in Chicago in 2015, and Linda Chávez Baca joined the firm as a principal in 2023. Working closely with mission-driven non-profits, community residents, and small-business owners, the firm’s portfolio includes residential projects, arts and culture venues, public installations, and makerspaces. Believing that, in the firm’s own words, “architecture is both a tool for imagining and a means for building the world we want to live in,” Future Firm’s work seeks to expand the traditional scope of architectural practices, from raising capital and political will to proposing zoning amendments.
The presentations will be followed by a conversation with Felecia Davis. Davis is principal at Felecia Davis Studio and director of SOFTLAB at the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, part of the Stuckeman School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Graphic Design at The Penn State University. She was a member of the 2026 Emerging Voices jury.
Learn More About French 2D
Video editor: Darlena Chiem
Learn More About Future Firm
Video editor: Darlena Chiem
Support
Emerging Voices is generously supported by Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown. Support is also provided by the Next Generation Fund of The Architectural League, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Emerging Voices public events and features are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
The Architect’s Newspaper is the media partner of Emerging Voices 2026.
