Now What?! is a critical examination of architects’ engagement with political and social movements in the United States since 1968 that extrapolates lessons from the past to chart new ways forward. This book draws on the little-known history of grassroots advocacy and activism by architects to reveal the connections between the design community and larger social and political movements. It is a call to action rooted in historical reflection: where we are going based on where we have been. Written amid a cultural backlash against “woke” politics, this book brings together stories of architects on the margins who discovered their agency and used it to change the profession and the communities and cities where they lived. It examines the afterlives of efforts since the late 1960s, their challenges, their setbacks, and assesses their resonance and potential for today.

Lori A. Brown, distinguished professor at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, is the cofounder of ArchiteXX and a cocurator of the traveling exhibition, Now What?! Advocacy, Activism, and Alliances in American Architecture since 1968. Her books include Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture (Routledge, 2011) and Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals (Routledge, 2013). Brown is coeditor of The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, 1960-2020 (Bloomsbury, 2025) with Karen Burns, the first transnational history about women in architecture in English. Her current book projects are Design of Reproduction, based on her installation Birthing in Alabama: Design of Reproduction in the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum’s 2024–25 Making Home—Design Triennial, and Women Architects and Global Solidarity Across the Cold War Divide: The International Union of Women Architects, 1963–1993 with Karen Burns that examines the legacy of the international women’s organization International Union of Women Architects (UIFA).

Sarah Rafson is the associate director of public programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is an architectural writer, editor, and curator. She is a cocurator of the traveling exhibition, Now What?! Advocacy, Activism, and Alliances in American Architecture since 1968. In 2016, she founded Point Line Projects, an editorial and curatorial agency for architecture and design, where she collaborates on books with scholars, museums, and publishers. She was the 2017-18 Ann Kalla Visiting Professor and later special faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. Rafson won the Buell Center Oral History Prize and the Milka Bliznakov Prize for her research examining the legacy of feminist organizations in architecture. Her writing is published in the Journal of Architectural Education, Praxis, Constructs (Yale), The Architect’s Newspaper, Storyboard (Carnegie Museum of Art), Metropolis, and Pioneering Women of American Architecture (Beverly Willis Architectural Foundation).