Designing Conversations:
AIA Hawai‘i Book Club
Each quarter, we’ll gather around a book tangential to architecture—think design, culture, place, history, climate, or the forces that shape the built environment in unexpected ways. The event features a compelling guest speaker who will draw out the book’s big ideas and connect them to practice in Hawaiʻi, all hosted at a cool, thoughtfully chosen venue.
Whether you’ve read every page, skimmed the introduction, or are just coming for the conversation, the AIA Hawaiʻi Book Club is about shared curiosity and expanding how we think about our work and our world.
Book Club Q4: AIA Honolulu Center for Architecture!
For our fourth Book Club, we have chosen “Intellectual Anarchy" by Dr. Patrick Sullivan, CEO of Oceanit.
Intellectual Anarchy: Architecture and the Future of Design
How will emerging technologies, new materials and unconventional methods reshape the future of architecture?
Artificial Intelligence is impacting the world of “deep tech,” which is enabling new science, engineering and design. Advances in technology, materials science, artificial intelligence, engineering, fabrication and construction are opening possibilities that would have been difficult to imagine only a generation ago.
Intellectual Anarchy explores how we can approach difficult problems by challenging conventional thinking and looking for disruptive solutions rather than incremental improvements. Developed at Oceanit, the Intellectual Anarchy discipline encourages ideas that may initially seem to come “out of left field”—ideas capable of overturning established practices, industries and business models.
For this conversation, author Dr. Patrick Sullivan will bring that thinking directly into the world of architecture.
Drawing on examples from emerging technologies, engineering and materials science, Dr. Sullivan will explore how innovation could create entirely new opportunities for architects and designers—from new methods and materials to new ways of creating spaces, structures and human experiences.
The discussion will challenge us to think beyond how architecture is practiced today and ask bigger questions:
- What will become possible that isn’t possible today?
- How will technology change what—and how—we design?
- What new materials and methods could transform the built environment?
- And what role will architects play as the boundaries between design, technology, engineering and science continue to blur?
Where to get the book? You can find the book online here.
Good News: You do NOT have to read the book to attend. This is an engaging, forward-looking conversation for anyone curious about where architecture is headed and how emerging technology could redefine the profession.
Our moderator/presenter will be the author, Dr. Sullivan.
About Dr. Patrick Sullivan:
Dr. Patrick Sullivan is a scientist, engineer, technologist, entrepreneur, businessman, public speaker and futurist. He founded Oceanit in 1985 and developed its Intellectual Anarchy approach to disruptive innovation. He has launched numerous private-equity-financed start-ups and spin-out companies and has spent decades working at the intersection of science, technology, engineering and innovation.
In 2016, Hawaii Business Magazine named him CEO of the Year, and in 2019, Pacific Business News named him a Titan of Technology.
When: October 13, 2026 from 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Where: AIA Honolulu Center for Architecture, 828 Fort Street Mall, Suite 100, Honolulu, HI 96813
Cost: Free
Parking: Visit this link for directions to our Center for Architecture, as well as parking suggestions.
(We recommend the Harbor Court building next door, as the Oceanit parking lot has limited guest parking)
RSVP for Book Club #4
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