Trendsspeaking topic
Cities are now designed for passing through, not for staying: no benches to sit on, no shade, and lingering counts as 'loitering.' Is architecture being designed to keep people apart from one another?
— essay theme
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- 'Aesthetic' has become synonymous with 'vibe': a feeling assembled from colors, music, and objects. Does making a feeling shareable enrich it, or does it hollow out art by stripping it of its context?
- The belonging crisis: for generations people belonged to a neighborhood, a faith, a community. Now we build identity from interest groups sorted by algorithms. Can belonging to a fandom replace belonging to a neighborhood?
- Remote work gave us flexibility but took away the office's accidental conversations and coffee breaks. Are freedom and loneliness two sides of the same coin?
- The return of paper planners and wall calendars: writing by hand when your phone already has a calendar. Does the fact that writing something physically makes it feel more 'real' prove that digital never gave us a sense of ownership?
- Every city is said to have an 'energy.' Is what makes a person productive the city's tempo, or the constant anxiety of having to keep up with that tempo?