Architectural Record’s latest Innovation Conference focused on ways architecture can improve cities for everyone. Participants included Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of the New York Times, Rob Rogers, the founder of New York-based Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers, Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi of Weiss/Manfredi, Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, of Los Angeles-based Johnston Marklee & Associates, Brendan MacFarlane, of the Paris-based Jakob + MacFarlane, and Shohei Shigematsu, who runs the 85-person New York office of OMA. Amy Chester, the managing director of Rebuild by Design, spoke with Simon David of Bjarke Ingels Group, about the “Big U,” its plan for protecting Lower Manhattan from storm surges, and David Waggonner, about Waggonner & Ball’s resiliency plans for New Orleans and Bridgeport, Connecticut. In each case, Waggonner said, the projects require meetings with myriad agencies. In a description of those meetings that could just as easily have applied to the RECORD conference, Waggonner said, “If we’re in the room, it’s because we want to make a difference through design.”