The 2nd International Conference: Architecture Across Boundaries 2024
30th August to 1st September 2024
Suzhou, China

The first Architecture across Boundaries(AAB) conference was successfully held in Suzhou in 2019. "Boundaries" in the built environment are clearly different from what that implied in 2019. The term went through new interpretations encountering new technologies and new human crisis in the past few years. The 2nd AAB conference will highlight, debate and discuss the challenges and opportunities brought by the new technologies to research and practices, whether they have no boundaries or create new boundaries to the built environment, a topic that has rarely been discussed from multiple perspectives. It aims to bridge the gaps between the physical environment and virtual technology and between technology and human life, which will be the key theme of this conference. This conference will take an interdisciplinary approach by orchestrating contributors from different fields, as diverse as architectural studies, civil engineering, computational design, design education, urban studies and sociology. This event will be for three days, taking place on 30 August - 1 September 2024, and will consist of panel presentations, workshops and keynote speeches of leading practitioners and theorists.

We welcome contributions on topics belonging to or crossing the boundaries of the below five themes. Both practitioners and academics, including postgraduate research students, are encouraged to submit abstracts and/or posters illustrating research, critical reflections, best practices and case studies.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Please submit your abstract of no more than 400 words no later than 1 October 2023 through the Easychair platform: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aab2024
- Deadline of Abstracts Submission: 1 October 2023
- Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 25 November 2023

FULL PAPER SUBMISSION
Full papers (maximum 6-8 pages including reference list) are invited for submission. All paper submissions are subject to double-blind peer-review. All accepted and presented full papers will be published via Springer and submitted for indexing to Scopus and EI.
- Full paper submission deadline: 5 January 2024
- Full paper review outcome to authors: 10 March 2024
- Camera Ready Submission Deadline: 5 April 2024
Before submitting the full paper contributions, please pay attention to the Author Guidelines.

THEMES
Theme 1. Mapping New Typologies of Hybrid Spaces
Track Chair: Dr. Deborah Middleton
Accelerations in technology and challenges in the availability of physical space in cities for work social gathering, entertainment and recreation is spawning new functional enhanced spaces often referred to as hybrid spaces. Mapping the genomes, edges and morphological connections of hybrid space is needed to construct theories of boundaries, connections and intersections, and typological and topological insight into hybrid spatial morphology and their experiential visual qualities. This track seeks papers that reconsider theories of assemblage in the context of historic and contemporary architecture, urban landscapes, or seeks to build new theories of assemblage. Space syntax, linear landscape modeling or other innovative analysis methods are encouraged to join this track.

Theme 2. Architectural Education and Professional Practice Across Contexts
Track Chair: Dr. Sofia Quiroga
Within the ever-evolving international market, architects possess an inherent capacity to actively and purposefully adapt and address contemporary challenges across diverse contexts. This theme aims to foster a holistic understanding of the evolving role of architects and the transformative potential of design thinking in education and collaborative practice across international contexts. By promoting interdisciplinary conversations and knowledge exchange, this theme encourages professionals, educators, researchers, and policymakers to collectively envision a future where architects make meaningful contributions to contemporary global challenges. Papers in this track are invited to discuss topics such as (but not limited to): The potential of educational frameworks to bridge theoretical knowledge and professional practice across academic contexts; The construction of models of interdisciplinary collaboration, and strategies for effective communication and teamworking across different cultural and regulatory contexts; The role of the architectural profession, public participation, and social impact in shaping the built environment across geographical contexts are also encouraged to join this track.

Theme 3. Computational Design and Digital Fabrication Without Boundaries
Track Chair: Dr. Mia Tedjosaputro
In an ideal notion of "without boundaries" in which the traditional constraints are absent, it might enable unprecedented creative expression within the area of computational design and digital fabrication. However, there are several boundaries or limitations that designers and practitioners may encounter in their practice. This track focuses on understanding these existing constraints. Papers in this track are invited to discuss a few limiting key aspects such as (but not limited to): technical limitations, material constraints, production time and cost limitations, limitations derived from design complexity, human expertise limitations, and legal and ethical frameworks limitations. Ways, practices, or considerations that present how designers exploit challenges and turn them into design potentials are welcomed.

Theme 4: Systemic Approaches to Architectural Design
Track Chair: Dr. Claudia Westermann
As the world has been experiencing a prolonged state of crisis, it has become increasingly evident that humanity's problems cannot be effectively addressed from ontological perspectives that emphasize the boundaries of categories and prioritize the static over the dynamic. Systemic approaches offer an opportunity to radically rethink what a crisis is, whether it is political, cultural or environmental, as they shift the focus of enquiry from entities to dynamic relations. A crisis in this context is always a crisis of ecology. Systemic approaches to architectural design may emphasize the interdependencies of art, technology and the environment. They may construct frameworks for methodologies of design that reach across disciplines and cultures to create relations where relations are needed.

Theme 5: Urban Prosthetics Across Technology and Morphology
Track Chair: Dr. Roberto Podda
Using "exponential technologies" (Kotler 2012) implies a redefinition of the relationship between the human body and the urban totality. The City becomes a multiscalar pole in which the temporality of the scale of the human body passes through the multiplicity of networks that have become so performative and pervasive as to "herald the formation of a disseminated collective hyper-subject" (Costa 2012). The "hyper-technological prostheses" (d'Alfonso 2004) connected to global networks "make each of us a node of the system potentially able to interact simultaneously" (Castells 2006). There is thus a profound change in the concept of the City transforming itself no longer into a place but into a scene in which "the otherness between two states of time of the "present" is plastically expressed: the present of the intimate of the actor and the public present of the practicable scenario frequented" (d'Alfonso 1994). This City is always alive and viable, and it can be used simultaneously at different times and in different ways, exponentially expanding the possibilities of organising an agenda of personal time no longer has to consider physical limits. Papers in this track should address what happens to the City as a physical phenomenon. How do we harmonise material and immaterial?