The far-reaching technological and societal changes which characterize our time go hand-in-hand with the re-organization and renewal of the issues associated with the design and construction of our built environment.

Our symposium will centre on the question of materiality in its multiple forms, addressed from a multi-disciplinary, polysemic point of view.

Atomic matter has always been and remains pivotal to humankind’s building activities, but this matter now has an immaterial extension in the conditions, effects or indeed performance which have become design materials in their own right. These project vectors thus give rise to new practices, know-how and construction techniques, in such a way that the modalities of project planning, design and production, every bit as much as the usual architectural modalities, configure the force field which gives shape to projects. So the notion of materiality takes on a broader sense, encompassing invisible, normative, physical, sensory, digital and societal components.

Once completed an architectural project should be understood as a synthesis by which the form of forces configures the force of a form, but new forms of materiality grasped in a performative rationale nevertheless strengthen sectoral expertise. Following six specific threads our prime aim is to present the emblematic changes and innovations which are accompanying the renewal of the paradigms associated with the construction of our physical and human environment.

Matter for the senses, matter as energy, structure, ambiance, information and as a source of innovation...+

Abstracts are due by June 15. Instructions to authors

Reviewing in progress

Final paper are due by the September 30. Instructions to authors

Keynote speakers :
Branko Kolarevic, Marta Malé-Alemany, Larry Sass, Yves Weinand have confirmed their participations

Diners of the Symposium :
Symposium diners inside an inflatable architecture from Hans Walter Muller