In mid-November architects, designers, digital fabricators, and innovators will gather in Calgary, Canada, and at the Banff Centre for the annual Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA) conference. This year the theme is Designing Change, and the weeklong gathering will posit research, innovations, and hypotheses for how computational design can be harnessed to adapt and evolve the built environment.
The six-day event hosted by the University of Calgary School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape kicks off on November 11 with a series of eight workshops. The sessions, drawn up by this year’s conference chairs, apply the methods of computational design to architectural practice. The discussion and work produced from these sessions will be shared in the conference.
The conference component of ACADIA runs from November 14–16 at the Banff Centre. There, you can tune into talks and lectures centered on how digital design technologies and methods can improve infrastructure, tackle the housing crisis, and charter a new path for citymaking. As in past years, ACADIA speakers hail from practicing architecture firms, construction sites, and the hallways of universities. Other professionals taking the stage fall into the category of “archipreneurs,” which ACADIA defines as “innovators who combine digital design with entrepreneurial ventures.”
Keynote speeches will be delivered over the course of the conference, led off on November 14 by Shajay Bhooshan of Zaha Hadid Architects where he is the cofounder of ZHACODE, the firm’s computational design research group. Martha Tsigkari of Foster + Partners will follow up on November 15. Tsigkari’s work has concentrated on optimizing design work and the development of simulation tools. The final keynote speaker Elena Manferdini will also speak in the evening of November 15. In addition to running the firm Atelier Manferdini, she teaches courses at SCI-Arc.
The final keynote presentation on November 16, New Modes of Practice will bring together four speakers whose practice straddles the line between technology and architecture: Gilles Retsin, AUAR Ltd; Michail Desyllas, Ai Build; Oliver Krieg, odk.design; and Helen Goodland, SCIUS Advisory.
Other talks on the docket will share the research discussed in the papers submitted to the conference. On November 14, Theodora Vardouli, Shelby Doyle, and Dora Epstein-Jones will convene on stage for a discussion of Vardouli’s book Graph Vision. The text examines how architects can use graphs in their practice. Throughout the week ACADIA will present its Awards of Excellence to individuals and firms that have demonstrated an inspiring contribution to digital architectural practice. And new this year, ACADIA is launching what it is calling the 2024 Ideation Lab. The series of presentations on early-stage research projects is designed to encourage networking opportunities and collaboration among new colleagues.
ACADIA kicks off with the workshops in Calgary on November 11–13, 2024. The conference, located in scenic Banff, follows those sessions, running from November 14–16. The full conference agenda can be accessed here, and details on registration can be found here.
The Architect’s Newspaper is a media partner for ACADIA 2024.
