CAADRIA 2027 (International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia) is an academic conference held in Suzhou, China on 2027-03-31. The paper submission deadline is 2026-07-27. Acceptance notifications are sent on 2026-09-07.
We are designing in an era defined by compounding uncertainties, ecological volatility, technological acceleration, and shifting cultural landscapes. The design environments we once understood as predictable systems are giving way to living fields of flux. In this context, adaptation is no longer a contingency; it is the primary design imperative.
Adaptive Horizons invites a fundamental rethinking of computer-aided architectural design, not as a discipline of optimisation and control, but as a practice of responsiveness, transformation, and anticipation. We ask: How can computation help us design with uncertainty rather than against it? How might architectural intelligence become provisional, evolving, and deeply attuned to the dynamics of real-world change?
This year, we move beyond resilience toward adaptive capacity, the ability not only to withstand disruption but to learn, transform, and find new forms of coherence in its wake. Adaptive Horizons calls for design frameworks that embrace temporal dynamics, feedback loops, and emergent behaviours across multiple scales: from responsive materials and self-organising assemblies, to evolving building systems, to urban infrastructures that grow and recede like living ecologies.
We propose the following provocations to guide the 2027 discourse:
Uncertainty as Material: Rather than treating uncertainty as a problem to be eliminated, we recognise it as a design material in its own right. Computational models that embrace probability, ambiguity, and incompleteness open new territories for architectural invention, where form is not fixed but negotiated, and where performance emerges through continuous adaptation.
Time-Based Architectures: Buildings and cities have long been designed as static artefacts. Adaptive Horizons asks: What if architecture could sense, learn, and reconfigure across multiple timescales, from diurnal cycles to generational shifts? We invite research into temporal design logics, predictive and responsive systems, and architectures that evolve through use, decay, renewal, and transformation.
Transformation as Process, Not Event: Transformation is not a threshold crossed but a continuous condition. We seek design methodologies that embed adaptability from the outset, through parametric legacies, machine learning models that update with new data, fabrication systems that disassemble and reassemble, and governance models for shared, evolving environments.
Beyond Optimisation: Optimisation presumes a known objective. In uncertain futures, objectives themselves shift. We call for computational approaches that prioritise robustness, flexibility, and anti-fragility, systems that improve under stress, that maintain function across diverse scenarios, and that preserve room for human judgment, improvisation, and reinterpretation.
Designing for the Unforeseeable: No model predicts everything. Adaptive Horizons embraces humility before complexity. We invite speculative and critical design research that asks: How do we design when we cannot know the future? What forms of intelligence, distributed, hybrid, human-machine, are needed to navigate deep uncertainty?
As we look toward 2027 and beyond, the horizons of computational design are not fixed points to be reached. They are moving targets, co-shaped by our tools, our values, and the unpredictable currents of a world in transformation. 32nd International CAADRIA Conference 2027 invites you, researchers, practitioners, and educators to contribute original work that explores, critiques, and advances the role of computation in designing for a radically uncertain future.
We welcome papers across a wide spectrum of approaches, from technical innovations in adaptive systems and real-time simulation, to critical and theoretical inquiries into the ethics of autonomous adaptation, to practice-based research on projects that embody transformation in built form.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Adaptive and self-organising systems in architecture and urban design
Machine learning and AI for dynamic environments and non-stationary conditions
Generative design, parametric methods, and post-optimisation frameworks
Temporal design logics, lifecycle thinking, and time-based simulation
Responsive materials, morphing structures, kinetic systems, and embedded intelligence
Digital fabrication, robotic assembly, and reconfigurable construction systems
Design for disassembly, reuse, reconfiguration, and circular transformation
Robustness, adaptability, and resilience in computational design
Hybrid human-AI collaboration and decision-making under uncertainty
Design cognition, creativity, and interaction in dynamic environments
Living systems, bio-inspired adaptation, and ecological computation
Adaptive urban infrastructures, digital twins, and evolving smart cities
Multi-scenario modelling, uncertainty visualisation, and decision-support systems
Speculative, critical, and futures-oriented design research
Ethics, agency, and governance in autonomous and semi-autonomous design systems
Immersive environments, XR, and interactive simulation for adaptive futures
Adaptive approaches to digital heritage, conservation, and transformation
Climate-responsive computation and design strategies for environmental uncertainty
Adaptive Horizons: Designing For Uncertainty and Transformation, 32nd International CAADRIA Conference 2027, is a call to embrace the horizon not as a limit, but as an opening. Join us as we explore how computation can help architecture learn, transform, and thrive, precisely when the future refuses to stand still.
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