Manuela Triggianese, Delft University of Technology
Juan Sádaba, University of the Basque Country
Lee Moreau, Other Tomorrows/ Northeastern University
Paolo Ciuccarelli, Northeastern University
Kees Kaan, TU Delft
Georg Vrachliotis, TUDelft
María Risueño, Other Tomorrows
Architecture extends far beyond designing buildings and cities. As practice transforms, so must the research that informs it.
This theme track explores architecture’s expanding role in collaboration, communication, and service, addressing complex environmental, technological, and societal challenges. Rooted in research, design practices now position architecture as a tool for inquiry and innovation, and increasingly as a service, responsive to the needs of communities, stakeholders, and environments. Activating design is a way of working that clarifies complex questions by engaging with systems, spaces, and social contexts, drawing on insights from sociology, ecology, engineering, and the arts.
We revisit core design research concepts—such as wicked problems, primary generators, reflection-in-action, and design heuristics—while examining how tools like AI, data visualization, and simulation act not just as instruments but as active collaborators. In this view, architecture becomes a platform for shared values, fostering innovation through genuine interdisciplinary exchange.
We invite papers engaging with the following themes:
Exploring how to re-establish Architecture and Urban Design in Design Research, fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Examining Design as a Universal Language, reshaping professional roles and responsibilities in architectural and urban practice.
Investigating Real-world Design Processes and the roles of AI, data visualization, and simulation as active collaborators.
This track invites contributions that position architecture as both practice and mode of knowledge production, and design as a shared language, research platform, and driver of transformation.
Architectural Practice, Design Tools and Methods, Research by Design, Integrated Knowledge, Roles of the Architect
Harvard Design Magazine. (2024). Instruments of service (Vol. 52). Harvard University.
Other Tomorrows, Swissnex. (2023). The expanding scope of design. Boston & New York.
Sádaba Fernández, J. A., & Arratíbel, Á. (2025). From intuition to inquiry: Reframing architecture’s role in design research. VLC Arquitectura. Research Journal, 12(1), 281–314. https://doi.org/10.4995/vlc.2025.22940
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Vrachliotis, G. (2022). The new technological conditions: Architecture and design in the age of cybernetics. Birkhäuser.