ACADIA, the annual conference exploring technology in architecture, has announced its 2020 lineup and is now open for registrations. This year’s event, which will be entirely virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic, is titled “Distributed Proximities” and will focus on projects that “that demonstrate the resilience and ingenuity of the computational design community in the face of crisis,” according to the conference’s website.
The 22 keynote speakers come from across the United States and Britain. Their discussions will cover a variety of themes, including the relationships between ecology and ethics, data and bias, automation and agency, culture and access, labor and practice, and speculation and critique.
Fourteen workshops will also allow participants to dive deeper into specialized topics in fabrication and computation.
This year’s event will honor five award winners. Jane Burry, professor and dean of the School of Design at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia, will receive the ACADIA Teaching Award of Excellence; Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, founders of New York-based firm Nervous System, will receive the ACADIA Digital Practice Award of Excellence; the DigitalFUTURES Program at Tongji University in Shanghai will receive the ACADIA Innovative Academic Program Award of Excellence; Sean Ahlquist, associate professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, will receive the ACADIA Innovative Research Award of Excellence, and Mike Christenson, professor and director of graduate studies at the University of Minnesota, will receive the ACADIA Society Award for Leadership.
ACADIA 2020 will take place from October 24 through October 30. Registration is open to anyone around the world and is free for students.
Top image from ACADIA 2020 workshop “Generative Physics: Dynamic Systems Within Immersive Projection-Mapped Environments” (Courtesy Alida Sun)