Conferences

8TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM FORMAL METHODS IN ARCHITECTURE

8TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

FORMAL METHODS IN ARCHITECTURE

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, TÜRKIYE, 1-5 DECEMBER 2026

https://www.formalmethods2026.com/

Formalising Complexity: Bridging Intelligence, Culture, and Computation in Architecture

This edition of the symposium Formal Methods in Architecture (FMA) invites reflections on how formal reasoning, data-driven methods, and computational design intelligence can engage meaningfully with the complexity of architectural and urban environments. The symposium aims to bridge the gap between mathematical abstraction and architectural interpretation, addressing both the technical and human dimensions of design. By situating formal methods within the evolving paradigms of artificial intelligence, sustainability, and participatory practice, FMA 2026 emphasises architecture’s dual nature as a technological and cultural endeavour.

Sub-Themes / Topics

1. Formal Theories and Computational Frameworks

Exploring advances in shape grammars, ontologies, topology, and logical models that formalise architectural knowledge and reasoning.

2. Architectural Design, Representation, and Visualisation

Innovations in generative and parametric systems, interactive simulations, and mixed-reality visualisation that redefine representational practices.

3. Data, Sensing, and Information Environments

New modes of data acquisition (LiDAR, photogrammetry, IoT) and semantic integration (GIS–BIM, IFC) enabling informed design intelligence.

4. Formal Methods and Spatial Analysis

Applications of configurational, visibility, and agent-based analyses in understanding spatial performance and urban morphology.

5. Design Automation and Fabrication

Integration of algorithmic thinking with digital manufacturing, BIM-based automation, and computational material design.

6. Formal Methods for Sustainable and Resilient Environments

Formal and parametric modeling for energy efficiency, adaptive systems, and circular design strategies.

7. Human–Machine Interaction and Cognitive Environments

Emerging interfaces between AI, cognition, and design decision-making in human–machine collaborations.

8. Participatory and Smart Environments

Designing with data and communities—formal approaches to participatory urbanism, smart buildings, and responsive infrastructures.

9. Formal Methods in Architectural Education

Pedagogical innovations promoting computational literacy, visual programming, and reasoning-based learning in architecture.

10. Cultural and Interpretative Dimensions of Formalisation

Engaging formal methods in dialogue with cultural identity, memory, and meaning—positioning space as a living laboratory of layered form and data.

The symposium seeks to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration among architects, mathematicians, computer scientists, and urban theorists. It aims to advance the discourse on formalisation as a creative, interpretive, and ethical practice that enhances architecture’s ability to respond to the intertwined challenges of intelligence, culture, and complexity.

Chairs

Catarina Ruivo (ISCTE-IUL Lisbon)

David Leite Viana (UPT Porto)

Jorge Vieira Vaz (ESAP Porto)

Mehmet Şalgamcıoğlu (ITU Istanbul)

Mine Özkar (ITU Istanbul)

Organising Committee

Ekin Ünlü (ITU Istanbul)

Ethem Gürer (ITU Istanbul)

Fatih Uzun (ITU Istanbul)

Franklim Morais (ESAP Porto)

Joaquim Flores (UPT Porto)

Leman Figen Gül (ITU Istanbul)

Mehmet Emin Şalgamcıoğlu (ITU Istanbul)

Mine Özkar (ITU Istanbul)

Nesip Ömer Erem (ITU Istanbul)

Pelin Dursun Çebi (ITU Istanbul)

Sérgio Mendes (ESAP Porto)

14TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE ARAB SOCIETY FOR COMPUTATION IN ARCHITECTURE, ART AND DESIGN

ASCAAD 2026

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, TÜRKIYE, 3-5 NOVEMBER 2026

https://www.ascaad.org/conference/2026/index.htm

Situated Intelligence - Emerging Forms of Computational Practices

Computation no longer operates as a detached digital process or purely technical domain. Across contemporary spatial practices, intelligence increasingly emerges through intertwined relationships between data, materials, infrastructures, environments, bodies, machines, networks, and collective agency. Artificial intelligence, responsive systems, digital fabrication, sensing technologies, robotic environments, and hybrid realities continuously reshape how architecture and urban space are imagined, produced, experienced, and governed. In this evolving landscape, data itself becomes dynamic spatial fields and relational “data landscapes” actively participating in the construction of environments, decisions, and cultural narratives.

ASCAAD 2026 approaches situated intelligence as an emerging condition in which computational practices become inseparable from context. Emerging computational paradigms are increasingly shaped by geography, ecology, material practices, memory, politics, climate, language, and local forms of knowledge. Emerging forms of computational practice increasingly operate through adaptive interactions between physical and digital realities, biological and synthetic systems, local traditions and global infrastructures, human intuition and machine learning. From computational heritage to AI-assisted design, from responsive urban systems to immersive environments and robotic fabrication, computation unfolds through negotiated relationships between space, culture, environment, technology, and collective experience.

These transformations increasingly destabilize inherited distinctions between natural and artificial systems, physical and virtual environments, representation and simulation, and authorship and automation. Computation no longer functions solely as a tool for modelling or optimization, but as an active participant in the production of spatial knowledge, material organization, environmental interaction, and cultural meaning Architecture and design are therefore confronted with new forms of agency shaped through feedback, sensing, adaptation, and exchanges between humans, machines, materials, and environments. Such transformations call for new conceptual and methodological frameworks capable of addressing evolving relationships between computation, culture, ecology, and spatial practice.

ASCAAD 2026 seeks to foster critical discussions on the cultural, spatial, ecological, and epistemological implications of computation. The conference invites researchers, designers, artists, technologists, and educators to explore situated and context-aware approaches capable of engaging with the complexities of contemporary spatial practice. By bringing together perspectives across architecture, urbanism, media, fabrication, computation, and environmental systems, the conference aims to investigate how emerging ecologies of intelligence reshape relationships between information, matter, agency, culture, and the built environment.

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Conference Host /

The conference is hosted by the Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), one of the oldest technical universities in the region, with a 253-year academic legacy, located within the historic Taşkışla Building in the heart of Taksim, Istanbul. As a city that has served as the capital of multiple civilizations across centuries, Istanbul embodies a uniquely layered condition shaped by continuous cultural exchange, migration, infrastructural transformation, and evolving relationships between East and West, North and South, tradition and technological modernization. Positioned at the intersection of Europe, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and wider Afro-Eurasian geographies, Türkiye occupies a critical spatial and cultural threshold within the broader contexts of the MENA region and the Global South. Through its longstanding engagement with computational design, digital fabrication, robotics, immersive environments, AI-driven design research, and interdisciplinary experimentation, ITU provides a fertile platform for ASCAAD 2026 to critically explore situated forms of computation emerging across diverse cultural, ecological, and technological contexts.

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topics of interest /

The ASCAAD 2026 conference invites submissions of original research papers to address the following topics including but not limited to:

1) Smart and Adaptive Systems
• Artificial Intelligence & Algorithmic Design
• Data, Simulation & Predictive Environments
• Human–Machine Collaboration & Creative Agency
• Digital Twins & Building Information Modelling (BIM)

2) Materiality and Making
• Digital Fabrication, Robotics & Material Systems
• Situated, Adaptive & Responsive Systems
• Design Tools, Creative Coding & Hybrid Workflows
• Computational Pedagogies & Design Education

3) Ecology and Urbanism
• Climate-Responsive & Ecological Design
• Computational Urbanism & Smart Environments
• Collective Intelligence & Participatory Design

4) Culture, Heritage, and Theory
• Computational Cultures, Heritage & Digital Humanities
• Vernacular Knowledge & Local Design Systems
• Computational Theory, Ethics & Critical Approaches

5) Immersion, Digital Media and Experimental Practices
• XR, Spatial Computing & Immersive Environments
• Interactive Media, Games & Spatial Narratives
• Experimental Design Research & Hybrid Methodologies

Scientific Committee

Dr. Mostafa Alani (Chair), Associate Professor, Department of Architecture,
Tuskegee University, USA; ASCAAD President.

Dr. Sherif Abdelmohsen (Co-Chair), Professor & Chair, Department of Architecture, The American University in Cairo, Egypt; ASCAAD Vice President.

Dr. Semra Arslan Selçuk, Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Gazi University, Türkiye.

Dr. Sema Alaçam, Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye; ASCAAD Board Member.

Dr. Derya Güleç Özer, Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Saniye Feyza Yağcı Ergün, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Amar Bennadji, Professor, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, Netherlands; ASCAAD Secretary.

Dr. Zaki Mallasi, Director of Design Technology, KCCT Architects, USA; ASCAAD Treasurer.

Organizing Committee

Dr. Sema Alaçam (Chair), Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye; ASCAAD Board Member.

Dr. Orkan Zeynel Güzelci (Co-Chair), Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Muhammed Ziya Paköz, Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye; Vice Dean.

Dr. Elif Sezen Yağmur Kilimci, Instructor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul
Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Hakan Tong, Instructor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Ayşegül Kıdık, Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Dr. Yelda Özge Doğan, Research Assistant, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Salih Özdemir, Instructor, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Türkiye.

Transforming the Built Environment:Accelerating Circular and Digital Transition

EN

Transforming the Built Environment: Accelerating Circular and Digital Transition Symposium will be held on Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at ITU – Taşkışla Campus, Faculty of Architecture. The international symposium is organized by ITU Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture – Circularity in Built Environment Research Group, in collaboration with ITU Architectural Design Computing Graduate Program and Napier University (Edinburgh) with support of British Council- Connect4Innovation: UK-Turkey Higher Education Institutional Partnerships Fund.

The symposium will focus on the future of the built environment that is going through accelerated transformation via circular economy, as well as digital technologies, which are critical for introducing methods and tools to establish new systems for circularity.

Academicians and building industry representatives will participate as invited speakers to the symposium, by focusing on Circularity Research and Applications in AEC Industry, and University-Industry Collaboration in Circularity.

Participation in the symposium is open to everyone. Pre-registration is required. Please follow the link to register: https://forms.gle/v1Bpk3iNEsFYp5DD6

TR

Yapılı Çevrenin Dönüşümü: Döngüsel ve Sayısal Geçişin Hızlandırılması Uluslararası Sempozyumu 21 Kasım 2023, Salı günü İTÜ – Taşkışla Mimarlık Fakültesi’nde gerçekleştirilecektir.

Sempozyum, İTÜ Mimarlıkta İleri Araştırmalar Merkezi – Yapılı Çevrede Döngüsellik Araştırma Grubu tarafından, İTÜ Mimari Tasarımda Bilişim Lisansüstü Programı ve Napier Üniversitesi (Edinburg) işbirliğiyle; British Council – Connect4Innovation: Birleşik Krallık-Türkiye Yükseköğretim Kurumsal Ortaklık Fonu desteğiyle düzenlenmektedir.

Sempozyum kapsamında, döngüsel ekonomiyle hızlandırılmış bir dönüşüm geçiren yapılı çevrenin geleceğine odaklanılacaktır. Bu kapsamda döngüsellik için yeni sistemler kurmaya yönelik yöntem ve araçların tanıtılmasında kritik öneme sahip dijital teknolojiler ele alınacaktır.

Mimarlık, Mühendislik ve İnşaat Endüstrisinde, Döngüsellik Araştırma ve Uygulamaları ile Üniversite-Sanayi İşbirliği konularının ele alınacağı sempozyuma akademi ve inşaat sektörü temsilcileri davetli konuşmacı olarak katılacaktır.

Ön kayıtın gerekli olduğu sempozyum herkese açıktır. Kayıt olmak için ilgili bağlantı: https://forms.gle/v1Bpk3iNEsFYp5DD6

PROGRAM

9:00 – 9:30 GMT+3 Opening

● Opening Speeches

9:30 – 11:00 GMT+3 Session 1 : Circularity Research in AEC I

Moderator: Birgül Çolakoğlu (ITU)

● Elma Durmisevic (GTB LAB)

Managing Circular Capacity of Built Environment by Digital Assessment of Circuitry Potential

● Vincent Gruis (TU Delft) //Online

How to Close Loops in Construction with Digital Tools: Material Exchange Platforms or BIM-based Cooperation?

● Alvise Simondetti (Arup) & Mia Dibe (Arup) //Online

Data-Driven Sustainable Development: Design, Construction, and Operations

● Duygu Erten (TURKECO International – Los Angeles)

Whole Life Carbon, Embodied Carbon and Circularity: Great opportunity

11:00 – 11:15 GMT+3 Coffee Break

11:15 – 12:30 GMT+3 Session 2: Circularity Research in AEC II

Moderator: Elma Durmisevic (GTB LAB)

● Hayriye Esbah-Tuncay (ITU)

Nature-Based Solutions for Urban Runoff: A Circular Design Approach

● Olga Ioannou (TU Delft) // Online

Circular Building Products Design: Exploring the Importance of the Component Scale Towards a Circular Built Environment

● Ajla Aksamija (University of UTAH) // Online

Regenerative Design: Achieving Net-Zero Energy in Existing Buildings through Energy-Efficient Retrofits

● İrem Şerefoğlu (University of Edinburg)

Contribution of Structural Intuition at Early Conceptual Stage in Efficient Workflow: A Precedent Study of Eladio Dieste

12:30 – 13:30 GMT+3 Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:00 GMT+3 Session 3: Circularity Applications in AEC Industry

Moderator: Sevil Yazıcı (ITU)

● Altan Çakır (ITU)

Management of Information Systems in Digital Age

● Mehmet Sakin (BIM4TURKEY)

Impact of Democratization of Data on AEC Circular Economy

● Buğrahan Şirin (HPP International Turkey)

So, Where Do We Start?

● Sibel Hacıoğlu (TEPE Betopan)

Contributions to the Circular Economy by Upcycling End of Life Building Materials in the Production of Cement Boards

● Ertuğrul Aksoy (Turner International Türkiye)

Building Beyond Green: Strategies and Successes from the Field

15:00 – 15:15 GMT+3 Coffee Break

15:15 – 16:30 GMT+3 Session 4: University-Industry Collaboration in Circularity I

Moderator: Burak Pak (ALT_SHIFT)

● Johnson Zhang (Edinburgh Napier University)

Bamboo-timber Biobased Materials

● Justo Garcia Navarro (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) // Online

The New Postgraduate Programs in the Context of the EELISA Alliance of Universities: Objectives, Pilot Projects and References to Follow

● Mustafa Şahmaran (Hacettepe University)

Transition of Earthquake Disaster Wastes Into Circular Economy in Built Environment

● Ricardo Weigend Rodriguez (Ramboll Management Consulting) // Online

Unlocking a Circular Future

16:30 – 16:45 GMT+3 Coffee Break

16:45 – 17:45 GMT+3 Session 5: University-Industry Collaboration in Circularity II

Moderator: Duygu Erten (TURKECO International – Los Angeles)

● Burak Pak (ALT_SHIFT)

Digital Transformation and Co-Creation for Transitioning Towards The Circular City: A Mindset Shift

● Joke Dufourmont (AMS Institute) // Online

Timber Myths: Separating fact from fiction on biobased construction

● Birgül Çolakoğlu (ITU) & Serhat Şahin (Kadıköy Municipality)

Integrating Circularity Concepts in Architecture Education and Public Institution

17:45 GMT+3 Closing
MSTAS 2021

Website
CAADFutures 2017

CAADFutures 2017 was held in Istanbul between July 10-14, 2017 organized by Istanbul Technical University, Institute of Science, Engineering and Technology, Department of Informatics, Architectural Design Computing Graduate Program.

Conference Theme

The conception of design today becomes more open, communicative and relational. Designers facing this new paradigm are ever active as they focus on the increasing complexity of planning processes, on innovation of new techniques and materials, and on producing multiple levels of abstraction and decomposition rather than on the basic application of a framed profession that is learned. For the designer in the multidisciplinary world of the 21st. century, computation provides a powerful medium for the extension of understanding other disciplines.
In accordance with this global change in the field of design, CAADFutures 2017 seeks to establish a foundation for multidisciplinary thinking. The theme calls for relevant ideas from the domains of architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, mathematics, computer science, biology, philosophy etc. and introduces varying reflections and speculations on the Future Trajectories of Computation in Design as well as on the education of designers. In the continued progression of new ways of thinking, establishing such a discourse for the future of computation in design aims not only gathering latest research, design practice and pedagogical results but also to reveal the possible phenomena, factors and forces that will influence these trajectories in design with an exploratory perspective.

Research papers and exhibition submissions were invited across a range of topics that generally include:

Design theories in digital age, Design cognition, Algorithmic and parametric design, Performance-based design, Fabrication technologies, Modeling and simulation, Building information modeling, Digital design tools and devices, Design and decision support systems, Shape and form studies, CAAD curriculum, Urban design, Smart cities, Smart buildings, Data analytics, Human-computer interaction, Collaborative design, Augmented and virtual reality.

Organization committee: G. Çağdaş (Chair), M. Özkar (Co-chair), F. Gül, E. Gürer, B. Çolakoğlu, Z. Bacınoğlu, Ö. Çavuşoğlu, B. Hamzaoğlu

Website
7th National Symposium on Digital Design (MSTAS 2013)

7th National Symposium on Digital Design: ‘Digital Design, Entropy and Creativity’ was hosted by Istanbul Technical University and Architectural Design Computing Graduate Program on June 27-28, 2013.

The annual series of National symposium has been organized by different universities since 2007.

The intention behind the organization of the Digital Design National Symposium is to provide a platform for communication among researchers, specialists, Ph.D., and Graduate students from different backgrounds.
eCAADe 2009 Computation: The New Realm of Architecture

September 16-19, 2009

In the field of architecture, Computational Design has emerged as sub-discipline which has a multidisciplinary nature and uses computing methods and capabilities to understand and solve architectural design problems. Computational Design aims to provide means for harnesing more deliberate and conscious ways of computing processes in design.

Host: Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Taskisla Campus

Chairman: Prof. Gülen Cagdas and Assoc. Prof. Birgül Colakoglu

eCAADe
Website
Conference Proceedings