Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture Conference “BUILDING SYSTEMS”

Within the ever growing pace of development, the automation of the construction industry is still lagging behind. While researchers and architects around the world are trying to overcome this shortcoming, systemic solutions have created systemic problems in the past. The system built housing of the postwar era is deteriorating and substantially contributing to the climate crisis. At the same time we have a housing shortage in many growing cities. While mending the mistakes of the past we need to be sure not to make even bigger ones today when digital platforms make innovations rapidly scalable. How can these complex systems be directed in a meaningful way, so we don’t end up mending our built and natural environment for the worse? Do we need fully automated design and construction systems designed by good architects? Or should we leave the industrial and capitalist model behind and build social systems of participatory design and construction? Or can these approaches work hand in hand after all to build systems that accommodate subjectivity and meaning? With “Building Systems” we want to look at the past, present and future of systemic thinking in all scales of the built environment and envision paths forward.

EKA Arh conference is a biannual international peer-reviewed conference held as a satellite of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale. The previous iterations have been Space and Digital Reality in 2019 and Innovation and Digital Reality in 2022. The keynotes and papers are published in EKA Faculty of Architecture Proceedings.

Preliminary list of keynote speakers:

Urban Systems: TBC

Construction/Material Systems: TBC

Digital Systems: TBC

Contact:

Head curator: dr Siim Tuksam (EKA)

siim.tuksam@artun.ee