EKA Arh 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.

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Keynote speakers:

Construction Systems: Fabio Gramazio, ETH Zürich

Material Systems: Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK)

Urban Systems: Andres Sevtsuk, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

09:00 Registration and welcome coffee
09:30 Opening words
Siim Tuksam, Head of research at the Faculty of Architecture, EKA
Sille Pihlak, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, EKA
09:45 Urban Systems Keynote: Andres Sevtsuk | MIT, USA

10:30-11:30 AM SESSION
Mathilde Marengo, IaaC, Spain, Computer-aided Gender Inclusive Urban Design
Junaid Alam Rana, BNU, Pakistan, Conflicting Urban Systems
Keith Winter, University of East London, UK, Space as Consciousness
Soňa Polčová, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Slovakia, The Sponge

11:30 Lunch break
12:30 Construction Systems Keynote: Fabio Gramazio | ETH Zürich, Switzerland

13:15-14:15 PM SESSION
Taylor Zhai Williams, Independent, New York, USA, Reconstructing with Rubble
J. Bailey & O. Hamedinger, JOYH, Vienna, Austria, Behavioural Skins
Cameron Nelson CITA KADK, Denmark, Implementing the History Stack
Catty Dan Zhang University of Tennessee Knoxville, USA, Fuzzy Ducts, Exact Air

14:15 Coffee break
14:45 Material Systems Keynote: Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen | CITA KADK, Denmark
15:30 Panel discussion
16:15 Closing words

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Contact:

ekaarh.conference@artun.ee

Head curator:
Siim Tuksam
Head of Research
Faculty of Architecture
Estonian Academy of Arts
siim.tuksam@artun.ee