ADAPTIVE HORIZONS
32nd International Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia
Suzhou, China
We are designing in an era defined by compounding uncertainties, ecological volatility, technological acceleration, and shifting cultural landscapes. The design environments we once understood as predictable systems are giving way to living fields of flux. In this context, adaptation is no longer a contingency; it is the primary design imperative.
Adaptive Horizons invites a fundamental rethinking of computer-aided architectural design, not as a discipline of optimisation and control, but as a practice of responsiveness, transformation, and anticipation. We ask: How can computation help us design with uncertainty rather than against it? How might architectural intelligence become provisional, evolving, and deeply attuned to the dynamics of real-world change?
This year, we move beyond resilience toward adaptive capacity, the ability not only to withstand disruption but to learn, transform, and find new forms of coherence in its wake. Adaptive Horizons calls for design frameworks that embrace temporal dynamics, feedback loops, and emergent behaviours across multiple scales: from responsive materials and self-organising assemblies, to evolving building systems, to urban infrastructures that grow and recede like living ecologies.