51ºÚÁÏ

Moderator: TBD

Neither All Nor Nothing: An Alternative Approach to Highway Demolition in Urban Centers
Hannibal Newsom, Yilei Shi  & Lauren Scott, Syracuse University

Antecedent Apparatus: Transforming the Remnants of Urban Renewal
Nicholas Brinen, University of Virginia

Games of Civic Repair: A Framework for Urban Infrastructure Removal
Jaylene Rodriguez, Kean University

Mapping Port-City Thresholds: A Rule-Based Framework for Waterfront Transition Zones in New York City
Katrin Djapanova, University of Strathclyde

From Totality to Relationality: Urban Design Beyond the Master Plan
Liang Wang University of Texas at Austin

Moderator: TBD

Urban Design and the Right to Housing in Argentina and Brazil: A Human Rights Framework for Social Housing
Karen Kubey, University of Toronto
Pablo Elinbaum, University of Torcuato Di Tella

Dismantling Complicity: Urban Design as an Active Claim to Rights
Racha Daher, KU Leuven

Making Equitable Places – Spatializing Equity: A Multi-Dimensional Framework for Equitable Urban Design
Nico Larco, University of Oregon

Right to Noise: Sound Governance as Spatial Exclusion in Manchester and Berlin
Charlie White, Manchester School of Architecture

Within Reach: Restoring Spatial Sovereignty and Social Integration of Hospice Care within Urban Neighborhoods
Yixuan Liu & Yilin Zhang, Yet Office

Five Points of Community Engagement: Design Education for Community Empowerment
Catherine Ahn, New York Institute of Technology

Moderator: Danielle DiLeo Kim, AIA Regional & Urban Design Committee

Presenters: Jennifer Bolstad, Parsons School of Design
Sravani Gandu, Urban Carbon
Liz Martin-Malikian, Miami University
Juana Salcedo, University of Texas at Austin

Description: This session focuses on climate action as a practical urban design responsibility. Rather than treating climate as an abstract goal, the session explores how urban designers can work through streets, rights-of-way, soils, tree canopy, stormwater, public space, land reuse, carbon measurement, and ecological repair. Presentations will address the implementation of climate infrastructure, the measurement of urban carbon and environmental performance, and the long-term stewardship required to repair and maintain urban systems. The session asks what urban designers can actually draw, specify, measure, repair, manage, and advocate for as cities adapt to changing environmental conditions.

Moderator: TBD

A Matter of Scale(s): Teaching Urban Design in an International Context
Alice Vialard & Han Hsi Ho, University of Hong Kong

Spatializing Performance-Based Guidelines Through Parametric Three-Dimensional Envelopes
Luís Henrique Bueno Villanova, Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul

From Frame to Folly: Reconfiguring Material and Social Relationships Through Temporary Urban Interventions
Neal Hitch & Kristina Fisher, Carnegie Mellon University

Retrofitting the Edge City: Measuring Transit-Oriented Development Outcomes in Tysons Corner, Virginia
Mehraneh Davari, Virginia Tech

Urban Sensing as Spatial Evidence: Expanding Environmental Methods in Urban Design
Huda Abdesumad & Alyssa Pritchard, Washington University in St. Louis
Bomin Kim, University of South Florida

Moderator: TBD

Drawing Situated Narratives of Riverfronts
Secil Taskoparan, University of Melbourne

Drawing Dry Cities in a Wet Delta: The Aesthetic of Aspiration in the Secondary City
Md Ehsan Alam, University of Michigan

Sixteen Stadiums, One Spectrum: Physical Data Models of the 2026 World Cup Venues
Gustavo Do Amaral, University of Kansas

Houston Through Their Eyes: Designing for Low‑Vision Urbanism
Asmaa Olwi, University of Houston

The Weight of Clean Air: Visualizing the Inequities of Environmental Control
Jaehun Woo, California Polytechnic State University
Xinyu Chen, University College London

Moderator: Rex Cabaniss, AIA AIA Regional & Urban Design Committee

Panelists: Eric Corey Freed, CannonDesign
Joshua Treadway, University of Central Florida
Daniel Inocente, Daniel Inocente Architecture
Conrad Kickert, University at Buffalo

Description: This session shifts the tools conversation away from technology for its own sake and toward practical methods that help urban designers move from ideas to implementation. Presentations will explore how evidence, performance frameworks, health and social determinants, housing strategies, everyday urbanism, and public-life analysis can support better design decisions and more accountable outcomes. The session asks how urban design methods can help practitioners evaluate scenarios, communicate tradeoffs, measure impacts, and translate design intent into action. Its focus is on implementation tools that improve public value, support healthier communities, and connect design thinking to real urban change.

Moderator: TBD

From the Margins to the Map: Exploring Youth Agency and the Spatial Politics
Awilda Rodriguez, University of Oklahoma

From Neglect to Care: Youth-Led Urban Transformation Through the Adaptive Reuse in a Historic Small Town
Tibor Dányi, University of Pécs

The Informal Commercial Edge: Socio-Spatial Negotiation in Noida’s Urban Villages
Aqsa Rafi, RM Sovich Architecture
Erkin Özay, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Detroit’s Agro-Urbanity: The Emergence Of A Distributed Agroecological Urbanism
Tithi Sanyal, University of Virginia

Change Starts Small: Implementation of ADUs as an Agent for Affordable Housing and Circularity in Jamaica, Queens
Sherry Aine Te, Columbia University

Moderator: TBD

The poem as spatial archive: Recovering Colombo’s land-water imagination
Kalpanee Jayatilake, University of Cincinnati

Extending the Node-Place Model for TOD: Integrating Social Equity and Pedestrian Environment in philadelphia
Urvi Patel, Peng Du & Irene Amankwah Bonsu, Thomas Jefferson University

Designed Invisibility: Street Life Beyond the Epistemic Reach of Urban Design
Wattana Songpetchmongkol, Glasgow School of Art

Growing up in the High-Density City: The Kai Tak Development in Hong Kong through Children’s Perspective
Esther Lorenz, University of Virginia

Beyond Brick and Mortar: Soft Preservation in Suburban Settings
Frank Ordia, Clemson University

Moderator: María Arquero de Alarcón, University of Michigan
Ali Fard, University of Virginia
Kathy Velikov, Unversity of Michigan
Ozan Åžen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Dean Almy, University of Texas at Austin

Description: Contemporary urban design operates within the pressures of pervasive planetary urbanization, acute socio-ecological instability, and deepening power asymmetries. While global networks generate stark imbalances across the territory, operating under one large totalizing scale risks flattening regional idiosyncrasies, local cultures, and everyday human agency. To address these tensions, this panel engages a critical question of agency: how can urban design mobilize specific methods to address these complex territorial and geopolitical entanglements?

Moving from the urban project to the project of the territory goes beyond designing for spatial and temporal scalar shifts. It requires an expanded toolset and novel design approaches to management systems, cross-scalar infrastructures, and adaptive governance structures. Beyond the power of complex data visualization, this session explores design-led research that actively exposes geographic exploitation, tracks volatile material and digital data flows, and advances territorial justice through regional environmental and economic regeneration.

Crucially, this session foregrounds the value of critical, speculative design, and the interface between research experimentation and pedagogical practices. Research-based speculative practices allow designers to unlock new spatial imaginaries and construct radically alternative futures, and by extension, inform the pedagogies that will empower next generations of urban designers. By uniting diverse case studies, critical frameworks, and visionary projects, this panel investigates how urban design can actively intervene in extended territories, ensuring that planetary-scale stewardship honors local and cultural specificities.

Moderator: TBD

Latent Proposals: Pattern Books and Urban Design’s Role in Place Governance
Wesley Hiatt, Lehigh University

Built by Us, Displaced by Us: Intra-ethnic Gentrification in New York City’s Asian and Hispanic Diaspora
Austin Cheng, William A. Shine Great Neck South High School

Reading the Ground: Public LiDAR, Open Tools, and Equitable Urban Design Practices in Post-Industrial Small Cities
Mahsa Saharkhiz & Mohamed Aly Etman, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Regional Design after Regional Planning: from the TVA to the SAC (Southern Automotive Corridor
Robert Fishman, University of Michigan

We Are Not Building Monuments: Deployable Systems Addressing Climate Justice In Post-Industrial Cities
Lauren Scott, Lehigh University

Moderator: TBD

Emotion as a Bridge: Integrating Cultural Resilience Indicators into Urban Co-design and Decision-Making
Huabing Yu, Chunyao Liu, & Paul Coseo, Arizona State University
Chingwen Cheng, Pennsylvania State University

Gulf Futures: Interdisciplinary Urban Design for Deep Uncertainty Across Three Gulf Coast Studios
Andrea Galinski & Christian Calle Figueroa, University of Florida
Dalia Munenzon, University of Houston
Fabio Capra-Ribeiro, Louisiana State University

Wicked Heat: A Framework for Extreme Heat Resilience in New York City
Rylee Ball & Brian Holland, University of Arkansas

CULTIVA(RT)E: Community Gardens as Networked Ecological Infrastructure
Fadhil Fadhil & Farzana Gandhi, New York Institute of Technology

Restoration Against Nature: Assetization, Real Estate, and the Dilemma of Water in Wuhan
Yiwen Yuan, Indiana University

Moderator: Mona El Khafif, University of Virginia
Marcella Del Signore, New York Insitute of Technology
Biayna Bogosian, Arizona State University
Nico Larco, University of Oregon
Petra Kempf, Washington University in St. Louis

Description: Urban design is increasingly expected to engage a broad range of stakeholders in addressing complex urban challenges, from climate adaptation and mobility to housing, equity, and public health. At the same time, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, interactive media, games, mobile applications, and digital platforms are transforming not only how cities are designed, but also how designers teach, learn, communicate, and collaborate with communities. These emerging tools are creating new opportunities to move beyond traditional studio models toward more participatory, experiential, and data-informed forms of urban design education.

This panel explores how emerging tools are reshaping urban design pedagogy while expanding meaningful stakeholder engagement throughout the design process. From game-based learning and simulation environments that help students understand complex urban dynamics, to mobile applications and immersive media that enable broader public participation, to AI-powered urban analytics and digital twin platforms that support collaborative, evidence-based decision making, the discussion examines how these technologies foster new relationships between designers, communities, policymakers, and other urban actors.

Rather than viewing technology simply as a new set of design tools, the panel considers its potential to transform the pedagogical culture of urban design by enabling continuous dialogue between academic research, professional practice, and civic participation. It also addresses critical questions surrounding data ethics, transparency, accessibility, and the evolving role of human creativity and judgment in increasingly AI-assisted design environments.

By bringing together complementary perspectives on games/participatory tools, interactive media, mobile platforms, urban AI, and digital twins, the panel will discuss how emerging technologies can prepare future urban designers to become facilitators of collaborative design processes rather than sole authors of urban interventions. Ultimately, the session asks how expanded pedagogies can leverage digital innovation to cultivate more inclusive, responsive, and evidence-based approaches to stakeholder engagement, ensuring that the future of urban design is shaped not only through better technologies, but through stronger collaboration with the people and communities it serves.