Deadline

August 10, 2026

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Location

Yale School of Architecture · Paul Rudolph Hall

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Notification

September 4, 2026

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Eligibility

Postdoctoral fellows, PhD candidates, and master's students

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Platform

CMT (Conference Management Toolkit) portal via Yale CEA Website.

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Review

Double-blind peer review

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The World Ecologies in Formation Symposium invites postdoctoral researchers, PhD candidates, and master’s students to submit abstracts for a double-blind peer-reviewed poster session.

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This poster aims to showcase innovative early-career research that advances understanding of socioecological systems, material flows, design paradigms, and world ecologies. Accepted posters will be exhibited at Rudolph Hall (Paul Rudolph Hall, Yale School of Architecture), alongside the symposium’s panels and workshops, and will be considered for inclusion in a forthcoming book.

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Engaging contemporary framings of our climate and economic crises, World-Ecology in Formation investigates the social and environmental dialectics that have given rise to both historical and emerging 21st-century built cultures, including material ecologies, building technologies, energy regimes, landscapes, waterscapes, atmospheres, labour systems, and data infrastructures. Departing from a dual framing of human and non-human systems as discrete processes, the symposium investigates the complex internalisation and externalisation of socioecological transformations within contemporary built ecologies as active constituents in shaping each other.

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By framing “world-ecology” as a system in formation, the symposium engages how transdisciplinary and cross-cultural socioecological concepts are deconstructing, enriching, and reconstituting the fundamentals of future design. We will commit to an investigation of emerging and novel relational models and how they might alter power dynamics in the shaping of environments. The three-day event brings together an interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, architects, artists, scientists, activists, historians, economists, engineers, philosophers, and scientists to investigate how historical, contemporary, and emerging world ecological paradigms continue to shape existing built ecosystems and material artefacts.

Track 01

Metabolic Invention and the Synthetic Commons

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This track investigates new ecosystemic alliances across living systems, positioning the city as a site for cross-sectoral integration and new models of value creation. It examines interactive and recursive urban metabolisms in which living systems actively participate in the design and management of dynamic flows through responsive bio-synthetic interfaces.

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• Urban metabolism, circularity, and cross-sectoral integration

• Material, energy, water, nutrient, thermal, atmospheric, and information flows

• Bio-synthetic interfaces and responsive environmental systems

• Ecological infrastructures, hydrological systems, and regenerative resource cycles

• New models of value, commons, and trans-territorial socioecological relations

• Data infrastructures, sensing, monitoring, and feedback-based environmental management

• Design approaches that position living systems as active agents in urban transformation

 

Track 02

Towards New Design Paradigms for Biodiversity

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This track investigates new ecosystemic alliances across living systems, positioning the city as a site for cross-sectoral integration and new models of value creation. It examines interactive and recursive urban metabolisms in which living systems actively participate in the design and management of dynamic flows through responsive bio-synthetic interfaces.​Socioecological concepts: world-ecology, pluriverse, mutualism, generative justice

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• World-ecology, functional diversity, mutualism, pluriverse, and generative justice

• Biobased materials, biomaterials, and ecological material supply chains

• Biodiversity-sensitive design across material, building, landscape, and territorial scales

• Functional trait-based and multispecies approaches to the built environment

• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), ecological metrics, and biodiversity assessment methods

• Ecological health, labor justice, extraction, and material production systems

• Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary frameworks for biodiversity-oriented design

 

Track 03

Towards New Networks for Reading, Making, and Co-Evolving World-Ecologies

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This track focuses on architectural projects and practices across scales that are enabled by new networks of collaboration. It examines how collaborative models can generate new readings of socioecological contexts and advance socio-material formation, adaptive infrastructures, and co-evolutionary design processes.

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• Collaborative, transdisciplinary, and cross-cultural networks for socioecological knowledge and practice

• Architectural and design projects across scales for ecological adaptation and regenerative environments

• Socio-material systems, adaptive infrastructures, and co-evolutionary design processes

• New forms of engagement between communities, institutions, industry, and academia

• Collaborative models bridging formal and informal labor in the production of the built environment

• Academic–industrial and academic–community models of architectural education and practice

• Participatory design, environmental governance, and collective approaches to socioecological transformation

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All submissions must follow the abstract and poster preparation requirements below.

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Abstract Submission

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• Eligibility: Open to postdoctoral fellows, PhD candidates, and master’s students (or equivalent early-career).

• Abstract length: 200–250 words.

• Submission materials: written abstract and graphical abstract.

• Graphical abstract: one visual summary of the research idea, method, case study, or main argument. It may include a diagram, conceptual framework, map, workflow, model, data visualization, or image-based composition. The graphical abstract should help reviewers understand the core contribution and visual direction of the proposed poster.

• Format: Word or PDF, 11 pt Times New Roman, single-spaced, English only.

• Blind review: Remove all author names, affiliations, and acknowledgments from the submitted abstract and graphical abstract.

• Submission platform: Submissions must be completed through the Microsoft CMT platform:

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Submission platform

 

Authors must register on CMT and search for WEF2026 in the Conference List.

*The Microsoft CMT service will be used to manage the peer-review process for this poster session. This service is provided free of charge by Microsoft, which covers all related costs, including Azure cloud services, software development, and technical support..

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• Deadline: August 10, 2026.

• Notification of acceptance: September 4, 2026.

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Abstract Structure

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1. Poster Title

2. Background and Objectives

3. Methods or Conceptual Framework

4. Results or Expected Outcomes

5. Relevance to Symposium Track

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Poster Preparation Guidelines

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Accepted abstracts will be presented as posters.

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• Size: A0 format (841 × 1189 mm), portrait orientation

• Required elements:

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1. Title and author(s) / affiliation(s)

2. Symposium track and keywords (3–5)

3. Research question/project framing

4. Key visual argument or finding

5. References/acknowledgments (if any, small font)

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• Visual design (70/30 rule):

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1. Posters should have 70% visual content and 30% text. Lead with drawings, diagrams, renderings, maps, photographs, data visualizations, or models. Minimize dense text blocks and communicate through graphic argumentation.

2. Reference: Presidents’ Medals / RIBA award poster conventions.

3. Layout: No obligatory section structure: design the poster as a graphic artifact.

4. Title, author(s), and symposium track must be clearly legible.

5. Minimum font size: 24 pt body, 36 pt title.

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• File: PDF, minimum 300 DPI, RGB color mode. A poster template will be shared with the acceptance notification.

• Submission of digital version: PDF file by October 2, 2026.

• On-site presentation: Printed posters must be brought by the presenter and mounted at Rudolph Hall.  Mounting materials (pins, tape strips) will be provided on-site.

• Book of Abstracts: All accepted abstracts and poster thumbnails will be compiled into a digital Book of Abstracts, distributed at the symposium and published online.

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