Study Architecture 
ProPEL SCHEDULE: THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2026
Below is the schedule for Thursday, March 26, 2026, featuring session titles & descriptions. The conference schedule is subject to change.
You can read the peer reviewed abstracts in the Abstract Book, check out the 2026 Award Winners, and the AIAS CRIT Scholars abstracts.
+ Abstract Book
+ 2026 Award Winners
+ AIAS CRIT Scholars
Conference Registration Hours:
Thursday, March 26 at 8:30am-6:00pm
ABSTRACT BOOK
PRE-CONFERENCE | THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2026
9:00am-1:00pm
Ticketed Events
Workshop Leader: Corey Gracie-Griffin, Penn State University
Description:
This workshop will offer guidance on the entire grant writing process from finding funding opportunities to preparing your best proposal with an emphasis on all research fields within architecture. Led by Corey Gracie-Griffin, Professor of Architecture, former Associate Dean for Research, and recipient of over $2.5M in external funding, participants will receive feedback on concept papers and biosketches as well as understand the larger role of external grants in the promotion and tenure process. This workshop is unique as it will provide specific advice for architecture faculty members from a peer. Participants with no previous grant writing experience as well as those who have experience are welcome to attend.
9:00am-1:00pm
Ticketed Events
Tour Leaders: Odile Compagnon, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Myra Sampson, CCA Academy
Pastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick, Historic Stone Temple
Kimberly George, Young Men’s Educational Network
Description:
During this four-hour tour of North Lawndale, a neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, we will visit four sites where architecture students, designers and artists have collaborated with the local community to design and build small structures, infrastructure and landscapes. Several of the sites have hosted events during Chicago Architecture Biennials, Open House Chicago, Chicago Sukkah Design Festival. All have developed incrementally and organically from year to year, respecting the fabric and culture of the neighborhood. Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a landscaping and beautification project to celebrate the beginning of the growing season. Participants are to dress appropriately including sun, rain, bug protection.
CONFERENCE | THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2026
2:00pm-3:30pm
Research Sessions
Material and Health Pedagogies
Pedagogy Topic
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Michaele Pride, University of New Mexico
A Place Between Places, Built for Everyone
Lucas Brown, Indiana University
Pixels as Pedagogy: Reframing Color, Computation, and Authorship in Postdigital Architecture
Hyojin Kwon, Georgia Institute of Technology
Radical Rooms: AI and Research-Driven Design for Wellbeing in Interior Architecture
Casey Franklin, University of Kansas
Bailey Park Stage: Modular Design for Community Performance
Lee Su Huang, Lizabeth Wardzinski & Katie Goldberg,
Lawrence Technological University
Community, Preservation, and Adaptive Re-use
Society+Community Topic
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Cathi Ho Schar, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Reframing Architecture: Engaged Practice for Community Preservation
Gorham Bird, Auburn University
Collaborative Practice Award
Twenty Ways Home
Matt Burgermaster, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/Parsons School of Design
Faculty Design Award – Honorable Mention
OCA: A Chapel for the Ocupação 9 de Julho in Downtown São Paulo
Eduardo Aquino, University of Manitoba
Amanda Reis, Laurentian University
La Esperanza Community Center in Dallas, TX: Transforming a Vacant School Into a Community Hub Through Design, Diversity, and Collaboration
Lorena Toffer, University of Texas at Arlington
Diversity Achievement Award
Beyond Wayfinding
Karla Sierralta & Brian Strawn, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Kūhaʻo Zane, Sig Zane Designs & SZKaiao
Collaborative Practice Award
Framing the Modern City
History, Theory, Criticism Topic
1.5 AIA/CES LU
Moderator: May Khalife, Miami University
Glitch: Decoding the Frames of Modernity
Madalyn Asker & Randall Teal, University of Idaho
Spectacle for Stewardship: 2025 Osaka World Expo
Ryan Yin, Washington University in St. Louis
From Geddes to Housing Cooperatives: The Global Flow of Participatory Urbanism
Patricia Fraile-Garrido Tulane University
Inés Martín-Robles & Luis Pancorbo, University of Virginia
Kiosk K67: System for Urban Imagination
Dijana Handanovic, University of Houston
Faculty Design Award
Ecology
Short Papers
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Frank Melendez, City College of New York
Design Tools for Multispecies Flourishing
Eva Perez de Vega, Parsons School of Design
Retrofitting Seawalls with 3D-Printed Tiles to Revive Marine Habitat
Sara Pezeshk & Shahin Vassigh, Florida International University
Unstack and Reframe: A Pedagogical Framework for Circular Construction Through Stereotomic and Tectonic Systems
Jongwan Kwon, Carnegie Mellon University
What if! Infrastructure + Ecology
Roya Plauche, University of Houston
Eggregate: Architectural Resilience by Material-informed Design and Fabrication of Food Waste Bio-Composites
Laia Mogas-Soldevila, Yasaman Amirzehni, Bhavana Prya Balasubramanian & Abigail Weinstein,
University of Pennsylvania
Housing & Thermal Comfort
Building Science and Technology Topic
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Heather Ligler, Florida Atlantic University
Radon Concentration in Residential Buildings in New England
Fernando del Ama Gonzalo, Donna Paley, Hayden Goodenough & Justin Nicolas,
Keene State College
Technology, Ecology and the Housing Crisis
Steven Beites, Laurentian University
Enhancing Outdoor Comfort: Leveraging Sky View Factor Analysis
Lei Xu & Srilalitha Gopalakrishnan, Future Cities Laboratory Global, Singapore-ETH Centre
Daniel K. H. Wong & Thomas Schroepfer, Singapore University of Technology and Design
TAD Research Contribution Award,Volume 8.2: Coding
States of Matter: Reconvening First Principles in the Material Practice of American Housing
David Kennedy & Alyssa Kuhns, University of Arkansas
2:00pm-3:30pm
Special Focus Sessions
Convergent/Divergent Frameworks in Architecture and Design Education
1.5 AIA/CES LU
Presenters: Claudia Bernasconi, University of Detroit Mercy
Libby Balter Blume, University of Detroit Mercy
Description:
This focus session provides an interactive forum for architecture faculty and administrators to engage in authentic conversation about the future of conceptual framings in contemporary studio pedagogy. Sharing their experiences teaching environmental psychology and thesis research to undergraduate and graduate architecture students, the presenters will advocate for tackling studio topics/issues from an interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary approach that considers both idiographic and research-based theories and investigations. The majority of the session will offer participants opportunities to reflect on and share in a focused discussion of what they are currently doing, what is working, and how the curriculum can support intersubjective and co-constructed approaches.
3:30pm-4:00pm
Coffee Break
New Attendees – Meet & Greet
4:00pm-5:30pm
Research Sessions
Housing & City Form(s)
Short Papers
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: John Dwyer, Thomas Jefferson University
Housing Insecurity and Solidarity Architecture: An Educational Intervention in Pécs, Hungary
Tibor Dányi, University of Pécs
A Taxonomy of Vacancy II: Testing Multifamily Housing Strategies on Underutilized Land Along Commercial Strips
Ian Caine, Huanchun Huang & Esteban López Ochoa, University of Texas at San Antonio
Wei Zhai, University of Texas at Arlington
Gabriel Diaz Montemayor, University of Arkansas
Rudy Niño, City of San Antonio
Chris Quattro, Appalachian State University
Analyzing Energy Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness of Adobe Wall Panels for use in Hot-Humid Climates
Smita Sabnam & Ulrike Passe, Iowa State University
Small City Stories: Building a Disciplinary Knowledge of Smaller Places
Wesley Hiatt & Isabelle O’Toole, Lehigh University
Material Processes
Building Science and Technology Topic
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Katie MacDonald, University of Virginia
Neighborhood Scale Carbon Analysis: Developing Methods for Large Scale Material Reuse
Fleet Hower, Peyton Catarelli & Jayden Huang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Valence Pavilion: Molecular-Inspired Sustainable Architecture Through the [Xyl]ode Joint
Ralph Steenblik & Alireza Alikaei, Indiana University
Boardwalk
Dillon Pranger, Illinois Institute of Technology
Christopher Battaglia, Cornell University
Faculty Design Award – Honorable Mention
Design and Performance Analysis of an Innovative Composite Steel Structure in Freeform Architecture
Hongxi Yin, Xinyu Zhao, Chin Tial, Ryan Yin, Bao Nguyen & Andres Fernadez-Aguilar, Washington University in St. Louis
Sam Schlegl & Alaaeldin Elsisi, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Ming Qu, Purdue University
Xin Yan, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture
Design as Agency
History, Theory, Criticism Topic
1.5 AIA/CES LU
Moderator: George Epolito, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
Design and The Poetics of Everyday Life: Exploring The Tangible and Intangible Dimensions of Modern Vernacular Architecture
John Reynolds, Miami University
Peripheral Mechanisms
Zachary Tate Porter, University of Texas at Arlington
The Territory as Construct
Andrea Alberto Dutto, University of Idaho
Wartime Survival: Lilly Reich’s Labor and Mediation in the Making of Mies’s Legacy
Laura Martinez de Guereñu, IE university
Designing Care, Health, and Memory
Health Topic
1.5 AIA/CES HSW
Moderator: Jefferson Ellinger, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Microhistories of Containment: Spatial Practices during the 1972 Smallpox Outbreak in Kosovo
Erona Bexheti, University of Cincinnati
The Pleasure Paradox in Designing for Drug Users
Lucy Satzewich, University of Louisiana – Lafayette
Disability and Design: Reframing Architectural Education Through Disability Justice
Gail Dubrow, Chelsea Wait & Laura Leppink, University of Minnesota
Diversity Achievement Award – Honorable Mention
Rituals of Remembrance – A Healing Garden and Memorial for a University Campus
Scott Lawrence, University of Idaho
Design Build Award
4:00pm-5:30pm
Special Focus Sessions
A Debate for Architectural Education: Something Has To Go
1.5 AIA/CES LU
Presenters: Luis Rico-Gutierrez, Iowa State University
Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, University of Arkansas
Thomas Forget, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Ursula Emery McClure, Kansas State University
Description:
This moderated, debate-format session invites critical examination of the priorities and assumptions that shape contemporary architectural curriculum in the era of AI. Four faculty participants will advance positions on whether the design studio, architectural history/theory, representation or building technology is the area most in need of reconsideration, using structured provocation to surface underlying values. Through dialogue and audience engagement, this session invites educators to critically examine assumptions, tradeoffs, and priorities in architectural education, opening space for dialogue about what we defend, what we adapt, and why it matters.
5:30pm-6:00pm
Networking
Break
6:00pm-7:00pm
Plenary
Opening Plenary
1 AIA/CES LU
7:00pm-8:00pm
Networking
OPENING RECEPTION
Continuing Education Credits
Obtain Continuing Education Credits (CES) / Learning Units (LU), including Health, Safety and Welfare (HSW) where applicable. Registered conference attendees will be able to submit sessions attended for Continuing Education Credits (CES). Register for the conference to gain access to all the AIA/CES credit sessions.
Conference Partners
Michelle Sturges
Conferences Manager
202-785-2324
msturges@acsa-arch.org
Eric W. Ellis
Sr. Director of Operations and Programs
202-785-2324
eellis@acsa-arch.org
