Study Architecture 
ProPEL Call for Speakers
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2026
Sign-up Opening Soon
The 2026 Intersections Research Conference: URBAN DESIGN MATTERS invites contributions that would like to speak at the conference to explore, propose, or challenge new and existing practices and paradigms. Speakers will need to select one of the following tracks that best represents their content strength.
Please Note: This page is intended only for individuals interested in presenting as conference speakers. If you would like to submit a peer-reviewed research presentation, please visit the Call for Peer-Reviewed Submissions page for submission guidelines, requirements, and deadlines.
Pedagogies of Urban Design
Contributions that critically examine the full range of methods, frameworks, and approaches to teaching and learning urban design within and beyond professional and pre-professional degree programs. We welcome submissions that address pedagogies responding to uncertainty and complexity, as well as interdisciplinary, experimental, and alternative models focused on design of the urban condition. Contributions may engage curricular structures, studio models, research-led teaching, community-based learning, or emerging tools and platforms, articulating how pedagogical innovation advances urban design education.
Practices of Urban Design
Contributions that critically reflect on the changing practice of urban design—and the role of urbanistic approaches within architecture and allied disciplines—from both public and private sector contexts. Collaborative submissions by practitioners and academics that examine the significance, methods, real world challenges, and impacts of the field are strongly encouraged.
Scales and Means of Urban Design
Contributions that probe notions of urban development, reconstruction, care and repair, disruption, and urban justice, at the full range of scales of engagement, from local interventions, buildings, and landscapes to territorial frameworks. Discourse that investigates urban types and morphologies, how they adapt, transform, and evolve in relation to a range of urban challenges is encouraged.
Emergent Technologies of Urban Design
Contributions that document and investigate how big data, urban AI, and other emergent digital technologies shape urban environments, governance, and everyday life across diverse global contexts and scales, examining their intersections with sociopolitical, cultural, and spatial change.
Urban Spatial Narratives
Contributions from across media types that narrate, counter narrate or otherwise analyze histories and theories of urban lived space. These can focus on a particular place or set of places, engage notions of power and agency, interrogate specific figures, community collaborations, or client relationships, trace a movement, or tell another meaningful story.
Matters that Expand Urban Design
Contributions that expand and challenge the disciplinary frameworks of urban design, including: How do we advance global, comparative, and transdisciplinary urban design research methods? What socioecological agency does urban design have on climate change and planetary multispecies coexistence? How does urban thinking promote, or inhibit, the social life of the city and suburb? Who ultimately has the right to the city?
Eligibility
Practitioners, Educators, and Researchers are all encouraged to submit a request to be a speaker at the conference.
Submission Timeline
July 1, 2026 | Speaker Deadline |
July 2026 | Speaker Notification |
October 1-3, 2026 | 2026 Intersections: URBAN DESIGN MATTERS |
HOW TO SUBMIT TO BE A SPEAKER
Speakers must submit their interest to be a conference speaker through the online form.
Follow the steps below to complete your request.
- Full Name (First and Last Name)
- Affiliation (Firm, Organization, University etc.)
- Email Address
- Short Bio (250 word max)
- Select a primary conference track that best fits your area of expertise
- Select a secondary conference track that best fits your area of expertise
PRESENTATION
After the call for speaker deadline, the conference co-chairs will review & make final decisions regarding speakers. All individuals who submit an interest form will be notified of their status. Accepted speakers will be invited to present at the conference and will receive instructions for next steps. It is ACSA policy that conference speakers must register & pay full conference registration in order to be included in the conference presentation and program.
Conference Partners
Questions
Michelle Sturges
ACSA
Conferences Manager
202-785-2324
msturges@acsa-arch.org
Eric Wayne Ellis
ACSA
Sr. Dir. of Operations & Programs
202-785-2324
eellis@acsa-arch.org
