This symposium asks what comfort, sustainability and adaptability mean for regionally specific and culturally embedded forms of architecture as climate change pushes our planet into a period of major instability and transformation. By bringing together experts from architectural, social science, natural science, and technical backgrounds to reflect on these topics, the event will allow for situated, discipline-specific analyses while also opening space for the generation of comparative and interdisciplinary insights. Only by bridging disciplinary divides, questioning received wisdom and challenging familiar analytical categories can we gain more accurate and nuanced understandings of the contemporary status of vernacular architecture and its prospects in the Anthropocene era.
Bringing experts from natural science, social science and technical backgrounds together to reflect on these topics allows for situated, discipline-specific analyses while also opening space for the generation of interdisciplinary and comparative insights into the status and prospects of vernacular architecture in the Anthropocene. The symposium will focus primarily on the Alps and the Himalayas, but research from other mountainous regions and bioclimatic zones will provide vital comparative scope. Similarly, while the temporal focus looks from the present day towards the future, historical perspectives that speak to the main themes of the event are also welcome.
Symposium 2
Vernacular Buildings in the Anthropocene: Comfort, sustainability, adaptability
17.11.–20.11.2026
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Georg-Coch-Platz 2, 1010 Wien
Die Registrierung und Einreichung des Abstracts sowie weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Projektwebsite: https://climate-arch.eu/events/.
Das dritte Symposium mit dem Titel „Making Vernacular Buildings“ wird im März 2027 stattfinden (Einreichung von Abstracts bis zum 30.09.2026).
Beide Symposien finden als Hybridveranstaltungen an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien) statt.
