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Call for submissions to the first regional conference on Southeast Asian urbanism

Submission deadline: February 28

Southeast Asian Urbanism Seminar invites papers.

Seminar: May 29–30

The conference will focus on the unique characteristics of contemporary Southeast Asian urbanism at a time when increasing urbanization, productivity shifts, and a frenetic desire to “modernize” threaten to homogenize areas and settlement systems. The conference will critically examine the region’s past, where urban and architectural traditions of living were more in sync with natural rhythms and were embedded within landscape structures, in order to provide insights for cities and settlements of the future to develop contextresponsive approaches to urbanism capable of addressing the challenges ahead.

It will examine the evolving concept of “landscape urbanism” in three sub-categories. Water urbanism emphasizes the inextricable link between water and habitation, from strategic citing to flood resilience. Forest urbanism emphasizes the growing acknowledgment of the value of trees in cities for mitigating the heat island effect, increasing the need for shade, and carbon sequestration. Water and forest urbanisms complement each other and can be sought to increase a complimentary nature/culture link as well as the need to restore ecosystems. The juxtaposition of urban countryside and rural city highlights the region’s inherent defiance to standard dichotomies.

The first SEA Asian Urbanisms Seminar is co-organized by the International Center of Urbanisms: Settlements & Environments (ICoU) at the Department of Architecture, KU Leuven, the University of Architecture HCMC (UAH) and the Institute of Smart City & Management, University of Economics HCMC (ISCM, UEH). This first Southeast Asian Urbanism Seminar (SEAUS) will debate global warming in relation to architecture and urbanism through coursework results, design studio outcomes, research theses, doctoral research presentations, keynote lectures and insights from practice (from private professionals as well as civil servants).

Call for papers
Abstracts are to be submitted here (please create an individual account in order to submit).

Deadline of 500 word abstracts for PhD/research seminar: February 28, 2023
Notification of acceptance: March 10, 2023
Deadline for 3000-word draft of paper/ images: April 15, 2023
Comments on draft paper: May 1, 2023
Final paper/images: May 15, 2023

Please see here for more information and the paper template. The organizing committee will publish all accepted abstracts (after double, blind peer-review by the scientific committee) in a book of abstracts with an ISBN number. The scientific committee will have provided critical feedback on the abstracts. They will not be edited for language or grammar (this is the responsibility of the authors). During the conference, the book of abstracts will be provided to all paying attendees. It will also be available as a PDF on the conference website. The full (3000-word) articles will be published online as well.

Following the conference, members of the scientific committee will work to create a theme issue for one or two journals, as well as possibly a book, for selected contributions that best represent the high quality, novelty, and interdisciplinary approach of Southeast Asia’s emerging discourse on global warming challenges of landscape urbanism. After the event, selected participants will be requested to resubmit their texts (3000 words) in the form of an extended paper (approximately 5000-6000 words) for the topic issue (s). All selected papers will be submitted to an additional peer review and editorial procedure, which will be constituted by the organizational committee and selected members of the scientific committee, to assure the quality of these contributions. The theme issue(s) will build upon the respective experience of these members, well-versed in the communication, layout and financial aspects of publication.