Convenor(s): Özgün Özçakır (Middle East Technical University), Mesut Dinler (Politecnico di Torino)
As the climate crisis intensifies, historic environments are increasingly susceptible to extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and environmental degradation. Concrete has played a defining role in shaping the built environment throughout the 20th century as the most widely utilized manufactured material globally. However, its extensive use has resulted in significant environmental consequences since as its primary component, cement is a major emitter of carbon dioxide. Thus, 20th-century architectural and urban developments have an undeniable impact on the contemporary climate crisis. Ironically, the buildings and sites constructed during this period, now recognized as modern architectural heritage, also remain highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change despite having contributed to its progression.
This session examines how climate-resilient design strategies can be integrated into modern architectural heritage while safeguarding their historical and cultural significance, inviting papers that critically analyse how the built environment negotiates the tension between continuity and change in response to climate pressures. The session aims to address the following key questions:
- What are the advantages and obstacles of function-specific design (form follows function) in shaping climate-adaptive conservation approaches of modern heritage?
- What role do governance structures play in shaping climate action strategies for modern environments?
- What are the interventions (from micro-interventions to macro-interventions) that enhance climate adaptation in modern heritage?
- What lessons can be drawn from international examples of climate-responsive transformations of modern heritage?
- By fostering interdisciplinary dialogues and engaging with global policies and practices, this session seeks to advance discourse on the impacts of environmental entanglements on modern environments.
- It will explore how 20th-century heritage can be strategically adapted to address climate uncertainties while maintaining their heritage values.
Format: In person paper session
Deadline for individual paper abstracts: 2 June 2025, 5 pm (GMT)
Confirmation of accepted papers: August 2025
Conference dates: Saturday 22 – Monday 24 November 2025
Conference convenors:
Dr Ranald Lawrence, Dr Christina Malathouni, Dr Yat Shun Kei, University of Liverpool
For further details and regular updates, please see the AHRA 2025 conference website:
https://www.virtual-lsa.uk/ahra2025/.
Contact: ahra2025@liverpool.ac.uk
Generously supported by the British Academy, the 2025 Architectural Humanities Research Association international conference aims to highlight the critical contribution that humanities-driven studies can make to the intersections between subjects as complex and inter-disciplinary as architecture and environment(s). The conference will explore the multiplicity of meanings behind the term ‘environment’, and how these are used and interpreted in architecture and related disciplines, both in contemporary practice and in historical precedents. An ‘environment’ fundamentally describes a relationship: between an object (or subject), and something that surrounds it (from the French environer: ‘to surround, encircle, encompass’). We can only define our environment – what surrounds us – by assuming an understanding of who and what we are. While contemporary scholarship in disciplines including philosophy, science, sociology, history of science and geography explore humanity’s impact on the natural world, architects and planners are tasked with the unique responsibility to alter environment(s), with (or without) knowledge of how to work with (or overcome) constraints associated with these uncertainties.