A group of SCI-Arc faculty and alumni will be attending the 103rd annual conference hosted by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) from March 19-21, 2015 in Toronto, Canada. The annual meeting co-chaired by David Ruy of the Pratt Institute and Lola Sheppard of University of Waterloo is organized under the leadership of ACSA’s Board of Directors, currently led by SCI-Arc Director of Academic Affairs Hsinming Fung.

Themed “The Expanding Periphery and the Migrating Center,” the conference features more than 20 thematic sessions where faculty and alumni of SCI-Arc will be presenting their papers and proposals alongside more than 200 faculty members from more than 100 architecture schools in the U.S. and Canada. The organizers’ goal: exploring the implications of architecture’s recently colonized frontiers while also bringing scrutiny to architecture’s core discipline, examining what remains essential within a mutable disciplinary terrain.

SCI-Arc design faculty and Applied Studies Coordinator Marcelo Spina and alumnus Jason Payne (B.Arch ‘94) will be part of the opening keynote discussion on Thursday, March 19, addressing what they consider to be an ideal mission statement of architectural education, with a focus on what is new or persistent about architecture in the 21st century. On Friday, March 20, SCI-Arc design faculty Marcelyn Gow will present the paper Architecture in the Penumbra, together with Ulrika Karlsoson and Jonas Ivarsson, part of a session focusing on architectural research, while on Saturday, March 21, design faculty Anna Neimark will present her essay, Installation Work, as part of a session dubbed Beyond Patronage.

Design faculty David Freeland will coordinate a Thursday session themed Architecture’s Complexity Complex, while on Friday, March 20, Cultural Studies Coordinator Dora Epstein-Jones will coordinate a paper session dubbed From Tectonic to Technique: Adventures in Architecture’s Ontologies, being joined in the discussion by Marcelo Spina. Also on Friday, alumna Erin Bessler (M.Arch ‘12) will coordinate a two-part paper session dubbed The Problem, being joined in one of the sessions by fellow alumnus David Eskenazi (M.Arch ‘12).

New this year, attendees can receive event updates in real time by downloading the event app ACSA103. For more information about this year’s ACSA annual conference, visit www.acsa-arch.org.