Architecture in the Critical Zone

The theme for the 15th annual conference of the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) invites discussion on how architecture, and the practices that surround it, engage with the challenge of reconceiving the terrestrial. Our title derives from the French philosopher Bruno Latour (1944 – 2022) and the German curator Peter Wiebel’s explorations in their 2020 exhibition Critical Zones– The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth at the ZKM centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. The exhibition took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, and many people experienced it remotely [https://zkm.de/en/exhibition/2020/05/critical-zones].

Latour and Wiebel captured the disorientation of life in a world facing climate change. They traced this disorientation to the disconnection between two different definitions of the land where modern humans live; the sovereign nation from which they derive their rights, and another hidden one from which they derive their wealth – the land they live on and the land they live from. Charting the land that they will live from they find not a globe, not the iconic “blue marble”, but a series of critical zones – patchy, heterogeneous and discontinuous. Within the context of rapidly shifting geopolitical conflict, we must address this trouble. 

As everybody learned at school, each time the position of the Earth in the cosmos is modified, a revolution in social order ensues. Remember the Galileo affair. When scientists made the Earth move around the sun, the whole fabric of society felt under attack. Today, again, four centuries later, the role and the position of the Earth is being revolutionized by new sciences: it appears that human behaviour has pushed the Earth to react in unexpected ways. And once again, the whole organization of society is being subverted. Shake the cosmic order and the order of politics will be shaken as well.  

The conference chairs invite proposals addressing different aspects of the Critical Zones and the politics of landing on earth through the topics presented by Latour and Weibel: 

• Disorientation
• Disconnected 
• Critical Zones 
• Gaia 
• Terrestrial 
• Divided 
• Depiction 
• Suspended

We invite submissions from diverse disciplines including architects, activists, artists, cartographers, cultural producers, curators, ecologists, engineers, geographers, historians, landscape architects, philosophers, politicians, scientists, sociologists and theorists to reconceptualise and care about architectural practice in the face of the terrestrial crisis. The conference will support established research methods but also welcomes emerging fields such as research by design and artistic/creative practice. Conference contributions may consist of traditional papers, drawings, films, designed artefacts or hybrids. 

Keynotes Speakers: Alexandra Arenes, Sébastien Marot and Amin Taha. 

Submission Requirements 

Papers: 

• Title (Times New Roman, Regular, font size: 18 pt) 
• Name, Surname, name of the Institution (Times New Roman, Regular, font size: 11 pt. 
• Abstract of your paper – from 300 to 400 words; Times New Roman, font size: 11 pt. 
• Bibliography (max 5, Harvard Style Referencing; Times New Roman 11. 
• Keywords: Max 3, Times New Roman, font size 11. 
• Please include one image. Title and source of the image (Times New Roman, font 9) 

Designed Output or Artefact(s): 

• A short paragraph explaining the methods/techniques/instrument you apply in your work as Design Driven Research/Artistic Practice – max 200 words, Times New Roman, font size 11) 
• Keywords: Max 3, Times New Roman, font size 11. 
• Please include up to three images. Title and source of the image (Times New Roman, font 9) 

Biography: 

• Name, Surname, name of PhD program/University; stage of research; mail contact. 
  Short bio/cv – max 100 words; Times New Roman, font size 10 

Submissions to allirelandarchitecture@gmail.com 

Dates 

Thursday 5th March 2026

Amin Taha Keynote and Opening Reception (evening) 

Friday 6th March 2026

Alexandra Arènes Keynote Presentation and Parallel Sessions Sebastien Marot Keynote and Conference Dinner (evening) 

Saturday 7th March 2026

Parallel Sessions and closing session (morning only) City Visits (afternoon). 

Venue 

The conference is hosted by Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE) located on Douglas Street in Cork City, (Eircode T12 AD7R). Cork Centre for Architectural Education is a joint centre of Munster Technological University and University College Cork. 

Background:  

Established in 2010, the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) is a network of researchers from nine higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and professionals interested in architectural research. It is at the forefront of establishing a nexus of relationships between research, education, and practice within the field. AIARG seeks to facilitate and foster ongoing development in architecture as a research field in Ireland by providing an infrastructure for research in the form of conferences and peer-review publication opportunities and by raising the profile of research within the education of architects and their subsequent careers as practitioners. 

References: 

Aït-Touati, F. Arènes, A. Grégoire, A. Terra-Forma – A Book of Speculative Maps, MIT Press, 2022, Cambridge, MA. 

Fuller, M and Weizman, E. Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth, Verso Press, 2021. 

Haraway, D. Staying With the Trouble – Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Duke Press, 2016,  

Kara, H. and Taha, A. (eds) Magna Parens Materia – Hybrid Stone and Timber Building, Harvard GSD, 2024, Cambridge, MA, 

Latour, B. Down to Earth – Politics in the New Climatic Regime, Polity Press, 2018, Cambridge, UK. 

Latour, B. and Wiebel, P. (eds.) Critical Zones– The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, MIT Press, 2020, Cambridge, MA. 

Marot, S. Taking the Country’s Side – Agriculture and Architecture, Ediciones Poligrafa, 2019, Lisbon.