About DigitalFUTURES Shanghai

In 2011, DigitalFUTURES started out as an annual series of academic events, consisting of a conference, workshops and exhibition, hosted by the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai. It has since expanded to become a year round global platform. However, the original series of events in Shanghai remains central to its mission. The aim of DigitalFUTURES is to encourage international collaboration and interaction, and to promote theoretical and scientific research into computational design, robotic fabrication, and other areas of architectural intelligence.

2021 Conference Theme: Material Intelligence

'Materialist philosophers, it is becoming increasingly clear, cannot afford to ignore the basic fact that the study of matter does matter.'— Manuel DeLanda.

Why Material Intelligence? First of all, we must recognise that there is an increasing emphasis both on the intelligent use of materials and on the use of intelligent materials in contemporary architectural culture. One of the primary reasons for this has been the question of material performance. Concerns about structural and environmental performance, in particular, have become paramount. These concerns go beyond mere economic considerations, to become an ethical imperative in a world of diminishing resources and global warming. But, secondly, we must also recognise that we can now use intelligent computational techniques, such as artificial intelligence, to make our designs ever more materially intelligent. Thus, while intelligent computational techniques remain immaterial, they can be used to inform the intelligent design of a material building. Material intelligence, then, stands not only for the intelligent use of materials and the use of intelligent materials in the construction of a building, but also for the use of intelligent computational techniques to design the material form of that building.

Research Topics

The “2021 DigitalFUTURES—The 3rd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2021)” provides an international platform for advanced researches addressing Material Intelligence in architecture. The focuses of the papers include, but not limited to, architecture theories, tools, methods and procedures in:

• Computation and Formation
  • Rule-based morphology
  • Performance-driven form-finding
  • AI-augmented generative design
• Simulation and Optimization
  • Cross scale: urban and architecture
  • Multiple objectives: environmental and structural
  • Full life circle: design, fabrication and operation
• Data Acquisition and Prediction
  • Ubiquitous perception and multi-scale data 
  • Three-dimensional spatial data and smart cities
  • Internet of Things, Blockchain and Information Modeling
  • Complex network and multi-agent system
  • Human-factors data collection and evaluation
• Perception and Interaction
  • Digital twin
  • Immersive Technology / VR / AR
  • Responsive materials and dynamic structure
  • Machine communication and interaction
• Materialization and Construction
  • New materiality
  • Performative tectonics
  • Robotic fabrication
  • Automated assembly
  • Human-machine collaboration

Submission Guidelines

All full papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. Plagiarism (including self-plagiarism) is strongly prohibited. Paper originality will be checked for several times during the review process and before publication. All submissions will be refereed for quality, originality, and relevance by the Committee. Manuscripts should be formatted using the CDRF2021 Paper Template, which can be downloaded from: CDRF2021 Paper Template (Google drive) or CDRF2021 Paper Template (Baidu pan, Code: prqd).

• Language: English
• Full paper: Limited to 10 pages, including references, table/chart and keywords.
• Key words: 3-5 words.
• Each Figure should above 300dpi.
• Format: PDF and MS Word-compatible file.

Dates

• Extended Full Paper Submission Due: 15 April 2021
• Full Paper Submission Due: 15 March 2021
• Notification of the Peer Review Results: 15 May 2021
• Paper Revised Submission Due: 31 May 2021
• Notification of the Paper Acceptance: 10 June 2021
• Workshops: 26 June-04 July 2021
• Conference: 26 June-04 July 2021

Committees

Honorary Advisors (in alphabetical order of last name)

• Prof. Dr. Philippe Block, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Prof. Dr. Jane Burry, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
• Prof. Dr. Mark Burry, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
• Prof. Dr. Ximing Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• Prof. Dr. Lieyun Ding, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
• Chief Engineer. Dr. Jian Gong, Shanghai Construction Group (SCG), China
• Prof. Dr. Guoqiang Li, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Jiaping Liu, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, China
• Prof. Areti Markopoulou, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Spain
• Prof. Dr. Achim Menges, University of Stuttgart, Germany
• Prof. Dr. Antoine Picon, GSD, USA
• Prof. Dr. Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), UK
• Prof. Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen, Royal Danish Academy, Denmark
• Prof. Dr. Zhiqiang Wu, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Yimin (Mike) Xie, RMIT University, Australia
• Prof. Dr. Xianzhong Zhao, Tongji University, China

Organization Committees

• Prof. Dr. Philip F. Yuan, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Neil Leach, Tongji University, China

Scientific Committees (in alphabetical order of last name)

• Dr. Felix Amtsberg, University of Stuttgart, Germany
• Alisa Andrasek, RMIT University, Australia
• Nic Bao, RMIT University, Australia
• Prof. Dr. Thomas Bock, Technical University of Munich, Germany
• Serban Bodea, University of Stuttgart, Germany
• Assistant Prof. Biayna Bogisian, Florida International University in Miami, USA
• Assistant Prof. Daniel Bolojan, Florida Atlantic University, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Matias Del Campo, University of Michigan, USA
• Prof. Brad Cantrell, University of Virginia, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Tengwen Chang, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, China
• Associate Prof. Dr. Kristof Crolla, University of Hong Kong, China
• Assistant Prof. Dr. Benjamin Dillenburger, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Marcus Farr, Tongji University, China
• Melissa Goldman, University of Virginia, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Yunsong Han, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
• Associate Prof. Dr. Hua Hao, Southeast University, China
• Wanyu He, Xkool, China
• Prof. Dr. Tim Heath, University of Nottingham, UK
• Associate Prof. Alvin Huang, University of Southern California, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Weixin Huang, Tsinghua University, China
• Prof. Dr. Guohua Ji, Nanjing University, China
• Gene Ting-Chun Kao, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Assistant Prof. Dr. Immanuel Koh, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
• Prof. Dr. Neil Leach, Tongji University, China
• Dr. Guan Lee, University College London, UK
• Associate Prof. Dr. Hyejin Lee, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Biao Li, Southeast University, China
• Prof. Dr. Linxue Li, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Yujie Lu, Tongji University, China
• Associate Prof. Dr. Peng Luo, Tongji University, China
• Andrea Macruz, Tongji University, China
• Assistant Prof. Sandra Manninger, University of Michigan, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Wes McGee, University of Michigan, USA
• Assistant Research Fellow, Dr. Xianchuan Meng, Nanjing University, China
• Virginia Melnyk, Tongji University, China/Clemson University, USA
• Dr. Kris Mun, University of Minnesota, USA
• Guvenc Ozel, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
• Gilles Retsin, University College London, UK
• Klaas de Rycke, Bollinger + Grohmann, Germany
• Prof. Bob Sheil, University College London, UK
• Prof. Dr. Xing Shi, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Miroslaw J. Skibniewski, University of Maryland, USA
• Associate Prof. Dr. Roland Snooks, RMIT University, Australia
• Satoru Sugihara, Architectural Technology Laboratorial Venture
• Associate Prof. Dr. Chengyu Sun, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Kostas Terzidis, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Oliver Tessmann, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
• Associate Prof. Kathy Velikov, University of Michigan, USA
• Tomas Vivanco, Tongji University, China
• Dr. Xiang Wang, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Makoto Sei Watanabe, Tokyo City University, Japan
• Dr. Dylan Wood, University of Stuttgart, Germany
• Dr. Jing Wu, Southern University of Science and Technology, China
• Prof. Dr. Leiqing Xu, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Weiguo Xu, Tsinghua University, China
• Prof. Michael Weinstock, The Architectural Association, UK
• Dr. Chao Yan, Tongji University, China
• Associate Prof. Dr. Feng Yang, Tongji University, China
• Associate Research Fellow, Dr. Jiawei Yao, Tongji University, China
• Assistant Prof. Kaiho Yu, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria
• Prof. Dr. Philip F. Yuan, Tongji University, China
• Prof. Dr. Xu Zhen, Tianjin University, China

Publication

The accepted papers will be published in the Proceedings of the 2021 DigitalFUTURES—The 3rd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2021) published by Springer. Within the accepted papers, the papers that are closely addressing the conference topics would be possibly included into the book publication containing our specially invited papers from the top scholars in computational design and robotic fabrication around the world.

Proceedings of the 2019 DigitalFUTURES—The 1st International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2019) and Proceedings of the 2020 DigitalFUTURES—The 2nd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2020) were successfully published by Springer.

Venue

The conference will be held in College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, China.

Contact

For details of DigitalFUTURES 2021 see: https://www.digitalfutures.world/2021-event

For details of DigitalFUTURES International PhD Courses see: http://digitalfutures.tongji.edu.cn/

All questions about submissions should be emailed to digitalfutures@tongji.edu.cn