 | ASOCSA 2026: 20th ASOCSA Built Environment Conference 2026 Pretoria, South Africa, July 15-16, 2026 |
| Conference website | https://asocsa.org/asocsa-built-environment-conference/20th-built-environment-conference/ |
| Poster | download |
| Submission deadline | February 27, 2026 |
| Final Paper Submission | June 30, 2026 |
The Association of Schools of Southern Africa (ASOCSA) celebrates its 20th Built Environment Conference on the 15 &16th July, 2026, in Pretoria, South Africa.
In celebration of this milestone ASOCSA has selected as the theme for this conference, Building on our Past, Creating our Future. This theme provides the opportunity through a retrospective, progressive, transformative and visionary lens to examine through empirical research the historic, persistent and critical challenges and debates that face the construction industry locally, regionally and globally. The intent is that by reflectively looking back we may seek responses to the following questions:
- What does a resilient, future-ready construction industry look like in the face of deep technological, climate and regulatory uncertainty?
- How can all stakeholders embed adaptability, sustainability, innovation and foresight into design, planning and engineering of the built environment?
- What tools, data, and frameworks can help the construction industry to respond dynamically to climate, societal, and technological change?
Past conventional planning and engineering approaches are ill-suited in a dynamic and rapidly evolving landscape to respond to the challenges presented by, for example, extreme weather events, resource and skills shortages, health and safety crises, energy transitions, and workforce development. Emergent themes include consideration of adaptive and responsive design, resilience thinking, scenario planning, nature-based solutions, smart construction, robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Consequently, construction can no longer only be about durability, but must also take cognizance of flexibility, redundancy and responsiveness – all the while recognizing that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ response or solution.
In 2003, David Perkins at Harvard University in the opening lines of his article, Making Thinking Visible, stated the following:
Consider how often what we learn reflects what others are doing around us. We watch, we imitate, we adapt what we see to our own styles and interests, we build from there. Now imagine learning to dance when the dancers around you are all invisible. Imagine learning a sport when the players who already know the game can’t be seen. Bizarre as this may sound, something close to it happens all the time in one very important area of learning: learning to think.
Therefore, Building on our Past, Creating our Future, challenges us to learn to think – and re-think about the construction industry as a living system amid uncertainty.
The construction industry must continue to deliver in terms of the following:
- Adaptability to market dynamics
- Increased profitability and efficiency
- Environmental sustainability and compliance
- Customization and competitive advantage
Call for Papers Scope
The 20th Built Environment Conference to be held on the 15th and 16th of July 2026 in Pretoria, seeks responses to questions related to current conversations, debates, and empirical research on the challenges of and opportunities presented by the theme Building on our Past, Creating our Future.To aid researchers in identifying relevant research for the conference, the following sub-themes are provided.
Sub-Themes:
- Innovative use of technology
- Sustainable construction and environment
- Construction industry transformation and development
- Sustainable infrastructure design and delivery challenges
- Procurement innovation and transformation
- Smart cities and sustainable human settlements
- Innovative waste management
- Public and private sector procurement and contracting
- Legislative and regulatory challenges
- Labor challenges and issues
- Transformative education, training and skills development
- Construction health and safety innovation
- SME development
- Women in construction
- Government role in transformation and sustainability
- Project management in Construction
- Skills development
- Workforce diversity and development
- Nature-based solutions
- Near zero design and construction
The conference invites papers within the context of its theme & sub-themes that address, inter alia, in both the public and private sectors
- Current trends and developments
- Innovation
- Opportunities and challenges
- Policies and procedures
- Legislation and regulations
- Practices
- Case studies
Papers will be reviewed according to:
- Relevance to the conference theme
- Objectives and outcomes of the conference
- Originality of the subject matter
- Rigor and robustness of empirical research
- Research design and methods
Selected papers will be published as book chapters and indexed in Scopus
It is intended that these papers will contribute significantly to the existing body of knowledge relative to the science and practice of construction not only in South Africa but everywhere where the products of construction are produced.
CASH PRIZES FOR BEST PAPERS: Top Paper: R6,000 • 2nd Paper: R3,000 • 3rd Paper: R1,000
Rules & Guidelines
- Each author may present a maximum of only TWO conference papers at the conference.
- Each conference paper MUST be presented in person by one of the authors at the conference.
- All registration fees MUST paid BEFORE the conference. Notice of cancellation must be received in writing not later than 21 days prior to the event. Email notice of cancellation to conference@asocsa.org. All Fees will still be due if cancellation is done within the 21 day period.
- Only full time Honours, PHD and Master students qualify for student rate (e-mail proof of registration to conference@asocsa.org). Student rate only allows for 1 publication to be presented at the conference.
Before final submission, please ensure that:
- (a) you have reviewed the author guidelines and have completely formatted your paper with reference to the template earlier provided. Papers that do not align with the template will not be published.
- (b) all tables in the manuscript are editable and illustrations or artworks have a minimum of 300 DPI,
- (c) all author names are correct and correctly ordered,
- (d) all grammatical, spelling, typographical, capitalization and punctuation errors have been corrected,
- (e) page numbers are excluded,
- (f) your paper does not have more than 20% similarity index after plagiarism check.
Submit a similarity report with your final paper,
- (g) your paper does not infringe the copyright or other intellectual property right of a third party or contain libelous or unlawful statements. The publisher reserves the right to exclude such paper from the proceedings without refund of publication fees, and
- (h) you have proofread your paper, as authors will not be sent proofs of their papers before publication and amendments are impossible after final the submission
- Please ensure you submit the final version in both Microsoft Word (.docx) and PDF files format through the EasyChair Online Submission Portal before 30 June 2026
Registration Procedure
Once we have received your registration, you will be issued with a Tax Invoice. Once payment has been processed, then please e-mail your proof of payment to conference@asocsa.org. Your registration is only completed upon receipt of full payment and confirmation from ASOCSA.
Cancellation Policy
Notice of cancellation must be received in writing not later than 21 days prior to the event. Email notice of cancellation to conference@asocsa.org. All Fees will still be due if cancellation is done within the 21 day period.