The Department of Architecture at EPOKA University, welcomes participants to the SIXTH International Conference on Architecture and Urban Design (ICAUD), to be held on 13-15 November 2025 in Tirana, Albania. Building upon the success of the previous five editions of ICAUD, the conference promises a wide range of topics on architecture and urban design and an international audience of academics and practitioners from around the world. The 5th ICAUD provided an international forum for knowledge exchange where 57 scientific papers and posters were presented by academics from 12 different countries. All contributions were reviewed by a scientific committee consisting of internationally acclaimed scholars. The keynote speakers comprised internationally renowned academics and local policymakers.

Social justice, housing affordability, and land management issues represent some of the most urgent challenges for both countries in rapid development and more consolidated ones. Established theoretical and practical tools such as planning theories, market strategies, ownership models, environmental and conservation regulations, etc. have shown their limits and inefficiencies in dealing with contemporary rapid transformation and fast-growing settlements. Furthermore, while in the global economy and society, cities and metropolitan areas are vital, the global processes of urbanization, and metropolisation in particular, are speeding up socioeconomic gaps, tensions, and inequality that either directly or indirectly impact the residents of these cities. Those ongoing changes also stress the importance of a rising trans-disciplinary interaction among diverse fields of knowledge, having affected the whole peoples real-life realm at the global scale, and a critical reflection on the efficient implementation of the innovative and intelligent tools that emerged during the last decade. The 6th International Conference on Architecture and Urban Design (6ICAUD2025) aims to animate a deep urban "think-tank" moment and invites academics and professionals to join us in exploring the intricate relationships between housing, law, economics, and spatial justice intertwining in a (UN)equal world constellated of (UN)equal Spaces.

The 6th ICAUD conference aims to establish the framework for potential new social and physical structures, new commons, and methods to cooperate productively for the benefit of society under the aegis of sustainable values an collaborative city-making processes.



The 6th ICAUD is structured into two parallel tracks

a.The Regular Session, which will be conducted conventionally through abstract submission, its acceptance/rejection, full article submission, final review and acceptance and conference presentation in one of the arranged parallel sessions.

b. The Workshop Session involves submitting reviewed/accepted Extended Abstracts for presentation in Discussant-led Research Workshops. Participants collaboratively build a multi-section article framework, submit a co-authored paper within six weeks post-conference, followed by final review/acceptance.

The main focus of the conference will be on exploring Un-Equal Spaces in terms of social, economic and cultural aspects.

1. UNEQUAL SPACES

Historical Legacies of Spatial Segregation

Invisible Borders: Economic and Social Divides

Gentrification as Displacement and Homogenization

Surveillance and Policing of Marginalized Spaces

Climate Vulnerability as Inequality

Social Justice in Urban Environment

The Design of Inequality

2. EQUAL SPACES

Participatory Design and Co-Creation

Reparative and Acupunctural Urbanism

Digital Tools towards Equality

Open-source architecture and bottom-up city-making

Bioclimatic Design for Marginalized Climates

Feminist Movements and Architecture

De-colonized Aesthetics

3. THEORIES AND PRACTICES

Present Discourses on Design Theory

AI integration and Challenges in Design

Trajectories in Design Education

Updating the concept of sustainable design and SDGs

Learning from urban resilience and self-designing

Permanencies and temporariness in design styles

4. AI&ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES

AI for Equitable Urban Futures

Digital Twins and Participatory Simulation

Robotics and Affordable Construction

Computational-based Design Strategies

Augmented Reality for Cultural Preservation

5. HISTORICAL AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Materiality Across Time

Sacred Spaces and Urban Morphology

Urban Models: Continuity and Disruption

Temporality and Resilience

Resistance and Hybridity

Utopias and Uniformity

On behalf of the organizing Committee, we warmly invite you to join us in Tirana, Albania - a very interesting laboratory for architects and urban designers & planners, and an enjoyable place to visit.

Articles & co-articles might benefit from publication on Springer Nature book series (The Urban Book Series) if selected from the Publisher.The articles & co-articles that will be not selected will be anyways published in a Book edited from the Epoka University with ISBN number.