Call for Papers: Symposium of Urban Design, History, and Theory (SUDHT 2025) at the University of Buffalo
Scholars of urban design are invited to present their work at the 2025 Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory (SUDHT) at the University at Buffalo, which will be held in person on September 18-21, 2025.
SUDHT is a worldwide forum with an expansive interest in the past. As such, we invite session and paper proposals that address all geographic settings and time periods. As urban design is inherently interdisciplinary, scholars are welcome from various fields, including (among others) urban design, architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, heritage studies, geography, environmental studies, history, art history, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, design studies, and digital studies. Prior editions at TU Delft (2023) and ETH Zürich (2021) have convened hundreds of global scholars and formed a growing community based on shared interests.
SUDHT defines urban design broadly, to refer to the spatial and morphological qualities of cities, towns, suburbs, rural areas and other human settlements. These spatial characteristics can be intentionally designed or have evolved from other forces, yielding specific urban morphologies.
The next SUDHT will be held on September 18-21, 2025, in-person, at the University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning. We intend to have an opening evening on Thursday, September 18, full-day parallel sessions on Friday and Saturday September 19 and 20, and optional tours on Sunday September 21.
At the crossroads of the United States and Canada, Buffalo reflects a wealth of American design history and theory, from Joseph Ellicott’s Baroque city plan and Frederick Law Olmsted’s parkway system, numerous works by Frank Lloyd Wright to the post-industrial inspiration for Reyner Banham’s Concrete Atlantis. Once coined “America’s Best Designed City”, Buffalo represents many of America’s contemporary urban design challenges and opportunities. SUDHT is supported by the Rudy Bruner Center for Urban Excellence, as the symposium aligns with the Bruner Center's legacy as one of the world’s foremost urban design awards and archives, representing nearly a thousand design projects spanning nearly four decades.
Abstract proposals are invited through the ExOrdo system, and these submissions may be for individual papers or sessions of four papers. A submission for an individual paper should include separate author details and short bios and a 300-word (maximum length) abstract. Besides separate author details, a submission for a session should include all four paper titles and brief description, along with a brief description of their coherence into a session into a 600 words maximum abstract. For session submissions, it is strongly encouraged that at least one of the papers is by someone whose work concentrates on an understudied location and/or at least one of the papers is by someone who is an ’emerging scholar’ (PhD student, post-doc, or comparable).
All presentations should be based on original, properly documented research. Papers may not be previously published or presented in public except to very small audiences (of fewer than 20 people).
The deadline for the submission of abstracts, whether for individual papers or sessions of four papers, is 30 November 2024. Those whose submissions are accepted to SUDHT will be notified by early February 2025.
Final papers will be due on August 31, 2025 to your session chair. Those presenting papers must register for the symposium via the conference website. Registration will open in spring 2025. We are aiming for affordable registration rates, including a special rate for students, presenters not affiliated with an institution, and presenters not from a country listed as "Upper Middle Income" or higher by the World Bank.
You can view more information on SUDHT 2025 and the Call for Papers via the website www.sudht.org.
