PLANARCH 2026: Planetary Architecture Alfaisal University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, October 25-29, 2026

The Game Set and Match V Conference- GSM5 Riyadh

The Department of Architecture at Alfaisal University invites scholars, designers, architects, engineers, artists, game designers, roboticists, and speculative thinkers to submit papers, projects, and design research for the international conference Planetary Architecture.

Architecture is no longer confined to the design of isolated buildings or bounded urban systems. In the age of climate instability, artificial intelligence, robotic production, planetary computation, and expanding extraterrestrial ambitions, architecture must be redefined as the design of metabolic, intelligent, and world-forming environments across scales.

This conference proposes Planetary Architecture as a new transdisciplinary field structured around three interconnected thematic trajectories.

The first track, Planet-Conscious Architecture, addresses the urgent need to redesign the built environment as an active participant in ecological systems. Examines design practices that respond to climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, and socio-ecological justice. Architecture is an active agent within planetary systems - material, climatic, cultural, and political - demanding regenerative, adaptive, and ethical approaches to the built environment.

The second track, Outer Space Architecture, extends these metabolic principles into extreme and extraterrestrial environments. Investigates habitats, infrastructures, and settlements in orbital, lunar, and planetary contexts. These discussions challenge conventional assumptions about gravity, atmosphere, time, and habitation, while offering critical insights that loop back to Earth-based design under extreme conditions.

The third track, Comprehensive World Building, expands architecture into the design of complete ecological, social, and fictional realities. Frames architecture as a tool for constructing coherent spatial, social, and technological narratives across scales—from buildings and cities to planets and speculative futures. By integrating science, computation, art, and fiction, the conference positions architecture as a catalyst for envisioning resilient, inclusive, and multi-planetary ways of living.

Together, these strands propose planetary architecture as a transformative framework for designing worlds - real and imagined - at a moment when humanity must rethink its place in the cosmos.

The three-day GSM5R conference features one dedicated planetary day with world-renowned speakers, along with two days of expert panels, all woven into the SPACE LEAD 2026 conference program.

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:

● Research papers

● Design research

● Built and speculative projects

● Robotic fabrication workflows

● AI and game environments

● Visual essays and world-building narratives

● Student visionary projects

We particularly encourage submissions that bridge architecture, AI, robotics, gaming, environmental systems, space sciences, and the arts, and that challenge conventional disciplinary boundaries.

Planetary Architecture aims to establish a new discourse in which design moves from planet repair to off-world habitation, to the creation of total intelligent worlds.

Join us in shaping the architectures of Earth, space, and beyond.

List of Topics

• Track 1: Planet-Conscious Architecture. Earth systems, FEW metabolism, and biodigital self-sufficiency. These topics position architecture as an active metabolic agent within planetary systems.

1. Food–Energy–Water Nexus (FEW-Nexus) as an Architectural Operating System
   From individual homes to megastructures as self-sustaining FEW ecologies.
2. Building-Integrated Energy Production
   Facades, skins, kinetic envelopes, and structural surfaces as energy producers.
3. Building-Integrated Food Production (BIFP)
   Vertical cultivation, substrate LED farming, and edible urban interiors.
4. Building-Integrated Drinking Water Production
   Architectural scaffolding and skins as atmospheric condensers and potable water generators.
5. A Planet-Conscious Future for large-scale Data Centers
   Incorporating FEW-Nexus logic.
6. Food, Energy, and Water Security Across Scales
   Linking architecture to territorial resilience and geopolitical stability.
7. Retrofitting Existing Buildings for FEW Compliance
   Transforming the current building stock into planetary assets.
8. Fossil-Fuel Independent Buildings, Neighborhoods, and Cities
   Total energy autonomy and networked post-carbon urban systems.
9. Environmental Data-Driven Design
   Sensor-rich, responsive, and proactive architecture.
10. Performance-Driven Digital Twins
    Predictive simulation, AI-assisted control, and real-time metabolic governance.
11. Production on demand, when, where, and as needed
    Linking manufacturing to territorial resilience and geopolitical stability.
12. Digital and Biodigital Design-to-Production
    File-to-factory workflows, robotic CNC fabrication, and mass-customized performative components.

• Track 2: Outer Space Architecture. Extreme habitats, robotic construction, and life beyond Earth. This second theme extends the metabolic logic of Earth into extraterrestrial environments.

1. Inhabitable Settlements in Outer Space
2. Orbital, lunar, Martian, and free-space habitats.
3. Building Settlements on Mars
   Regolith printing, radiation shielding, and closed-loop ecosystems.
4. Building Settlements on the Moon
   Low-gravity habitation and robotic deployment strategies.
5. Manufacturing in Outer Space
   Zero-gravity fabrication, autonomous assembly, and in-situ resource utilization.
6. Living and Working Environments in Space
   Spatial psychology, wellbeing, and adaptive habitats.
7. Humanoid and Non-Humanoid Robots in Space Construction
   Swarm robotics, telepresence, and autonomous maintenance ecologies.
8. Spacecraft Architecture
   Interior worlds of mobility, habitation, and mission adaptability.
9. Design for Extreme Earth-Analog Conditions
   Desert, Antarctic, volcanic, and isolated testing environments.
10. Antarctic, Desert, and Undersea Environments as Proto-Space Laboratories
    Earth-based testbeds for extra-planetary design.
11. Games for Space Travelers
    Immersive simulations, behavioral rehearsal, and psychological resilience.
12. Cyberpunk Environments in Game Design
    Futuristic urban imaginaries as speculative space prototypes.
13. Space Colonies in Science Fiction Novels and Movies
    Fiction as a design laboratory for future settlement logics.

• Track 3: Comprehensive World Building
  From cities to total realities, imagined civilizations, and AI universes
  This final theme expands architecture into the design of complete worlds and their governing laws.

1. Fictional Societal Structures in Literature, Film, and Games
   Institutions, governance, economies, and rituals as design material.
2. Fictional Geographical and Physical Worlds in Games
   Terrain, climate, and ecological world simulation.
3. Imagined and Realized City-scale Buildings
   Built and unbuilt models of large-scale urban order.
4. Utopian Cities in Architecture, Literature, and Film
   The city as an ideological projection.
5. Dystopian Architectural Student Projects
   Critical pedagogy through future-shock design.
6. Real Existing Dystopian Environments
   Conflict zones, exclusionary megaprojects, and climate-threatened regions.
7. Imaginary Worlds in Literature, Film, and Science Fiction
   Narrative ecosystems and their architectural consequences.
8. Hypothetical Worlds with Different Physical Laws
   Gravity, atmosphere, time, and materiality redesigned.
9. AI-Driven Imaginary Worlds
   Procedural generation, agent ecologies, and adaptive world intelligence.
10. Large scale Earth-bound World Modeling
    Landscape-altering architecture that engages with the planet and the cosmos.
11. Outer Space World Building
    Civilizations beyond Earth and their cultural architectures.
12. World Building in Comic Strips and the Visual Arts
    Sequential spatial narratives and visual cosmologies.

Committees

Organizing Committee

• Dr. Abdulrahman Alymani
• Prof. Kas Oosterhuis
• Dr. Pablo Baquero
• Dr. Effimia Giannopoulou
• Dr. Mohammed Alsofiani
• Arch Yara Fadi Fawal

Scientific Committee

• Chair. Prof. Kas Oosterhuis
• Co-Chair. Dr. Abdulrahman Alymani
• Dr. Pablo Baquero
• Dr. Effimia Giannopoulou
• Dr Mohd Zairul Noo
• Dr. Ibrahim Al Saud
• Dr. Aliaa Elabd
• Dr. Mohammed Alsofiani

Reviewing Committee

• TBD

Venue

The conference will be held at the Department of Architecture at Alfaisal University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to yfawal@alfaisal.edu