 | CA2RE-2026-Trajectories: CA2RE Conference Hannover 2026 - Trajectories Leibniz University Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Hannover, Germany, March 26-28, 2026 |
| Conference website | https://ca2re.eu/events/hannover/ |
| Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ca2re2026trajectorie |
| Abstract registration deadline | December 15, 2025 |
| Submission deadline | December 15, 2025 |
CA2RE Conference Hannover
26–28 March 2026
15 December 2025: Submission of abstracts
15 January 2026: Notification of acceptance
31 January 2026: Submission of essays / visual essays
06 February 2026: Registration deadline
26–28 March 2026: Conference
TRAJECTORIES
We are happy to invite for the CA²RE Conference hosted by Leibniz University Hannover. The event welcomes researchers and practitioners from diverse fields engaged in design-driven and artistic research to share and discuss their projects through intensive peer review and critical dialogue.
Trajectories, from the Latin trans–iacere (to throw across), refer to the move to further dimensions, thinking and creating beyond what first-hand appears and what is practiced, concerning the spin to transmit and transport understanding, knowing and practising. To discuss paths of research – as it moves – points at finding logics and coherence, for the course over time, seen as a curve, tracing in space and context, for cutting other curves, passing through a set of points, and identifying rules which steer the research process. With Trajectories of design-driven and artistic research we aim to shed light on the intersection of research processes with spatial change. How can spatial capacities and their transformation be grasped, related to theory and shown in research? In which way can material- or concept-based spatial interventions become a practical part of research? What role can the creation of space and projection of existing spaces towards the future play for research in architecture?
“To throw across” – Trajectories can be about the risk and adventure in design-driven and artistic research, to engage with uncertainties, to move to something new and unknown, towards emerging directions, to move from and to horizons of knowledge (Gadamer, 1990), getting aware of conditioning skills, practices and concepts and how they can be contested, reworked, and extended. Thus, finding “curved lines” driven by a spin, necessarily involves learning processes, trial and error, using also discarded lines to identify more complex lines of thought and practice. Tracking Trajectories, in this sense, is about how practices are followed, drawn, and documented, considering the legitimacy of more intuitive, drifting approaches (Krogh, Markussen, and Bang, 2015) and setting an equal focus on the research process and its outcome. Trajectories are simultaneously pointing forwards and backwards, for a prospective as well as a retroactive reflection.
“Lines of flight” – Trajectories can be, at the same time, about a performative view on space, its capacities, tendencies, and the agencies involved in its transformation – across architectural, urban, territorial, natural, interior, and more dimensions – to invent, experiment, and evolve pathways in understanding spatial change.Understanding Trajectories as part of assemblage thinking can respond to dynamic spatial as well as research contexts, and to social and material networks of people, things, and narratives. As Deleuze and Guattari (1980) point out, Trajectories are able to frame complexity through fluidity and connectivity, constantly shifting, evolving, and adapting – concerned with material forms and forms of expression, with territorialisation for ordering and creating space and context, and with coding/decoding (De Landa, 2016) to different languages and contexts of meaning.
Trajectories are taking up on the work of the CA2RE community on Strategies of Design-driven Research (Pedersen et al., 2021). Trajectories of research are about the persons imagining and forming them, their personal trajectories, and collaboration and interaction in new forms how to understand and organise research. To actively form, steer and adjust Trajectories of research processes, at different points, can enhance and promote specific characteristics of design-driven and artistic research.
De Landa, Manuel (2016): Assemblage theory, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix (1980): Mille Plateaux, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit.
Gadamer, Hans Georg (1990): Hermeneutik I. Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen: Mohr.
Krogh, Peter Gall; Markussen, Thomas; and Anne Louise Bang (2015): ‘Ways of Drifting: 5 Methods of Experimentation in Research-through-Design’, in: Chakrabarti, Amaresh, ed.: ICoRD’15 – Research into Design Across Boundaries: Theory, Research Methodology, Aesthetics, Human Factors and Education, Vol. 1, 39–50, Bangalore: Springer Publishing Company.
Pedersen, Claus Peder; Zupančič, Tadeja; Schwai, Markus; Van Den Berghe, Jo; Lagrange Thierry, eds. (2021): Strategies of Design-driven Research. Aarhus: Aarhus School of Architecture. Available online at: https://ca2re.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021_10_03_CA2RE_STRATEGIES_screen.pdf (01.10.2025).
ABOUT CA2RE
The CA²RE Community is intended to bring together experienced academics, advanced and early-career researchers to improve research quality through intensive peer-reviewing at key intermediate stages. It wishes to contribute to the open and diverse field in design-driven and artistic research, not prioritizing any single approach. The CA²RE Community is developed through the CA²RE Conferences, organized by several European universities, as platforms to develop a collective exchange and learning environment.
PROGRAMME AND MODE
The CA²RE Conference Hannover is a three-day event around a programme of research sessions, discussions, and invited lectures. Participants are encouraged to realise experimental presentation formats for the presentation and discussion at the conference, using different sorts of objects, media, creating spaces of immediate experience, live performances, artefacts, multi-media installations, or movie clips.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
This call addresses first-hand doctoral researchers but is also open to postdocs and researchers in academic and professional practice. All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference.
Upload through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=ca2re2026trajectorie
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
1. Abstract (3,000 char.) specifying the title, the topical focus and its research context, underlying concepts, foreseen results, methods, relevance and originality. Please indicate clearly whether you are a doctoral researcher, and in which stage, postdoc or researcher in academic and professional practice.
2. Outline of a reflection (3,000 char.) about Trajectories of your research, including collaborative/interactive aspects, and how they are referred to Trajectories of space discussed in your research.
3. Image and graphics catalogue (at least 3 images), with captions, indication of authorship of images, copyright, and permission to publish. The author(s) of the contribution are responsible for the authorisation to publish the images and need to provide the necessary details.
4. Short CV (800 char.).
Submission is through EasyChair, please fill out all the fields of the submission form. Parts 1–3 are to be handed-in as one pdf file without mentioning the author(s) name. The file must be in DIN A4 format and may not exceed a maximum of 6 pages in total and a file size of 5 MB, named with the title of the contribution. Please do not include your name and short CV in the main file you are uploading. While filling in your contact information in EasyChair, please add in the template your short CV.
ESSAY / VISUAL ESSAY SUBMISSION
Admissible applications, complying with the points above, will be given into a peer-review process to select participants for the conference. Authors will be supported with feedback for preparing the presentation.
Before the conference, further materials need to be handed in:
- an essay of 10–15,000 characters, with an abstract (1,000 characters), bibliography, and up to 6 images or graphics,
- or a visual essay of up to 12 images (artefacts, photography, graphics, performances, installations, etc.) explained by texts of 8–10,000 characters, with an abstract (1,000 characters) and bibliography, in case enriched with linked multi-media, video, or interactive materials.
Additionally, a brief description and reasoning (one page A4) is encouraged about the planned experimental presentation format at the conference.
PUBLICATION
Abstracts of admitted contributions will be published in the Conference Book of Abstracts. Essays of selected participants will be published in the conference proceedings (open access with DOI and ISBN).
PRESENTATIONS
For each contribution at the conference 20 minutes of presentation by the author(s) are foreseen and 40 minutes of discussion with a board of respondents, as a second peer review. In-place participation is obligatory, except in particularly justified cases. Participants are encouraged to realise experimental presentation formats for the presentation and discussion at the conference, using different sorts of objects, media, creating spaces of immediate experience, live performances, artefacts, multi-media installations, or movie clips.
VENUE
Leibniz University Hannover, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape
FEE
A conference fee of 150 EUR will be applied to all participants and submissions..
CONTACT
All questions about submissions should be mailed to:
CA2RE-Hannover(at)staedtebau.uni-hannover.de
CHAIRS
Jörg Schröder, Riccarda Cappeller