Symposium 2026

October 13 and 14, 2026 (online)

Call for Abstract

Over the past six years, the Symposium has sought to promote research by Representation scholars that connects Augmented Reality (AR) technology with the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The breadth of interests that emerged during the past Symposiums, coupled with the now usual very rapid development of technologies, tools and devices, now requires a (controlled) expansion of the theoretical content and application areas of the present call of REAACH 2026 Symposium, as well as careful monitoring of the disciplines that can be involved, starting with the AI-XR pair. XR, an acronym for eXtended Reality, has emerged in recent years as a concept encompassing AR, VR (Virtual Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality), offering new ways of interacting with the real. In this sense, the fields of application spanning tangible and intangible cultural heritage, architectural, environmental, infrastructural, and product design, as well as education, serve as a platform for advanced training and a tool for educational enhancement.
REpresentation Advances And CHallenges Symposium intends to explore, through the lens of Representation, the research areas that gravitate around AI-XR, opening up new transdisciplinary thinking.
Authors are asked to submit projects whose experimentation is ongoing at the time of abstract submission and is in an advanced stage of development, which should be adequately documented at the time of presentation at the Symposium.

Call for abstract

Topics and Keywords

Considering the above, the REAACH Association Research Board has developed a graph centred on AI-XR-related content that establishes relationships with research topics of interest to the Symposium. Authors are asked to respond by identifying 5 keywords for their proposal (at least 1 must be between AI and XR; at least 1 must be drawn from AI-XR-related terms; 2 or 3 free). The list of keywords is available in the Google Form and in the graph above. The exact keywords selected for drafting the abstract must be used for drafting the paper.

Deadlines

01/06/2026 – Call for abstract
30/06/2026 – Abstract submission deadline
15/07/2026 – Abstract acceptance for oral or video communication
22/07/2026 – Abstract acceptance for oral or video communication
15/07/2026 – Opening registration (authors, membership, event participation)
30/07/2026 – Opening registration (authors, membership, event participation)
~~20/09/2026 – Fee payment deadline and registration for~~ ~~oral or video presentation~~ ~~(one author x work, membership included)~~
30/09/2026 – Fee payment deadline and registration only for membership
11/10/2026 – Free online registration deadline for auditors
13-14/10/2026 – REAACH Symposium online
15/11/2026 – Invitation to authors to submit an extended paper following the reviews of the Scientific Committee
15/01/2027 – Deadline for submission of extended paper
28/02/2027 – Notification of the revisions

Abstract Submission

To submit the abstract, authors are asked to 1) download the template and 2) fill out the form available at the end of the section, sending the title, 5 keywords (chosen as explained above), an abstract in English between 400 and 500 words, a bibliography of up to 5 references (not included in the text count), accompanied by a significant image by 30/06/2026. Following peer review of the abstract, oral or video presentation proposals can be granted. We remind you that at least one author per accepted abstract will be required to pay a fee (70 euros) to present their contribution at the Symposium. Other authors and auditors may attend free of charge. The Symposium registration link will be made public after abstract acceptance.

1. Download the abstract template here

2. Upload abstract (closed)

Symposium Registration

The registration form allows you to enter your personal data with 3 alternative options:

1) REAACH online participation – If you just want to listen, it’s free! Registration allows you to receive the link one day before the Symposium.
2) REAACH association membership – If you would like to join the REAACH community and researcher network, you need to register and pay a 20 euro fee. Registration includes REAACH online participation.
3) REAACH presentation – if you have an oral or YouTube communication, at least one author has to register and pay a 70 euro fee. Registration includes REAACH association membership and REAACH online participation.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE FOR THE AUTHORS: 20 SEPTEMBER 2026

REGISTRATION DEADLINE FOR PARTICIPANTS AND AUDITORS: 11 OCTOBER 2026

Instructions for Authors (Long Oral and Video Presentations)

Authors who have received the acceptance e-mail are asked to prepare a presentation according to the attached template:

Presentation Template

Language: Slides must be in English. In addition, using English as the spoken language is strongly suggested to facilitate everyone’s understanding.

Exposure time: For Oral presentations, the time is 10-12 minutes, while for Video presentations (you must record your voice with the slide presentation), it can be between 8-10 minutes long, not going below 8 minutes.

Long presentation delivery: Oral presentations do not have to be delivered. It is up to the author to check if they work correctly before the Symposium. For Video presentations, the files (in .mp4 format) with voice must be at most 150 Mb and must be delivered by 02/10/26, uploaded to the REAACH YouTube channel before the event. To send the Long Video, you can use the link below:

Upload your YOUTUBE VIDEO here!

Symposium Organization

The symposium takes place over two days online via Zoom. Depending on the number of abstracts and the content covered, they are divided into “oral” and “YouTube” presentations. Oral presentations are scheduled over the two days with 10-12 min slots. YouTube presentations are videos created by the authors (same length, minimum of 8 minutes) that are uploaded to a dedicated YouTube channel and made available before the event. Both types of presentations can be included in the final publication.

REAACH 26 Schedule

Book of Abstract

Keynote Speakers

REAACH Symposium 26 is pleased to announce 2 keynotes during the event:

Olha Tikhonova

Department of Art History, University of Seville
Researcher in Photogrammetry and 3D Heritage Documentation, eyesCloud3D

From Survey to Interpretation: AI-Assisted Workflows for Dissonant Fortified Heritage

Fortified heritage is often dissonant: similar architectural forms can embody technological exchange, territorial control, local identity, and colonial or military memory. This lecture explores how artificial intelligence can support its interpretation through a workflow that moves from documentation to comparative analysis and visualisation. The first step combines low-cost drone survey and photogrammetry to document fortifications and recover their plan geometry. AI-assisted image analysis and geometric comparison can then relate these outlines to larger corpora of historical plans, helping to identify affinities with Dutch, Portuguese, local, and other fortification traditions and to trace how military design knowledge travelled and was adapted. The final step uses generative AI as an interpretive rather than reconstructive tool. By deliberately placing the same fortification geometry within contrasting environments—for example, Dutch and Indonesian landscapes—AI-generated visualisations can expose how topography, vegetation, materials, climate, and cultural setting transform the perception of an apparently similar architectural form. Rather than allowing AI to determine heritage values or historical attribution, the proposed approach uses it to generate comparative hypotheses, reveal differences, and ask how transferable military architectural models acquired distinctive meanings through place.

Hamza Shaikh

Artist, architect and writer
Crafting Human-centred Creative AI Solutions

From Space to Systems: How Hybrid Creativity & Data Are Redefining the Designer’s Role

Hamza Shaikh is an artist, architect and writer specialising in generative AI design at Gensler. He works in the Design Technology Co-CEOs Hub, focusing on integrating technology into global design practices.
Hamza Shaikh is the author of Drawing Attention: Architecture in the Age of Social Media, RIBA Publishing’s best-selling book of 2023.
He curated the exhibition Vanishing Points: Architectural Imagination in the Digital Universe and was named RIBAJ Rising Star in 2023 for his leadership at the intersection of AI, architecture and social media.
His latest book, Image Generation: Artificial Intelligence, Creativity and Design (RIBA Publishing, 2025), is a journey into the world of AI-assisted architectural drawing, bringing together research from leading figures and technical insights into an emerging form of design.

Paper submission

At the end of the Symposium, participants who have presented an oral or video contribution will be asked to write an extended paper in English that develops the content presented. The paper will be subject to blind peer review. The accepted article will be published as a book chapter in a volume of the Digital Innovations in Architecture, Engineering and Construction series, published by Springer.

The paper will be prepared in accordance with the paper template, which will be supplied to the authors after the REAACH symposium. All the information related to the paper submission (the template document, authors’ guidelines and table of figures) will be communicated by email info@reaach.eu

Symposium Committees

Promoting Committee: