OPEN CALL
CHINA BEYOND EXCEPTIONS
Spatial Entanglements across Architecture and Urban Studies
2027, JAN 20—22
To mark her 10 years of activities, China Room is pleased to announce the conference “China Beyond Exception. Spatial Entanglements across Architecture and Urban Studies” conceived to mobilize and extend the debate initiated within the group outward, in an attempt to broaden the discussion with new perspectives and trajectories.
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While China is often portrayed as a singular case, an extreme laboratory, or a systemic anomaly,
China Beyond Exception proposes a shift in perspective from exceptionality to relationality. Processes observed in China are thus treated as critical lenses through which to interrogate broader contemporary transformations across rural and urban spaces, infrastructures, professional practices, and pedagogical experiments.
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THE CALL
The call for original contributions is organised around three interrelated thematic axes that shape the current research trajectories of the group—architectural knowledge, planetary ruralism, infrastructure-led urbanisation. It invites theoretical, empirical, and design-oriented contributions. Emphasis is not placed solely on contributions that take China as their primary or exclusive case study; rather, the call explicitly encourages submissions that engage with the conference’s three thematic axes beyond any specific spatial context.
In line with the group’s values, the conference seeks to foster an open, inclusive, and collaborative space for exchange. The call deliberately pluralizes voices and is addressed to PhD candidates, early-career researchers and established scholars, all invited to contribute to a collective conversation that begins in China but deliberately moves beyond it.
Selected papers from each session will be considered for publication in special issues of international academic journals.
SESSION #1
The architectural profession is entering a phase of structural instability marked by shifting markets, hybrid roles, and expanding domains of practice. Recent transformations in China’s architectural profession—particularly the contraction of real estate markets and the consequent impact on education—make these dynamics especially visible. Rather than framing this condition as a crisis, this session approaches instability as a productive terrain of debate where architectural knowledge, pedagogy, and professional identities are renegotiated. Taking the Chinese case as a starting point, we invite contributions from diverse contexts that explore how changing professional realities reshape competencies, redefine expertise, and generate new forms of architectural subjectivity.
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SESSION #2
Ruralism(s) calls for a radical epistemological rethinking of the rural beyond urban subordination, crisis and nostalgia. Refusing binary hierarchies, it situates ruralities along a relational rural–urban continuum and as an active planetary condition shaping uneven spatial transformations. From China to planetary perspectives, this session invites critical, situated, and more-than-human approaches that unveil multiple ways to understand and design rural spatial dynamics and everyday practices. By foregrounding repair and care as experimental and adaptive forces in planning, design, and reuse strategies, we call for envisioning new imaginaries of plural and heterogeneous rural futures.
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SESSION #3
Infrastructure-led urbanities explores the urban afterlives of Chinese-related infrastructure projects. As geopolitical conditions shift, this session examines how initiatives such as the Belt and Road reshape cities beyond their initial moment of expansion. The session focuses on emerging infrastructure-led urbanities, the urban projects and design visions that frame them, and the multiple temporalities (delay, anticipation, incompletion) through which infrastructure produces lasting spatial, governance, and social transformations.
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TERMS AND DEADLINES
Submission of Extended Abstract: May 30th, 2026
Selection announcement and editorial guidelines: Mid-July, 2026
Submission of Full Paper: Mid-December, 2026
Conference date: January 20-22nd, 2027
Conference venue: Castello del Valentino, Torino
Participation will be exclusively in person; no participation fee is required to attend the conference.
EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS
Extended Abstract
Language: UK English
Citation: APA Style
Keywords: up to 5
Length: up to 6000 characters (spaces incl.; bibliography excl.)
Conference session: –
Extended abstracts may be structured at the authors’ discretion and must clearly specify the intended session. They should provide a clear overview of the aims of the research and the underlying research questions, while situating the contribution within the current state of the debate and ongoing research in the field. This should be followed by a concise explanation of the approach adopted to address the research questions, focusing in particular on methodology, positionality, and potential case studies.
Short Bio
Language: UK English
Affiliation: University, School/Department, Research group
Email: –
Length: up to 700 characters (spaces incl.)
SUBMISSION
Submissions should consist of a single Word file (maximum size: 10 MB) containing all required materials. The file should be named using the session number, followed by an underscore and the author’s surname (examples: S1_Surname.doc; S2_Surname.doc; S3_Surname.doc), and should be sent to: china.beyond@polito.it
For any additional inquiries please contact china.beyond@polito.it
Scientific Commitee
Francesca Governa, Michele Bonino, Camilla Forina, Leonardo Ramondetti, Sofia Leoni (Politecnico di Torino)
Coordinators Session #1
Edoardo Bruno (Politecnico di Torino), Francesco Carota (University of Kansas)
Coordinators Session #2
Liu Jian (Tsinghua University), Giorgia Greco (Politecnico di Torino, Tsinghua University)
Coordinators Session #3
Leonardo Ramondetti, Federico Marchese (Politecnico di Torino)
