This track will examine how we generate knowledge to address the great challenges of urban ecological settings in cities. Examples of topics include the uses of public and semi-public spaces, sustainable urbanism, adaptation to climate change, cultural landscapes, preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, waste, and pollution management (soil, air, noise, water), natural resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, loss of cultural diversity, and urban sprawl. How do we design human-centric environments dedicated to urban ecology and the preservation of cultural landscapes to successfully manage these challenges both locally and globally?

This track will focus on human-centric design and evaluation of sustainable building and infrastructure. How do we recognize and plan for the needs of diverse populations shaped by people’s unique perspectives, life experiences, socio-demographics, cultural influences, identities, geography, and preferences, to name a few? What impacts did our buildings, urban centers, and indoor environments have on vulnerable populations including children, ethnic minorities, young adults, older adults, aging in place, houselessness, people with mental health disorders, and people facing physical spatial abilities? How did our city centers and downtowns recover from post-COVID-19 pandemic, remote workplace design? How do we design sustainable urban centers that provide healthy levels of density, livability, and affordability, especially regarding dignified housing for all citizens? How would the design of net-zero energy, water, and waste in buildings provide a blueprint for better ecological design and sustainable neighborhoods?

This track will focus on the numerous ways planning and design professionals, researchers, and educators define resiliency and the scale of design actions to adapt and reduce the impacts of climate change on people. How does the concept of resilient design, its approaches, methods, and tools be used to design human-centric environments? What is the theoretical foundation for research and practice focused on resilient design? What are the emerging design tools (data, simulation, virtual) and how are they being deployed in design projects? What are the ways researchers are studying the built and natural environment in all scales to provide sustainability and resilience in the face of climate change?

This track will focus on research and practice models to promote human-centric spaces that are designed to promote health and well-being for all people, communities, transspecies, ecosystems, and living systems. This track will uncover and question the methods, conversations, and outcomes for the research, design, and policy debates under the umbrella of healthy human-centric environments in everyday spaces as well as healthcare facilities.

This track focuses on celebrating environmental design work, scholarship, and advocacy at the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, sexuality, and economic inequality that is enriched by and enriching their lived experience. This track will highlight how professionals and academics are crossing boundaries to address emerging issues that compromise spatial justice, equity, and inclusion by design and engage in critical conversations about effective approaches, new perspectives on human-centric engagement, and empowerment of marginalized and underserved communities.

This track examines the means and practices for sustaining productive collaborations and partnerships to promote human-centric design at different scales for all types of environments. What are the benefits and challenges of transdisciplinary collaborations? What critiques emerge when blurring and/or borrowing from multiple disciplines? How can we investigate human-centric design within transspecies and transdisciplinary frameworks? What methodologies are being embraced by environmental design researchers and practitioners to innovate and stimulate research collaborations and community engagement? What new methods, ways of working, ethics, or insights can help advance the practice of human-centric design? What other topics and focus can we bring to the discussion of human-centric design that we have not considered? What open topics can help us re-think and re-question our conference theme and tracks?