# Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture

The Association for Computer Aided Design In Architecture (ACADIA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization active in the area of computer-aided architectural design (CAAD).

## Mission statement

Begun in 1981, the organization's objectives are recorded in its bylaws:
   "ACADIA was formed for the purpose of facilitating communication and information exchange regarding the use of computers in architecture, planning and building science. A particular focus is education and the software, hardware and pedagogy involved in education."
   "The organization is also committed to the research and development of computer aides that enhance design creativity, rather than simply production, and that aim at contributing to the construction of humane physical environments."

## Membership

Membership is open to anyone who subscribes to the objectives of the organization, including architects, educators, and software developers, whether resident in North America or not. An online membership registration form and directory is available via the organization.
The organization is primarily governed by the elected Board of Directors. The organization is led by the elected President, who presides over Board of Directors meetings, but does not vote except in the case of a tie.

### Presidents (elected)

| Years | President | Number of years serving |
| 1981 | Charles M. Eastman | 1 |
| 1982-1983 | John Wade | 2 |
| 1984 | Chris Yessios | 1 |
| 1985 | Yehuda Kalay | 1 |
| 1986 | Elizabeth Bollinger | 1 |
| 1987 | Patricia McIntosh | 1 |
| 1988 | Robert E. Johnson | 1 |
| 1989 | Pamela J. Bancroft | 1 |
| 1990 | John McIntosh | 1 |
| 1991 | J. Peter Jordan | 1 |
| 1992 | Larry O. Degelman | 1 |
| 1993 | Skip Van Wyk | 1 |
| 1994 | M. Stephen Zdepski | 1 |
| 1995 | Karen M. Kensek | 1 |
| 1996 | Glenn Goldman | 1 |
| 1997 | Branko Kolarevic | 1 |
| 1998 | Douglas E. Noble | 1 |
| 1999 | Brian Johnson | 1 |
| 2000 | Mark Clayton | 1 |
| 2001-2002 | Ganapathy Mahalingam | 2 |
| 2003-2004 | Kevin Klinger | 2 |
| 2005-2006 | Wassim Jabi | 2 |
| 2007-2008 | Mahesh Senagala | 2 |
| 2009 | Nancy Cheng | 1 |
| 2010-2012 | Aron Temkin | 3 |
| 2013-2015 | Michael Fox | 3 |
| 2016-2017 | Jason Kelly Johnson | 2 |
| 2018-2020 | Kathy Velikov | 3 |
| 2021-2022 | Jenny E. Sabin | 2 |
| 2023-2024(current) | Shelby Doyle | current |

## Activities
### Annual conference

ACADIA sponsors an annual national conference, held in the autumn of each year at a different site in North America. Papers for the conferences undergo extensive blind review before being accepted for presentation (and publication). Membership is not a prerequisite for submission of a paper.
| | Year | City, state/province | Country | Host university | Conference theme |
| Founding | 1981 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | USA | Carnegie-Mellon University | N/A |
| 1st | 1982 | Blacksburg, Virginia | USA | Virginia Tech | N/A |
| 2nd | 1983 | Columbus, Ohio | USA | Ohio State University | N/A |
| 3rd | 1984 | Troy, New York | USA | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | N/A |
| 4th | 1985 | Tempe, Arizona | USA | Arizona State University | ACADIA Workshop '85 |
| 5th | 1986 | Houston, Texas | USA | University of Houston | Architectural Education, Research and Practice in the Next Decade |
| 6th | 1987 | Raleigh, North Carolina | USA | North Carolina State University | Integrating Computers into the Architectural Curriculum |
| 7th | 1988 | Ann Arbor, Michigan | USA | University of Michigan | Computing in Design Education |
| 8th | 1989 | Gainesville, Florida | USA | University of Florida | New Ideas and Directions for the 1990s |
| 9th | 1990 | Big Sky, Montana | USA | Montana State University | From Research to Practice |
| 10th | 1991 | Los Angeles, California | USA | University of California at Los Angeles | Reality and Virtual Reality |
| 11th | 1992 | Charleston, South Carolina | USA | Clemson University | Mission - Method - Madness |
| 12th | 1993 | Texas | USA | Texas A&M University | Education and Practice: The Critical Interface |
| 13th | 1994 | Saint Louis, Missouri | USA | Washington University in St. Louis | Reconnecting |
| 14th | 1995 | Seattle, Washington | USA | University of Washington | Computing in Design - Enabling, Capturing and Sharing Ideas |
| 15th | 1996 | Tucson, Arizona | USA | University of Arizona | Design Computation: Collaboration, Reasoning, Pedagogy |
| 16th | 1997 | Cincinnati, Ohio | USA | University of Cincinnati | Design and Representation |
| 17th | 1998 | Québec City, Québec | Canada | Université Laval | Digital Design Studios: Do Computers Make a Difference? |
| 18th | 1999 | Salt Lake City, Utah | USA | University of Utah | Media and Design Process |
| 19th | 2000 | Washington D.C | USA | The Catholic University of America | Eternity, Infinity and Virtuality in Architecture |
| 20th | 2001 | Buffalo, New York | USA | The State University of New York at Buffalo | Reinventing the Discourse - How Digital Tools Help Bridge and Transform Research, Education and Practice in Architecture |
| 21st | 2002 | Pomona, California | USA | California Polytechnic State University | Thresholds - Design, Research, Education and Practice, in the Space Between the Physical and the Virtual |
| 22nd | 2003 | Indianapolis, Indiana | USA | Ball State University | Connecting >> Crossroads of Digital Discourse |
| 23rd | 2004 | Cambridge, Ontario | Canada | University of Toronto & University of Waterloo | Fabrication: Examining the Digital Practice of Architecture |
| 24th | 2005 | Savannah, Georgia | USA | Savannah School of Architecture and Design | Smart Architecture: Integration of Digital and Building Technologies |
| 25th | 2006 | Louisville, Kentucky | USA | University of Kentucky, Lexington | Synthetic Landscapes |
| 26th | 2007 | Halifax, Nova Scotia | Canada | Dalhousie University & Nova Scotia College of Art and Design & Canadian Design Research Network | Expanding Bodies |
| 27th | 2008 | Minneapolis, Minnesota | USA | University of Minnesota | Silicon + Skin: Biological Processes and Computation |
| 28th | 2009 | Chicago, Illinois | USA | School of the Art Institute of Chicago | reForm: Building a Better Tomorrow |
| 29th | 2010 | New York, New York | USA | The Cooper Union & Pratt Institute | Life in:Formation |
| 30th | 2011 | Calgary(workshops) and Banff(conference), Alberta | Canada | University of Calgary | Integration Through Computation |
| 31st | 2012 | San Francisco, California | USA | California College of the Arts & UCSF | Synthetic Digital Ecologies |
| 32nd | 2013 | Cambridge, Ontario | Canada | University of Waterloo | Adaptive Architecture |
| 33rd | 2014 | Los Angeles, California | USA | University of Southern California | Design Agency |
| 34th | 2015 | Cincinnati, Ohio | USA | University of Cincinnati | Computational Ecologies: Design in the Anthropocene |
| 35th | 2016 | Ann Arbor, Michigan | USA | University of Michigan | Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers And Cognitive Machines |
| 36th | 2017 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | USA | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Disciplines & Disruptions |
| 37th | 2018 | Mexico City, Mexico | Mexico | Universidad Iberoamericana | Re/Calibration: On Imprecision and Infidelity |
| 38th | 2019 | Austin, Texas | USA | University of Texas at Austin | Ubiquity and Autonomy |
| 39th | 2020 | Online, Global | Global | ACADIA | Distributed Proximities |
| 40th | 2021 | Online, Global | Global | ACADIA | Realignments: Toward Critical Computation |
| 41th | 2022 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | USA | University of Pennsylvania | Hybrids & Haecceities |
| 42nd | 2023 | Denver, Colorado | USA | University of Colorado Denver | Habits of the Anthropocene |
| 43rd | 2024 | Calgary(workshops) and Banff(conference), Alberta | Canada | University of Calgary | Designing Change |

### Proceedings

Each year the conference papers are gathered into a proceedings publication which is distributed to members, and available to the public via the open access database CumInCAD.

### Awards

Started in 1998, ACADIA Awards of Excellence are "the highest award that can be achieved in the field of architectural computing". The awards are given in areas of practice, teaching, research and service, with at most one award in each category per year. Past awards have recognized various significant contributors to the field of architectural computing.
The current awards given annually or biannually are the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Digital Practice Award of Excellence, the Innovative Academic Program Award of Excellence, the Innovative Research Award of Excellence, the Society Award for Leadership, and the Teaching Award of Excellence.

#### Lifetime Achievement Award

| Year | Recipient | Affiliation |
| 2021 | Wolf dPrix | Coop Himmelb(l)au |
| 2016 | Elizabeth Diller | Diller, Scofidio and Renfro / Princeton University |
| 2014 | Zaha Hadid | Zaha Hadid Architects |

#### Innovative Research Award of Excellence

| Year | Recipient | Affiliation |
| 2023 | Joseph Choma | Florida Atlantic University School of Architecture |
| 2022 | Felecia Ann Davis | Pennsylvania State UniversityPennsylvania State University |
| 2021 | Caitlin Mueller | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2020 | Sean Ahlquist | Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning |
| 2019 | Jose Sanchez | Plethora Project |
| 2018 | Madeline Gannon | NVIDIA Robotics |
| 2017 | Wesley McGee | Matter Design |
| 2016 | Andrew Payne | Autodesk |
| 2015 | Skylar Tibbits | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2014 | Martin Bechtold | Harvard University Graduate School of Design |
| 2013 | Elena Manferdini | Atelier Manferdini and SCI-Arc |
| 2012 | David Rutten | Robert McNeel and Associates |
| 2011 | Ellen Do | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 2010 | Kostas Terzidis | Harvard University Graduate School of Design |
| 2009 | Paul Coates | University of East London |
| 2008 | Robert Woodbury | Simon Fraser University |
| 2007 | Branko Kolarevic | University of Calgary |
| 2006 | Mark Burry | The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |

#### Digital Practice Award of Excellence

| Year | Recipient (person or firm) | Affiliation |
| 2023 | Nader Tehrani | NADAAA |
| 2022 | Award category omitted | |
| 2021 | Alvin Huang | Synthesis Design + Architecture and University of Southern California |
| 2020 | Jessica Rosenkrantz co-founder of Nervous System and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg co-founder of Nervous System | Nervous system |
| 2019 | Roland Snooks | Studio Roland Snooks and The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| 2018 | Jenny Wu and Dwayne Oyler | Oyler Wu Collaborative |
| 2017 | Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott | IwamotoScott Architecture and University of California, Berkeley and California College of the Arts |
| 2016 | Ron Rael and Virginia San Fratello | Emerging Objects and University of California, Berkeley and San Jose State University |
| 2015 | Kieran Timberlake | KieranTimberlake |
| 2014 | Jenny Sabin | Jenny Sabin Studio |
| 2013 | Cecil Balmond | Balmond Studio |
| 2012 | Gehry Technologies – accepted by Dennis Shelden | Frank Gehry Technologies |
| 2011 | Phillip Beesley | Phillip Beesley Architects and University of Waterloo |
| 2010 | Award category omitted | |
| 2009 | Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler | Gramazio Kohler Architects |
| 2008 | Fabian Scheurer | Design to Production |
| 2007 | Achim Menges | Architectural Association School of Architecture |
| 2006 | Evan Douglis | Evan Douglis Studio |

#### Society Award for Leadership

| Year | Recipient (Academic Program) | University |
| 2023 | Kathy Velikov | Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning |
| 2022 | Jason Kelly Johnson | California College of the Arts and FUTUREFORMS |
| 2021 | Brian Slocum | Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and tresRobots |
| 2020 | Mike Christenson | University of Minnesota |
| 2019 | Chris Yessios | Ohio State University and AutoDesSys, Inc. |
| 2018 | Sigrid Brell-Cokcan and Johannes Braumann | Association for Robots in Architecture |
| 2017 | Bob Martens | Technical University of Vienna |
| 2016 | Chuck Eastman | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 2015 | Branko Kolarevic | University of Calgary |
| 2014 | Nancy Cheng | University of Oregon |
| 2013 | Mahesh Daas | Ball State University |
| 2013 | Award category omitted | |
| 2012 | Award category omitted | |
| 2011 | Award category omitted | |
| 2010 | Brian Johnson | University of Washington |
| 2009 | Tom Seebohm | University of Waterloo |
| 2008 | Tom Maver | Mackintosh School of Architecture |
| 2007 | Award category omitted | |
| 2006 | Robert Aish | Bentley Microsystems |

#### Innovative Academic Program Award of Excellence

| Year | Recipient (Academic Program) | University |
| 2023 | Award category omitted | |
| 2022 | Award category omitted | |
| 2021 | Award category omitted | |
| 2020 | DigitalFUTURES Program, Tongji University accepted by Philip F. Yuan, Professor and Neil Leach | DigitalFUTURES Program |
| 2019 | Master of Science in Digital and Material – accepted by Catie Newell | Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning |
| 2018 | Institute of Advanced Architecture Catalonia – accepted by Areti Markopoulou | Institute of Advanced Architecture Catalonia |
| 2017 | Bartlett Prospective (B-Pro) Program – accepted by Gilles Retsin and Manual Jimenez Garcia | The Bartlett School of Architecture |
| 2016 | Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) – accepted by Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen | Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) |
| 2015 | Institute for Computational Design (ICD) – accepted by Achim Menges | Institute for Computational Design (ICD) |
| 2014 | Columbia Building Intelligence Project (CBIP) – accepted by Scott Marble | Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation |
| 2013 | AADRL Design Research Laboratory – accepted by Brett Steele and Theodore Sypropoulos | London |
| 2012 | Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) – accepted by Anna Dyson | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Skidmore Owings and Merrill |
| 2011 | Award category omitted | |
| 2010 | Award category omitted | |
| 2009 | Award category omitted | |
| 2008 | AA Emergent Technologies and Design – accepted by Michael Weinstock | London |

## History

ACADIA was founded in 1981 by some of the pioneers in the field of design computation including Bill Mitchell, Chuck Eastman, and Chris Yessios. Since then, ACADIA has hosted over 40 conferences across North America and has grown into a strong network of academics and professionals in the design computation field.

## Related organizations
### Sister organizations

There are four sister organizations around the world to provide a more accessible regional forum for discussion of computing and design. The major ones are
* CAADRIA - The Association for Computer Aided Architectural Design in Asia, since 1996.
* SIGraDi - Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics, since 1997.
* ASCAAD - The Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design, since 2001.
* eCAADe - The Association for Education and Research in Computer-Aided Architectural Design in Europe.

### Other related organizations

* CAAD Futures - Computer Aided Architectural Design Futures, since 1985.
* CUMINCAD - The Cumulative Index of Computer Aided Architectural Design, with public CumInCAD records available via an Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) feed and records are available via multiple bibliographic archives and citation indexes online.