Playing Models 2026 will be hosted at SCI-Arc, Los Angeles on the 18th of September, 2026

Playing Models: Artificial Intelligence – Architecture – Storytelling is an annual symposium series launched in 2022 that has evolved into a cross-institutional collaboration between the University of Florida, ETH Zurich, Carnegie Mellon University, and Lawrence Technological University. Now in its fifth cycle, it provides a platform to explore the mathematical, political, and philosophical transformations emerging with the rise of AI. Rooted in the idea of architecture as an intelligence that connects disparate concepts and narratives, the symposium features lectures and discussions around specific themes each year, remaining freely accessible both in person and through live broadcasts on YouTube.

Confirmed Participants

Adil Bokhari - ETH Zurich

Agostino Nickl - TU Delft

Biayna Bogosian - Arizona State University

Damjan Jovanovic and Lidija Kljakovic - Studio Lifeforms / SCI - Arc

Darío Negueruela del Castillo - University of Zurich

David Gull - xFigura

Elena Manferdini - Atelier Manferdini / SCI-Arc

Karel Klein - SCI-Arc

Karla Saldaña Ochoa - University of Florida

Lee-Su Huang - Lawrence Technological University

Masataka Yoshikawa - Lawrence Technological University

Thomas Parker - UCL Bartlett

Toshiki Hirano - THD / University of Tokyo

Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong - University of Florida

Wei-Chun Cheng - Carnegie Mellon University

Winka Dubbeldam - Archi-Tectonics / SCI-Arc

Schedule

10:30 - 10:40 Welcome

10:40 - 12:10‍ Panel 1: Models for Thinking/Models Shape Knowledge

12:10 - 13:30 Lunch

13:30 - 14:00 Lecture – Winka Dubbeldam

14:00 - 15:30‍ Panel 2: Models for Seeing/Procedures Create Vision

15:30  - 16:00 Coffee

16:00 -17:30‍ Panel 3: Models for Making/Interfaces Orchestrate Agency

17:30 - 17:45 Closing – PM team

17:45 - 19:00 Apero 

Panels

1. Models for Thinking/Models Shape Knowledge

Moderators: Adil Bokhari + Agostino Nickl

The world is modeled, ad infinitum. Out of the noise a figure is lifted: a miniature, a metaphor, a mechanics, a constellation. Whims contract rigor, the sensible touches the intellectual, and whatever the figure cannot carry slips back into the noise and waits. Between the world and its figures a channel opens, and the messages pass both ways. Now the models talk back, embedded in the very mechanics of how we invent, create, and crystallize propositions, and the interval between their thoughts and ours begins to sound like a voice.

Participants:: Damjan Jovanovic and Lidija Kljakovic, Darío Negueruela del Castillo, Elena Manferdini

2. Models for Seeing/Procedures Create Vision

Moderators: Lee-Su Huang + Masataka Yoshikawa

Once trained, models can be utilized not only as tools but also as instruments that reveal new ways of perceiving the world. Similar to how a telescope serves as an optical device that bends light rays, it also functions as a scientific instrument with countless applications. This panel examines how models shape perception through emerging computational techniques, and how this, in turn, shapes the architectures we come to think of as imaginable.

Participants: Thomas Parker, Karel Klein, Tzu-Chieh Kurt Hong

3. Models for Making/Interfaces Orchestrate Agency

Moderators: Karla Saldaña Ochoa + Wei-Chun Cheng

Models become effective when they enable us to shape the world according to their design. In the realm of extended realities and augmented agents, models do more than simply represent possibilities; they begin to organize, mediate, and act upon them. With the advent of AI, models take on the role of agents. These models are granted a degree of agency and provided with tools to intervene in the world.

Participants: Biayna Bogosian, Toshiki Hirano, David Gull

Open Call for Image Submissions

In architecture, models have long served as tools for representation, testing, speculation, and communication. Yet in the age of artificial intelligence, prompted agents and generative media, the model is no longer only an object placed on a table or a file opened on a screen. Through this open call, PLAYING MODELS invites participants to submit images and short videos that explore the changing role of models in architectural culture. Artefacts that play with, through, and against computational models – not to illustrate what is probable and plausible, but to tease the improbable and fantastic from latency. We welcome visual, critical, speculative, and experimental responses to three themes: Model for Thinking, Model for Making, and Model for Seeing. How are you PLAYING MODELS today? 

We welcome:

• AI-generated images that resist default aesthetics

• Outcomes of computational drawing instruments

• Samples from architectural studies or practice

• Compositions across media and modalities

• Experiments in prompting, scripting, training, or remixing

• Drawings that stretch what architecture can say or show

Selected submissions will be showcased at the 2026 PLAYING MODELS symposium at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. They will be considered for both online and offline publication, and the winner of the competition will have their airfare and lodging expenses covered to participate at the symposium (up to $1000).  

Submission Details:

• Deadline: 31th August 2026

• Format: JPG, PNG, or PDF, or standard video formats (max 100 MB)

• Include:

• Title

• Author(s) + affiliation

• Short description (max 150 words)

• Tools and methods used

Submission Link