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Community Spaces, Contested Spaces, and Spaces of Conflict. We invite you to participate in the second annual PhD Symposium organised by the School of Architecture + Cities at the University of Westminster. This symposium is organised by PhD students within the University of Westminster and aims to spotlight the work of other PhD and ECR researchers within our global network. This is a call for papers for the 2025 symposium and this year the theme is “Community Spaces, Contested Spaces, and Spaces of Conflict.” The event will be held online on 11th June 2025, and we welcome a wide range of papers from individuals or groups of PhD researchers around this theme. The call for papers is open until 15th March 2025 17:00 GMT.

In this era, the concept of community is rapidly evolving, no longer just a product of geographical and spatial proximity; communities can connect and evolve globally. As economic and environmental pressures can erode community spaces, they can also generate opportunities for new, shared understandings of place.

As a community of Doctoral Researchers, we are no longer restricted by geography. We are not segregated. We are global. By sharing knowledge among peers across different countries, we aim to draw from important PhD works in progress to explore the need for community spaces and critically address contested spaces and spaces of conflict.

Themes

We invite critical reflections and responses to any one of the three key themes of community spaces, contested spaces, and spaces of conflict.

1. Community Spaces: Why are communities important, and what is the role of community spaces in increasingly individualised societies? What conditions or resources are needed for communities, human and more-than-human, to develop and thrive? How do the actors involved in the creation of community spaces—whether materials, animals, plants, or other non-human agencies—form relationships with these spaces? What do ‘community spaces’ reveal about life in collectives? We welcome papers that explore the theme of community building, shared living spaces, community projects, group activities, or the reclamation of spaces, and more-than-human communities.

2. Contested Spaces: Why do contested claims to space and resources develop? How do we learn from them? How do issues of power and privilege manifest and emerge within contested space? We invite papers addressing challenging issues of contestedclaims to land and resources, confronting hegemony and status quo in architecture and in cities, or contesting rights to the city.

3. Spaces of Conflict: How do critical investigations into spaces of conflict help communities? How can spatial practices be used as a tool to resolve, rectify and remedy conflict? We encourage PhD works in progress which confront important current affairs with a focus on the spatial dimensions of conflict, or research set in conflict zones, militarised or securitised sites.

Keynote Speakers

The symposium will feature keynote speakers Dr. Yara Sharif and Dr. Nasser Golzari who are both practicing architects and academics.

Dr. Yara Sharif (University of Westminster) is a Senior Lecturer and a practitioner with an interest in design as a mean to facilitate and empower “forgotten” communities, while also interrogating the relationship between politics and architecture.

Based in London at NG Architects and leading a design studio at the University of Westminster, she co-founded the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), a research collective focused on speculative and practical projects that address spatial possibilities in fragmented landscapes.

Her contributions have garnered multiple awards, including the RIBA President’s Award for Research in 2016 in the “Cities and Communities” category. Dr. Sharif has also collaborated on several projects with the Palestinian NGO Riwaq, which received the Holcim Commendation Award for Sustainable Construction in the MENA Region in 2014 for the Beit Iksa Eco Kitchen, as well as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013 for the Regeneration of Birzeit Historic Centre.

Dr. Nasser Golzari (University of Westminster) is an architect and academic dedicated to social architecture and the creation of inclusive cities that advance socio-environmental ecologies within post-colonial contexts. As the founder of GOLZARI (NG) Architects in London and co-founder of the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), Golzari is deeply committed to rethinking scarred and contested landscapes through both speculative and live projects, in line with his passion for socially responsive architecture.

Golzari challenges Western, market-driven architectural practices, drawing inspiration from the daily rituals, narratives, and passive ecological practices of the Global South. His work seeks to reclaim and celebrate socially driven architecture, particularly focusing on ‘the invisible other.’

Key Dates

• Call for papers deadline: 15th March 2025 17:00 GMT

• Selection of abstracts and notification of speakers: 15th April 2025

• Conference date: 11th June 2025 10:00 – 13:00 BST

We have designed this event with international participation in mind and to make the most of our links with universities and collaborators in the far east. We are open to global participation and welcome abstracts from any and all PhD students whose work aligns with our themes.

Submission Guidelines

Contributions are invited in response to these themes with abstracts for either academic papers or creative, practice-based submissions. Please send us your 200–300-word abstract in PDF. Please include in the document header with details of your name, your contact email, the stream your abstract addresses, and your institutional affiliation by 17:00 GMT on 15th March 2025.

All submissions should be sent to acphdsymposium@westminster.ac.uk

We welcome diverse formats, including drawings, photographs, videos, performances and other creative expressions. For practice-based contributions, please consider how your work can be effectively presented in an online format. With your permission, we may feature excerpts or pieces of your submission on the symposium’s Instagram page or other promotional material to engage with a wider audience and showcase your work.

For any queries, please contact acphdsymposium@westminster.ac.uk. Please share this call for papers with your networks and help us spread the word.