Architecture in the Fourth Dimension implies architecture as a long-term investment, imbued with the capacity for incremental change.

In the last few years, developments internationally suggest that the open building movement--and its tenets of change, levels of intervention, and distributed design--needs to both continue its focus and expand its arenas of investigation. Residential open building is no longer a speculative idea of a few pioneer practitioners and theorists. It has or is poised to become mainstream. While disseminating information in professional journals, books and scholarly publications about the technical and methodological dimensions of residential open building still makes sense, there is reason to pose new questions or reexamine old ones.

The conference intends to explore the following themes, described in further detail in the document "New Challenges for the Open Building Movement" (click the link to view the complete pdf) written by Dr. Stephen Kendall, Conference Chair and Joint Coordinator of CIB Commission on Open Building:

: Base Building Architecture
: Infill Industry
: Incremental Housing
: Open Building for Healthcare
: Open Building in Architectural Education