Overview

The AIA Conference on Architecture and Design 2026 (AIA26) is the annual flagship gathering of the American Institute of Architects, held this year in San Diego, California from June 10 to 13, 2026. It is the largest architecture and design conference in the United States and one of the most significant in the world by attendance and programme scope, bringing together the full professional spectrum of the $700 billion AEC industry. The conference belongs to the fields of architecture, urban design, construction, sustainability, practice management, and continuing professional education.

Focus

AIA26 addresses what it frames as the defining questions facing architectural practice right now: how AI is reshaping design methodology and professional communication, how the profession responds to climate accountability and embodied carbon, how firms grow and build resilience in an uncertain economic environment, and what the future of housing typologies looks like in the context of affordability and equity. The conference positions itself not as a theoretical forum but as a practical resource for working architects at every stage of their career.

For those tracking how the profession is navigating these pressures, ArchUp’s coverage of major architectural and design events in the United States provides a useful frame on how the AIA Conference functions as the annual barometer of where professional discourse in American architecture is focused.

Program

The conference runs across four main days preceded by an arrival day on June 9. Wednesday June 10 hosts Tours, Seminars and Workshops, Symposia, the AIA Annual Business Meeting, the AIA Awards Gala, and the AIA26 Opening Night Party. Thursday June 11 opens the AIA26 Expo alongside Keynotes, Seminars, Architalk sessions, Expo CE, the Investiture Ceremony, and the Convocation Gala. Friday June 12 continues with Keynotes, Expo, Tours, Open Studios, and the main conference party. Saturday June 13 wraps with Keynotes, Tours, Seminars and Workshops.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Charlene Li on June 12, addressing disruptive transformation and leveraging AI for practice change. Architalk speakers include Shigeru Ban, 2026 AIA Gold Medal recipient, speaking on humanity and the future of architecture, and Anne Marie Duvall Decker FAIA and Roy Decker FAIA, winners of the 2026 AIA Architecture Firm Award, speaking on design as an act of service. Nearly 350 expert-led CE sessions are on offer across the programme, carrying HSW, GBCI, RIBA, and AIA Learning Unit credits. Those tracking how AI is reshaping architectural communication and practice will find a direct parallel in ArchUp’s coverage of AI in architecture and its transformation of design practice.

“AIA26 brings together the people behind the $700 billion AEC industry — those leading firms, shaping cities, advancing practice, and redefining what architecture can do.”

The AIA26 Expo is the largest architecture industry trade exhibition in the United States, with sponsors including Sherwin-Williams, Autodesk, Andersen, GAF, Oldcastle, Graphisoft, Rockwool, Nucor, and Woodworks. San Diego-specific programming includes architect-led tours of local landmarks and Open Studios giving visitors access to local practices. For those interested in how adaptive reuse and housing typologies are being addressed within a professional conference format, the CE session lineup includes sessions on the economic case for adaptive reuse, unlocking homeownership through alternative models, and sustainability and resiliency in residential architecture. ArchUp’s analysis of adaptive reuse as a sustainable approach to building transformation provides useful context on where the profession’s housing discourse currently sits.

Audience

The conference is aimed at licensed architects, associate architects, interior designers, landscape architects, urban planners, AEC professionals, firm owners, emerging professionals, and students. Multiple pass types allow different levels of access depending on professional role and budget. New AIA members in California receive a free Full Pass worth up to $1,149.

Event Details

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

The AIA Conference on Architecture and Design is the institutional centre of gravity for the American architecture profession, which means its programme is as much a document of where the profession is under pressure as it is a showcase of where it is flourishing. The 2026 session lineup reflects a profession managing several simultaneous anxieties: AI’s effect on design authorship and professional communication, the economics of practice in an uncertain construction market, the gap between climate rhetoric and carbon accountability, and the persistent question of who architecture is actually being built for. Charlene Li’s keynote on disruptive transformation is a signal that the conference is addressing AI not as a design tool but as an organisational and strategic challenge for firms, which is a more mature framing than most architecture events manage. Shigeru Ban’s Architalk carries a different register: Ban’s practice has consistently operated at the intersection of humanitarian response and material innovation, and his presence as the 2026 Gold Medal recipient positions the profession’s highest honour at that intersection rather than at the scale of iconic cultural buildings. The tension between those two framings — AI-driven practice management and humanitarian design commitment — is not resolved by the programme but it is visible within it, and that visibility is itself informative. The Expo’s scale, with sponsorship from materials manufacturers, software companies, and building product brands, reflects the commercial reality that sustains the conference financially while also shaping whose interests are most concretely represented on the floor.

Closing Note

AIA26 is the most comprehensive gathering of the American architecture profession in the calendar year. Its value to individual practitioners lies in the combination of CE credits, product access, peer networking, and professional orientation it provides in a concentrated format. Its value to the discipline lies in what its programme reveals about where the profession collectively believes it is heading.