CFP - Vernacular Architecture Forum conference
Matthew Heins
Vernacular Architecture Forum
2026 Annual Meeting
Columbia River Plateau (Walla Walla, Washington)
May 27-30, 2026
DEADLINE – DECEMBER 1, 2025
The Vernacular Architecture Forum invites paper and poster proposals for its 47th Annual Meeting: Columbia River Plateau: Atomic Space. Native Soil. Geologic Time., which will take place in Walla Walla, Washington, May 27-30, 2026.
The paper and poster sessions will be held on Saturday, May 30. We invite twenty-minute presentations and posters that examine vernacular and everyday buildings, sites, or cultural landscapes worldwide and the ways people inhabit and use them. Topics may include—but are not limited to—migration, displacement, decolonization, segregation, resistance, gender, race, sexuality, identity, heritage, sustainability, equity, and justice in the everyday built environment. We welcome papers introducing new methodologies for researching vernacular architecture or innovative pedagogies for engaging students in the analysis of everyday buildings and cultural landscapes. Proposals that address these or related themes in the cultural landscapes of the Columbia River Plateau are especially encouraged. Possible areas of focus include histories of indigeneity and Indigenous–settler relations; the atomic West and Cold War; environmental exploitation and destruction; energy and the built environment; tourism and food and beverage production; and the enduring “Myth of the West.”
Students and emerging professionals may apply for the Pamela H. Simpson Presenter’s Fellowships, which offer support of up to $1,000 for presenting papers and posters at VAF’s annual conference.
CALL FOR PAPERS
To be accepted, submissions must arrive first in the form of a proposal. Proposals should clearly state the paper’s argument, methodology, and evidence in fewer than 400 words. You may include up to two images with your submission, which can be text-wrapped into your proposal (if desired) or included on a separate sheet. Papers should be analytical rather than descriptive, focusing on unique or understudied topics that have the potential to identify gaps in existing scholarship. Proposals for complete sessions are also welcome; please indicate if your proposal is being submitted as part of a complete session. Be sure to include your paper title, the name of the author, email address, and a one-page CV (if there are multiple authors, please include a CV for each author). Given the number of applications we receive, the VAF Papers Committee cannot provide individual feedback on applications.
Please be advised that the VAF requires speakers to deliver accepted papers in person and be members at the time of the conference. Speakers are also encouraged to attend the entire conference, including tours. Speakers must register by March 1, 2026, or they will be removed from the program. Please do not submit a proposal if you are not committed to attending the conference and delivering your paper on Saturday, May 30, 2026.
THE DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS IS DECEMBER 1, 2025 AT MIDNIGHT EST.
Proposals and CVs should be emailed as a PDF attachment to the Papers Committee (pap...@vafweb.org). All proposals received will be acknowledged. If you do not receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your paper within one week of its submission, please contact Papers Committee chair Brian Goldstein (bgol...@swarthmore.edu).
CALL FOR POSTERS
VAF 2026 Columbia River Plateau also will host a poster session to showcase recently completed research and works-in-progress. Students and emerging scholars are particularly encouraged to submit. Poster proposals may address any topic relating to vernacular and everyday buildings, sites, or cultural landscapes worldwide as described in the second paragraph of this document. Proposals should include a title, proposal (no more than 200 words), and a one-page CV. Accepted presenters will be expected to follow general guidelines regarding poster dimensions but must design, print, and present their posters at the conference. If you have any questions about the poster session, please contact the Education Committee chair, Jose Vazquez (jose.v...@mdc.edu).
THE DEADLINE FOR POSTER PROPOSALS IS DECEMBER 1, 2025.
Proposals and CVs should be emailed as a PDF attachment to pos...@vafweb.org. All proposals received will be acknowledged. If you do not receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your poster within one week of its submission, please contact Education Committee chair Jose Vazquez.
PAMELA H. SIMPSON PRESENTER’S FELLOWSHIPS
VAF’s Pamela H. Simpson Presenter’s Fellowships offer a limited amount of financial assistance to students and emerging professionals selected to present papers and posters at VAF’s annual conference. Awards are intended to offset travel and registration costs for students, and to attract developing scholars to the organization. Any person seeking to present a paper or poster who is currently enrolled in a degree-granting program, or who received a degree in 2025, is eligible to apply. Awards cannot exceed $1,000. Previous awardees are ineligible, even if their status has changed. Recipients are expected to participate fully in the conference, including tours and workshops. To apply, submit with your proposal a one-page attachment with "Simpson Presenter’s Fellowship" at the top and the following information: 1) name, 2) institution or former institution, 3) degree program, 4) date of degree (received or anticipated), 5) mailing address, 6) permanent email address, 7) telephone number, and 8) paper or poster title.
GENERAL INFORMATION For general information about the Columbia River Plateau conference, please visit the VAF website or contact confe...@vaf.org.
N.B. Applicants are welcome to apply for both the Simpson and Ambassador awards but may receive only one award for a given year’s conference.
Each year in May or June, hundreds of VAF members assemble for our annual conference. We spend at least two days touring the area to learn first-hand about its architectural and landscape heritage. On Saturday, a juried paper session provides attendees a forum to share their scholarship and field work. In addition, workshops, board and committee meetings, special events, and excursions create an enjoyable and memorable event.
For first-time paper presenters assistance may be available through Simpson Presenter's Fellowship
For student groups assistance to cover expenses of attending the conference is available through the Ambassadors Award
The Vernacular Architecture Forum Conference returns to the Pacific Northwest for the first time in nearly thirty years—to the vast Columbia River Plateau and the vibrant, revitalized city of Walla Walla, Washington. This is a land of striking contrasts: breathtaking natural beauty, agricultural abundance, and surreal geology shaped by cataclysmic floods, all layered with histories of conquest, displacement, and the atomic legacies of plutonium manufacturing during the Manhattan Project. Here, the vernacular is provocative and politically charged: government-issued, suburban-style housing for nuclear engineers in the company town of Richland, Washington; rock formations along the Columbia River deeply imbued with Indigenous significance; and a built environment shaped by discrimination, resistance, and transformation—from the contested spaces of Pendleton, Oregon, where layered histories suggest activities both rumored and remembered, to the freshly reinterpreted Whitman Mission National Historic Site, to the rise of a once-segregated African American community in east Pasco.
Our tours will traverse southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, crossing and recrossing parts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Oregon Trail as we symbolically reverse their paths. Along the way, we’ll contemplate the architectural legacy of westward expansion while reckoning with the peoples and places removed, decimated, or transformed in its wake. We’ll explore historic farmsteads, experience the enduring culture of Pendleton’s iconic rodeo, and witness how land and water have been harnessed into electricity, wheat, and wine. Conference-goers will sample the region’s abundance and encounter Walla Walla as it’s now branded: a Pacific Northwest destination with a nationally-recognized main street historic district and more than 120 wineries, some of whose tasting rooms are inside rehabilitated buildings downtown—even as preservation practices invite deeper critical reflection. Together, we will carve into the haunting beauty of the remote inland Northwest, exposing its strata, interrogating its histories, and revealing how its vernacular built environment has shaped, and been shaped by, persistence, power, and place.
Atomic space. Native soil. Geologic time. Join us in Walla Walla, 2026.