Guidance for the speakers at BUA

On this page we present practical guidance for the speakers and some requirements that you should follow.

Submitting information to BUA-organization about yourself and your lecture

BUA requires you to submit a biography, a title of your talk and also - equally important an abstract, that gives more details about what the lecture is going to be about. The reason for this is that BUA want to give a detailed and informative picture - of both the speaker and the some of the content talk. The abstract is a way to increase audience expactations and also to prepare the audience of what the lecture is going to be about.

To summarize: Remember to give BUA organizing committe

1. A biographic description of you as a speaker - informing the audience about your background and interests-

2. A title of the talk - that describes your lecture in the best possible way.

3. An abstract (short summary) - that presents the content of the talk in a brief high-level manner (typically 3 - 8 sentences).

Speakers at BUA typically believes that the final task, is the most difficult one, to write an abstract of their talk. Here is a way to start:

Imagine your future lecture, and start writing down the answers to the following questions:

1. What problems will you address in the lecture?

2. Which topics do you want to cover in your lecture?

3. Which insights do the audience learn during you lecture?

4. What kind of teaser-sentences would you like to give to the audience?

5. What do you think is important to communicate to the audience?

6. What kind of solutions to the problem posed by your lecture will be presented?

7. How can you summarize your lecture into few sentences?

Here is one example from the BUA 2024 programme:

Name of speaker: Nikos Salingaros

Biography: Salingaros is one of the worlds foremost researchers on architectural beauty, and has been lecturing and publishing about aesthetics in architecture for over 30 years. He is a physicist and mathematician, urban planner and architectural theorist. Salingaros is a professor of mathematics and also teaches at the school of architecture at the University of Texas in San Antonio, but also employed on the architecture faculty at the Università di Roma III, Italy. His books include: “Principles of Urban Structure” (2005); “A Theory of Architecture” (2006); “Algorithmic Sustainable Design” (2010); and “Anti-architecture and Deconstruction” (2004), in addition over 120 scientific articles. Salingaros uses scientific methods and tools to replace outdated working assumptions that created dysfunctional urban regions after World War II.

Title of lecture: Non-modernist principles of urban planning – the scientific approach

Abstract (short summary): With the increasing urbanization of the planet, it is essential to use science to plan the human habitat. Lessons from traditional settlements define evolved elements of architecture and urbanism that have adapted to human biology. Those are verified by the latest diagnostic techniques using eye tracking and neuroscience. But Modernism implemented a strange ideology with inhuman typologies that the architecture-industrial complex forced users to adapt to. This effort continues the worst sort of massive social engineering trying to reshape humans into mindless machines. Researchers argue that the modernist built environment is generating enormous amounts of stress and long-term pathologies.