Exploring the ever changing urban form with a Distributed Virtual Conference Environment (DVCE)

AACCP (Architecture, Archaeology and Contemporary City Planning) is a multidisciplinary and progressive network, which has gathered together researchers, experts and practitioners from various research fields and countries to discuss topics related to urban development and city planning since 2014. One of the main aims of the network is to promote collaboration between different actors and increase the understanding of the profitable co-existence of the past, present and future within urban and rural environments. With this task in mind, we organised the eighth AACCP symposium, Cities in evolution: diachronic transformation of urban and rural settlements, in collaboration with the Dynamic Research on Urban Morphology (DRUM) laboratory at Özyeğin University in Istanbul and After Damages International Academy. The symposium accepted 157 peer reviewed papers, it was chaired by Alessandro Camiz (Özyeğin University) and Zeynep Ceylanlı (Özyeğin University) and it included some papers from the former edition of AACCP, which was scheduled in Beirut in 2020 but was unfortunately cancelled following the dramatic port explosion in Beirut and the pandemic outbreak. This edition of the AACCP symposium was held entirely online at Özyeğin University, Istanbul, Turkey from April 26th to May 2nd 2021, with the patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Turkey; International Council on Monuments and Sites, ICOMOS TÜRKİYE; International Council on Monuments and Sites, Consiglio Nazionale Italiano dei Monumenti e dei Siti; “Storia della città”, Centro internazionale di studi per la storia della città, fonti d’archivio e patrimonio architettonico-ambientale; Cyprus Network of Urban Morphology (CyNUM); Vlahsaray Panagia (Paramythia) Greek Orthodox Church Foundation in Fener and it included live virtual guided tours and events.