This congress proposes shifting the focus of architectural and built environment history from land to the Atlantic Area's sea, understood as a transboundary geographical space that is historically interconnected and culturally plural.

The congress invites researchers, professionals and collectives to consider the Atlantic coast as an artificial landscape. The Atlantic Arc encompasses intensely transformed coastlines, expanding port and energy infrastructure, and maritime heritage (both industrial and vernacular), which is linked to maritime trade and tourism. These factors are reconfiguring the landscape, the economy, and the daily lives of coastal communities. Rather than viewing the sea as a boundary, we propose approaching it as an architectural and cultural space traversed by historical and contemporary networks and as a critical interface between ecology, economy and society.

The congress recognises that the sea is not void of architecture, but rather a constructed territory shaped by infrastructure such as submarine cables, dikes, offshore wind farms and fish farms; mobility and trade networks such as coastal and transatlantic shipping routes; and maritime architecture and cultural landscapes such as ports, fishing neighbourhoods, shipyards, boatyards, canneries and fishing and storage systems. The congress also considers the coastline to be a critical interface between ocean dynamics, urban transformations, tourism policies, and climate vulnerabilities.