The 23rd ARCASIA Forum ran from 8 to 12 September, following the Delhi–Agra–Jaipur and bringing together delegates from 22 countries and regions around the theme Bringing Back… Vernacular Wisdom. The programme asked how Asia's vernacular building traditions can inform answers to the urbanisation and environmental pressures of the present.

Proceedings began in Agra on 9 September with the 46th ARCASIA Council Meeting, chaired for the first time by ARCASIA President Prof. Wu Jiang of Tongji University — his first council session since taking office in Shanghai in January 2026. Prof. Zhou Minghao, ARCASIA Secretary-General, coordinated the secretariat and steered the proceedings.

The five standing committees and the ARCASIA Fellows presented their annual reports, and member institutes from the three regions reported on the relationship between professional practice and architectural education, the impact of digital and intelligent technologies on the profession, and the strengthening of international exchange and outreach. The Council also reviewed the year's results for the ARCASIA Awards for Architecture (AAA), the Thesis of the Year (TOY) and the Students' Design Competition (SDC), alongside a retrospective of ACA21 (Incheon, 2025) and preparations for ACA22 (Lahore, 2027). Wang Yanze, Managing Editor of Architecture Asia, reported on the journal's year; published by ARCASIA, it has been edited from Tongji since its editorial office relocated there in 2019.

The Forum opens in Jaipur on 11 September, where Prof. Wu Jiang will address the opening ceremony. Prof. Philip F. Yuan, Dean of Tongji's College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP), will deliver a keynote alongside 2024 Pritzker laureate Riken Yamamoto, and the AAA ceremony will recognise the most accomplished architectural work of the past year across the region.

Now in its 23rd edition, the ARCASIA Forum remains Asia's most influential regional gathering of architects, sustaining both the transmission of local building cultures and cross-regional collaboration.