Author Guidelines
Aims and Scope
The Canadian Journal of Architecture (CJA) publishes original research, critical reviews and documented case studies across architectural design, building technology, heritage conservation and the sustainability of the built environment.
We welcome work in all regions and periods, and we have a particular interest in housing and settlement studies, post-disaster and post-conflict reconstruction, vernacular and earthen building cultures, adaptive reuse and conservation practice, building performance in hot arid climates, and the environmental assessment of construction materials and methods. Submissions from established scholars and from early-career researchers are assessed on the same terms.
The journal charges no submission fee and no article processing charge.
Article Types
- Research Articles — 6,000 to 9,000 words, including notes but excluding the reference list and figure captions. Original empirical, historical, technical or theoretical research presenting new evidence or a new argument.
- Critical Reviews — 4,000 to 7,000 words. Systematic or interpretive synthesis of a body of literature, a design movement, a technology or a policy area, offering a critical position rather than a summary.
- Documented Case Studies — 3,000 to 6,000 words. Close documentation and analysis of a building, settlement, project or intervention, supported by original drawings, survey data, measurement or fieldwork. Descriptive project presentations without analysis are not accepted.
Word counts are guidelines. If your manuscript exceeds the limit for good reason, explain this in your covering message to the editors rather than trimming essential evidence.
Manuscript Preparation
Submit the manuscript as a .docx or .odt file. Use a single column, 1.5 line spacing, 12-point serif type, and continuous line numbering throughout. Number all pages.
The manuscript should contain, in order: title; abstract of 200 to 250 words; 4 to 6 keywords; main text with numbered headings to a maximum of three levels; acknowledgements; funding statement; competing interests statement; reference list; figure captions listed together at the end.
Write the abstract so that it states the problem, the sources or method used, and the principal finding. Purely descriptive abstracts that announce what the paper "discusses" without saying what it found will be returned for revision. Choose keywords that name the building type, region, period, material or technique, since these are the terms by which readers and indexing services will find your work.
Do not embed figures in the manuscript file. Mark the intended position of each in the text as [Figure 1], [Table 2] and so on.
Manuscripts may be submitted in English or French.
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence
The use of generative artificial intelligence in the preparation of submissions to this journal is prohibited. Manuscripts prepared with such tools will not be accepted.
This prohibition covers, without limitation:
- the generation, rewriting, paraphrasing, translation, summarising or language editing of any part of the text, including the title, abstract, body, captions and acknowledgements;
- the generation or alteration of drawings, plans, renderings, photographs, diagrams or any other visual material;
- the generation of data, results, analysis or interpretation;
- the generation, formatting or completion of citations and reference lists.
Generative AI tools may not be listed as authors and may not be credited as contributors. On submission, the corresponding author confirms on behalf of all authors that no generative artificial intelligence was used in producing the manuscript or any accompanying material.
Where the editors have reason to believe this policy has been breached, the manuscript will be declined without review. Where a breach is identified after publication, the article will be retracted and the authors' institutions may be notified.
This policy concerns the preparation of manuscripts. It does not restrict the established computational methods that may form part of the research itself — structural, thermal, daylight and energy simulation; parametric and generative form-finding software; statistical packages; photogrammetry and point-cloud processing; and machine-learning methods that are the object of study or an instrument of analysis. Such methods are welcome and should be described in the methods section in the normal way, naming the software and version.
Language
We assess manuscripts on the quality of the research and the clarity of the argument, not on native fluency. A manuscript will not be declined because its English or French is imperfect. Where the substance is sound, our editors will identify the passages that need work and the journal will provide language support during copyediting. Authors who wish to have their manuscript read before submission are encouraged to ask a colleague, a university writing centre or a professional human editor; where a human editor has been used, name them in the acknowledgements.
Figures, Drawings and Photographs
Upload every figure as a separate file, using the file component that matches it: Drawings and Plans, Photographs, Figures, or Supplementary Data.
- Line drawings, plans, sections and elevations: vector format (PDF, EPS or SVG) is strongly preferred. If only raster is available, supply at a minimum of 600 dpi at intended reproduction size.
- Photographs and other raster images: minimum 300 dpi at intended reproduction size, as TIFF, PNG or high-quality JPEG. Do not enlarge low-resolution images.
- Name files descriptively, for example
fig03_ground-floor-plan.pdf.
Every plan, section and site drawing must carry a stated scale or scale bar, and every plan must carry a north arrow. Every figure requires a caption and a credit line. Follow APA 7th edition figure conventions: a number and an italic sentence-case title above the image, and the source or credit in a note beneath it.
Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce any drawing, photograph, map or archival document they do not own, and for meeting any conditions the rights holder imposes. Permission documentation must be available to the editors on request. Where you have produced a drawing by redrawing or interpreting another source, say so in the credit line.
Colour is used at no charge in the online edition.
References
Use APA 7th edition style for in-text citations and the reference list. Include a DOI as a full https://doi.org/ link for every source that has one. For sources without a DOI that are freely available online, include a stable URL.
Where you cite archival material, unpublished drawings, technical reports, standards or fieldwork records, give the repository or holding institution, the collection name and the item identifier, following APA's format for unpublished and archival works. For material with no named author, cite by the holding institution.
Every reference must be one you have consulted. Reference lists are checked at editorial screening, and manuscripts containing citations that cannot be verified will be declined.
Anonymity
This journal uses double-anonymous peer review. Neither authors nor reviewers learn each other's identity.
Before you submit:
- Remove your name, affiliation, acknowledgements and funding statement from the manuscript file. These are entered separately in the submission form and will be restored on acceptance.
- Clear identifying information from the document properties of every file you upload, including figure files.
- Replace self-citations in the text with a neutral form such as (Author, 2019), and upload the full reference entries as a separate file marked for editors only.
- Check that project names, institutional affiliations, ethics approval numbers and file paths in figures do not reveal your identity where anonymity would otherwise be preserved.
We recognise that in fieldwork-based and site-specific research, complete anonymity is sometimes impossible. Do what the material allows, and note any unavoidable disclosure in your message to the editors.
Research Ethics and Integrity
Manuscripts must be original, must not have been published previously, and must not be under consideration at another journal. Posting a preprint on a recognised repository is permitted and does not count as prior publication; disclose the preprint and its DOI on submission.
Where research involves human participants — including interviews, household surveys, and occupant or resident studies in housing and settlement research — state the ethical approval obtained, naming the approving body and the reference number, or explain why formal approval was not required in your jurisdiction. Describe how consent was obtained and how participant identities and locations are protected.
Where research concerns sites of cultural or Indigenous significance, describe the consultation and permissions that took place before the fieldwork.
All authors must meet substantive authorship criteria and must have approved the submitted version. Contributors who do not meet these criteria should be acknowledged instead. Disclose all funding, including grant numbers, and any financial or professional relationship that a reasonable reader might consider a competing interest — including involvement with a building, practice or product discussed in the manuscript.
Authors are fully responsible for the accuracy, originality and integrity of everything they submit.
Data and Materials
Where your conclusions rest on datasets, survey instruments, simulation models, material test results or measured drawing sets, deposit these in a recognised repository where you can, and cite them with a DOI. Where deposit is not possible — for reasons of participant confidentiality, cultural sensitivity or third-party rights — say so and explain why. Supporting material may also be uploaded as Supplementary Data and published alongside the article.
During submission you will be asked for a data availability statement, and for coverage metadata giving the place, period or jurisdiction your work concerns. Where no new data were generated — as in archival, historical or purely theoretical work — say so plainly; "No new data were generated in this study" is a complete answer.
Peer Review and Editorial Decisions
Every submission is first assessed by an editor for fit, for compliance with these guidelines, and for adherence to the policy on generative artificial intelligence. Manuscripts that fall outside the scope, that have not been anonymised, or that appear to have been prepared with generative AI are returned or declined at this stage.
Manuscripts sent forward are reviewed by at least two independent reviewers under double-anonymous conditions. Editorial decisions are accept, minor revisions, major revisions, or decline.
Where a manuscript addresses an important problem but falls short of publishable form, our editors will say so specifically and constructively, identifying what would need to change, rather than issuing a generic rejection. We regard this as part of the work of a journal, not an optional courtesy.
Copyright and Licensing
Authors retain copyright in their work and grant the journal the right of first publication. All articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). Authors may deposit any version of their article in an institutional or subject repository, or post it on a personal or departmental site, at any time and without embargo.
Third-party material reproduced in an article remains under its original copyright and is not covered by the CC BY licence unless the credit line states otherwise.
Publication and Preservation
Every accepted article is published open access without paywall or embargo. The journal maintains arrangements for the long-term digital preservation of published content, and registration for the assignment of Digital Object Identifiers is in progress.
Contact
Questions about scope, article type or preparation may be sent to the editors before submission. We would rather answer a question early than return a manuscript late.
Questions about scope, article type or preparation may be sent to editor@canadianja.ca before submission. We would rather answer a question early than return a manuscript late.
