Emerging
Practices:
Design
Research and Education Conference 2014
October 13, 2014
College of Design & Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Within the Shanghai Design Week (October 10-17, 2014)
Main theme:
#Developing#
CALL FOR PROPOSALS IS NOW OPEN!
In this new era, design must, and
is currently being, redefined. Social and economic changes impel designers to
“think bigger.” For the design discipline, the expanding roles and tools of
design make it more possible than ever to connect and to integrate
multi-disciplinary knowledge within the social and economic context, and to tackle
real world problems. Moreover, during the course of blurring the boundaries
between professions and developing new approaches, design explores the new
frontier by dealing with matters that center around goodness, happiness, and
wellbeing of the entire human community. Design is immersed in values that were
not even recognized a couple of decades ago, and the legitimization of design
will now be measured more on how it can enable us to survive on this planet. Such
emerging design practices and thoughts raise the bar for design knowledge, in
terms of its breadth, depth, and complexity. The areas where they start to grow,
especially the intersections between design professions, approaches, and
values, merit a closer examination.
Based on the above observation,
Tongji University’s College of Design and Innovation (Shanghai, China) hosted
the first Design Research and Education Conference titled “Emerging Practices”
in 2012. This conference, since its very beginning, is devoted to exploring the
new practices, values, and approaches arising from, or influential to, design
and design education. It is an arena in which these three concepts are explored
by facilitating heated discussions respectively or in an integrative manner. We
sincerely invite scholars, researchers, practitioners, educators, and design
students, interested in the possibilities the wide spectrum of design offers,
to participate and contribute their ideas. This conference has been developed
into a regular unit of Tongji Design Week, during which a series of design research-
and practice-based events are held in October every year.
We are pleased to announce here that
the third Emerging Practices: Design Research and Education Conference will be
held on October 13th, 2014. This conference will be organized as an
interactive form, providing discussions that will be able to facilitate
participants to further develop their original ideas and proposals. Full papers
will be completed after the conference and will be compiled into the conference
proceedings with an ISBN number.
Introduction to Emerging
Practices 2014:
The idea of ‘developing’ is
controversial. On the one hand, the word developing often implies inferiority,
and is used as a synonym of underdeveloped. On the other hand, developing is
the present participle of to develop, which literally means to bring out the
capabilities or possibilities of something and a process of evolving toward a
more advanced or effective state.
For instance, a developing
country is defined in terms of a lower standard of living, less-developed
industrial base, and lower Human Development Index in comparison with other
developed countries. This is a prevailing understanding of the term developing.
Arguably, the status of being ‘developing’ can nevertheless be a great asset to
a country. It can provide energy and space to initiate a series of sustainable
paradigm shifts, including reshaping values, changing rules of action, ways of
living and production, and ultimately reforming the whole society and economy.
The rapidly changing dynamics in developing countries make major
transformations possible.
In this sense, the word
developing can be used to frame a situation that is still in progress, full of
potentialities and energy, and at the same time in need of inputs, skills, and
resources. The term developing may refer to countries, communities, policies,
services, knowledge, tools, methods, and many more. All these constitute an
energetic landscape, upon which discussions on emerging practices of design
become challenging, yet more meaningful.
This conference aims to
facilitate discourses that reflect on the prevailing acceptance and implicit
interpretation of the notion of ‘developing’. Further, it will explore the
strengths, challenges, and opportunities that the status of being developing
offers, in various scenarios of emerging practices driven by design.
What are the strengths of being
developing? What are the shared challenges and values between the practices
conducted in the developing context and those grounded in the developed
context? How can the established/prevailing approaches be adapted to the state
of being developing? How can the practices deeply contextualized in the
developing scenarios inspire the approaches toward innovation?
Call for proposals:
We now invite
researchers, practitioners, teachers and students from different domains to
contribute papers that enrich the understanding of best practices of “developing”
related to the following sub-themes:
1. #developing communities
- enabling and empowering
- connectedness and relationality
- modeling social awareness
2. #developing economies
- alternative economies and
emerging business models
- best practice of transition from product to service
- the global landscape of creative industries
3. #developing research
- emerging forms of academic
publication
- linking design journals and practitioners
- challenges and strategies
4. #developing education
- re-designing curriculum
- challenges and lessons learned
- leadership and entrepreneurship
5. #developing openness
- the nature of open innovation
- managing fuzziness in opening design
- ownership and open: a paradox?
6. #developing explorations
- critical reflection on
alternative futures
- innovation inspired by nature
- new ways of making
- digital media
If you are interested, and have
experiences and viewpoints to share, you are invited to be part of the
construction process of these future scenarios by presenting ideas and
participating in in-depth discussions. Outcomes derived from the discussion
will be summarized and exhibited at the end of the conference. It is hoped that
this conference will serve as an intermediate, yet stimulative stage, for
contributors to further develop their ideas based on the co-construction.
Conference language:
English
Submission requirements:
Please choose a relevant sub-topic and submit a short description of your
research project using the word template you may find here. http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/NewsDetail.do?ID=3349&lang=_en
The description will include: 1)
a title; 2) a short text running about 750 words; 3) 2 images; and 4) 3-5
keywords. In addition, a short biography of 50 to 100 words, including author
information such as your full name, title, affiliations, and email address,
should be enclosed. (We will translate your document into a poster in A2 size
and print it out to be used at the conference discussion session.)
How it works:
This conference will be a real interaction among the participants. If proposal
is accepted, you will join the discussion table where you will be asked to make
a 5 mins presentation and then to participate in some provided team-activities
aimed to facilitate the group discussion. The presentations, discussions, and
activities will lead to outcomes at two levels. First, the observations made
and perspectives articulated during the process will be highlighted at the end
of the conference in the form of a small presentation and exhibition. Second,
the participants will be able to use this highly interactive and
co-constructive process to consolidate their proposals and further develop them
into full papers after this event.
Important dates:
April 15th, 2014: Open
June 16th, 2014:
Deadline for proposal submission
July 21st, 2014: Notifications
of accepted proposals
October 13th, 2014:
Conference
December 15th, 2014:
Deadline for submission of full papers
January 26th, 2015:
Reviewer comments
February 9th, 2015:
Final submission
End of June 2015:
Conference proceedings
Proceedings:
Conference proceedings will be published with an ISBN number.
Keynote Speakers:
To be announced.
Conference Chairs:
Yongqi LOU
Professor
Dean of the College of Design and Innovation
Tongji University, China
Ken FRIEDMAN
University
Distinguished Professor
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia;
Guest Professor
College of Design and Innovation
Tongji University, China
Davide FASSI
Assistant
Professor
Politecnico di Milano, Italy;
Associate Professor
Tongji University, China
Xiaohua SUN
Professor
Vice Dean of the College of Design and Innovation
Tongji University, China
More to be announced.
Registration
Registration fees
Registration in advance: 800RMB
Registration on site: 1000RMB
Students (with ID proof)
registration in advance 400RMB
Registration on site: 600RMB
The registration form and payment
information will be released soon.
Venue:
College of Design & Innovation, Tongji University
281 Fuxin Road,
Yangpu District,
Shanghai, China
Contact Persons:
Coordinators: Jin MA, Davide FASSI ([log in to unmask])
Links:
Tongji university: http://www.tongji.edu.cn
College of Design and Innovation : http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
CUMULUS: http://www.cumulusassociation.org
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