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Dear list members We are writing to invite you for the third Building Event 'MATERIAL BODY TECHNOLOGY' taking place on FRIDAY 2 MARCH in the DRUMMOND LIBRARY (Surgeons' Square, High School Yard, Edinburgh, EH1 1LZ). The workshop starts at 9.30am. It includes presentations of Miles Glendinning, Elizabeth Shove and Remo Pedreschi as well as reportage from the Highrise Project. Could you please let us know if you are participating in the event. We are looking forward to hearing from you Best wishes Jane M. Jacobs Stephen Cairns Ignaz Strebel MATERIAL BODY TECHNOLOGY BUILDING EVENT III Friday, 2 March 2007 Drummond Library Surgeons' Square High School Yards Edinburgh EH1 1LZ This workshop is focused on the relationship between building materials, architectural technologies and the human body. Conventionally, technology and matter are understood to stand in opposition to organically defined categories such as the body, life, society or culture. The seemingly inert and passive character of materials are posed against the both the programmed, regulated and mechanistic character of technology and the agency that is credited to those 'life' categories. Yet, the evidence of the buildings in which we work and live shows this conventional division to be a caricature. For example, the willful nature of materials is announced when steel rusts, concrete spawls, or asbestos is discovered. Similarly, the precarious agency we experience in relation to everyday technologies is disclosed when they falter or fail and no longer blend so seamlessly with us. This workshop brackets the terms 'material', 'technology', 'body' as a prompt to questioning the active role each takes in the making and unmaking of everyday building events. It will activate recent discussions on the prostheticisation of the body, domestic routine and everyday technology, and technological and material 'agency' in relation to architectures of various kinds. PROGRAMME 09.30 Coffee and pastries at Drummond Library 10.00 Opening remarks 10.15 The Red Road highrise as a black box Jane Jacobs, Stephen Cairns, Ignaz Strebel 11.00 Coffee 11.30 Conventional Concrete: ‘everyday’ systems for postwar multi-storey blocks Miles Glendinning 12.15 (title tbc) Remo Pedreschi 13.00 Lunch 13.45 DIY: projects, practices and distributed competence Elizabeth Shove 14.30 Getting Red Road to Work: a look into the Highrise Project Jane Jacobs, Stephen Cairns, Ignaz Strebel 15.15 Discussion 16.00 Workshop close SPEAKERS Miles Glendinning is Reader in Architectural Conservation at the Edinburgh College of Art and co-author of Tower Block: Modern Public Housing in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Yale University Press, 1994) www.eca.ac.uk Elizabeth Shove is Professor in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University and author of Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience (Berg, 2004) www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/staff/shove/shove.htm Remo Pedreschi is Professor of Architecture in the School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh homepages.ed.ac.uk/rpedresc/ Stephen Cairns, Jane M Jacobs and Ignaz Strebel, AHRC Highrise Project, Geography and Architecture, Edinburgh University www.highriseproject.ac.uk THE HIGHRISE PROJECT www.architecture.ed.ac.uk and www.geosciences.ed.ac.uk/geography www.highriseproject.ac.uk DENSITY INSIDE OUT (FINAL PROJECT CONFERENCE, JUNE 6-8 2007) Information on: www.geos.ed.ac.uk/geography/DensityInsideOut.html _______________________________________________________ [log in to unmask] An urban geography discussion and announcement forum List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/URB-GEOG-FORUM Maintained by: RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group UGRG Home Page: http://www.urban-geography.org.uk