Dear all,
Hereby I would like to remind you of the following call for papers for a 2-day workshop on Design & Environment.
Please circulate widely. I look forward to your contributions.
Best,
Arvid van Dam
Doctoral fellow
Disaster studies | Design Anthropology | Environmental Humanities
University of Leeds
Leeds Humanities Research Institute
Room 1.04 | 29-31 Clarendon Place
NL & WhatsApp:
+31 6 15275313 | UK:
+44 113 34 32025 | ES:
+34 617 180703
CFP: Design & Environment. An Intensive, Interdisciplinary, and Output-Oriented Workshop
Wednesday 28 February & Thursday 1 March 2018
University of Leeds
Abstract deadline: 13 October 2017
3 to 5 page essay deadline: 12 January 2018
See also
http://enhanceitn.eu/design-and-environment/
KEYNOTES
Wendy Gunn (Senior
Research Fellow at the Research[x]Design Research Group, Department of Architecture, KU Leuven)
And
Clare Rishbeth
(Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the Department of Landscape, The University of Sheffield)
THEME
This two-day workshop seeks to critically rethink how design and environment inform each other. Architects, designers, and environmental
scholars from a range of disciplines are committed to sustainability. However, the relationships between these fields of inquiry and production are not self-evident. How are design and environment intertwined, or when does environment become design and vice
versa?
It has long been recognised that spatial planning and design are not just matters of aesthetics or convenience, but can have major
consequences for how an environment functions in social terms. The examples of destructive socio-spatial segregation are ample, as are those of fragmented ecosystems. The workshop invites reflections on the troubled relationship between design and environment
beyond conventional “Design for the Environment” (DfE) frameworks (focussing on the environmental impact of products or processes) and seeks to defy the idea that design altruistically works ‘for the betterment of all’. Acknowledging instead the normativity
and embeddedness of design in power structures, can serve to expose the intentionality of environmental changes. In turn, environmental changes, as well as contemporary understandings of the socio-material configuration of space, can produce surprising understandings
of how design processes work and allow for more inclusive, and perhaps empowering conceptualisations of design. The emerging field of design anthropology in particular has been “concerned with how people perceive, create, and transform their environments through
their everyday activities” [1], thus developing a broad conceptualisation of design as a way of making the world.
Where do (studies of) design and environment meet, and what kinds of understandings does this offer? What are the pitfalls and challenges
this encounter brings forward? How do the temporalities and materialities of design and environment align or clash in working towards a sustainable future?
Anthropologists, geographers, designers, architects, humanities scholars and others, at all career stages, are invited to contribute
to this two-day workshop. Possible topics for discussion include, but are not limited to:
• Temporalities in/of environment and design
• Environmental crisis and disaster
• Design, destruction, and (spatial) inequality
• Urban and rural landscape architectures
• Controlled environments
• Aesthetics, representation and critique
• (Post)colonial environments
• Utopia and social engineering
• Sustainable design and environmental management
• Dwelling and everyday design
FORMAT
This will be an
intensive, interdisciplinary and output-oriented workshop. Apart from public keynote lectures by Wendy Gunn (KU Leuven) and Clare Rishbeth (The University of Sheffield), the workshop will be closed to people who are not presenting to improve
commitment within the group. The workshop is limited to a maximum of 20 people.
Those interested are kindly asked to send an abstract (max 200 words) outlining their ideas to Arvid van Dam ([log in to unmask])
before 13 October 2017.
Invited participants will then be asked to submit a 3 to 5 page essay well before the workshop and all participants are expected to
read the essays in their panel. In addition, they will be asked to send 1 to 3 thematic questions with their essay, which might inform the panel discussions. During the meeting, each participant will give a pitch rather than a full presentation, focussing
on the main argument of their essay (creative approaches are welcome), and allowing for in-depth discussions. There will be no parallel panels. Various sessions will be directed, each in their own way, at coming up with collaborative output based on the discussions
and presentations.
REFERENCE
[1] Gunn, W., T. Otto & R.C. Smith (2013). Design anthropology: Theory and practice. London, New York: Bloomsbury. (Page xiii).
––––
Arvid van Dam
Doctoral fellow
Disaster studies | Design Anthropology | Environmental Humanities
University of Leeds
Leeds Humanities Research Institute
Room 1.04 | 29-31 Clarendon Place
NL & WhatsApp:
+31 6 15275313 | UK:
+44 113 34 32025 | ES:
+34 617 180703