This conference call might be of interest to some of you, applogies for cross posting:

DESIGNED ASIA 2015 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Jointly
 organised by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design, 
Hong Kong Design Institute (member of VTC Group), and Hong Kong Design 
Centre, DesignEd Asia Conference aims to provide a practical platform 
for international design educators and professionals to share views, 
knowledge and experiences on Design Education. For 2015, we will feature
 speakers from Barcelona, the partner city of Business of Design Week 
(BODW).


				Jointly
 organised by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design, 
Hong Kong Design Institute (member of VTC Group), and Hong Kong Design 
Centre, DesignEd Asia Conference aims to provide a practical platform 
for international design educators and professionals to share views, 
knowledge and experiences on Design Education. For 2015, we will feature
 speakers from Barcelona, the partner city of Business of Design Week 
(BODW).

				

				Spirit of Place and Design EducationThe
 world’s great schools of design tend to be embedded in vibrant 
metropolises, distinctive regional cultures, hubs of creative energy, 
and other contexts that – in their rich design histories and unique 
social and cultural patterns – provide grounding, inspiration, 
challenges and nourishment to the teaching and learning of design. Local
 industries and natural resources, the geographical and climatic factors
 of the local environment, and the demographic and cultural 
specificities of the local society all have a formative influence on 
design students and teachers, and the institutions in which they 
operate. The place in which an educational institution is situated is 
the archive of tangible evidence of a heritage of design. Equally so, it
 contains the inheritance of intangible ideas and values, and is the 
stage for the ongoing performance of a local habitus.
In
 learning how to think and act in designerly ways, students become 
sensitized to the environment within which, and for which they design. 
The geographical locus at which design education takes place is among 
the most fundamental and profound of the resources on which design 
education draws – as a laboratory, library, museum, sounding board, 
palimpsest of memories and canvas of future visions. Not merely a site 
or situation that is probed in the name of design research, the place in
 which one learns design is the very medium within which the process of 
one’s acquisition of ways of thinking, learning and doing is enmeshed.
Design
 education can empower students to draw on the resources, values and 
heritage of a place in critical and exploratory ways, educating each 
generation of new designers to drive forward the evolution of local 
design knowledge, identity and practice. However, a narrow and 
superficial notion of the spirit of a place in design education can lead
 to stultifying conservatism and trivialization of a locality’s 
heritage, cloying appeals to fetishized clichés, prejudices sacralized 
as “traditions”, hackneyed appropriations from a canon of artifacts from
 the past, and uncritical hagiographies of “local heroes”.
Even
 as design markets and tastes become increasingly globalized, as ways of
 teaching and learning design become more and more internationalized, 
and students around the world make reference to the same iconic 
projects, trendy ideas and styles, and star designers, the importance of
 place in design education remains. We are inviting papers that explore 
different facets of this importance. Possible themes include, but are 
not limited to:
The
 ways in which the culture, history and society of a place influence and
 nurture particular ways of teaching and learning, and the value derived
 from such place-specific pedagogiesAppropriate
 ways for critically addressing the design heritage of the place where 
one learns, in ways that encourage deep engagement, rather than 
superficial samplingParticular pedagogies for passing-on local knowledge and traditions, both tacit and explicitTactics
 for engaging the local people, society and culture in sustained and 
meaningful ways, beyond the generic methods of “user research”The
 roles of design education institutions in promoting and defining the 
spirit of place, including implications for educational strategy and 
policyWays in which design education can take up an ongoing dialogue with its context and “give back” to the place that nourishes itExamples
 of relationships and collaboration between design schools and other 
institutions in society in perpetuating and elaborating the spirit of 
place through designWays
 that design education can tap into local wisdom and knowledge, as 
embodied in the crafts, traditions, and people of the placeIn
 all of these themes and others, we are seeking papers that address 
theoretical and practical issues, while remaining grounded in actual 
pedagogical practice.
Deadline for Abstract Submission: 2 August (Sun)

				Notification of Acceptance of an Abstract: 7 September (Mon)

				

				Sign up and submit via the online conference system:

				http://www.designedasia.com/openconf

				

				For the most up-to-date information, visit: http://www.DesignEdAsia.com/
Contact Us

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		Call for Abstracts - DesignEd Asia Conference, 1-2 December 2015
		
	
	
		
			

	 		 	   		   		 	   		  

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