RAPS: Radicality UWE Bristol 2021-Sep-17-18
RAPS Radicality 2021 Conference is pleased to invite extended abstract submissions for 30th April 2021. We invite submissions from architects, academics, artists, environmental scientists, engineers, activists, sociologists and visionaries amongst others to submit 300word abstracts in link below. The Conference will explore radical visions of architecture practice for sustainability through six themes: Architect as Activist; Green Dream; NOT building; Ecological Entanglements; Utopian Realism; Beyond Disruptive Events – Post Pandemic Practices (https://www.rapsresearch.com/services).
We are excited to be joined by radical visionaries including Malene Natascha Ratcliffe (CEO, SUPERFLEX), Maarten Gielen (ROTOR) and Dr Etienne Turpin (Anexact) in the keynote and debate panel sessions in Sept 2021. The keynote sessions will be reflecting upon human and non-human multi spatial modalities and radical environmental approaches to design as well as modes of cooperative design practice for a radical organisation of the material ‘designed’ and not only ‘built’ environment.
Submit your research article for consideration in the RAPS Bristol 2021 Conference
Overall Conference theme: Radicality
For more information go to the RAPS website at https://www.rapsresearch.com/
The first RAPS conference on September 17-18 2021 in Bristol aims to explore, imagine and radically shift conceptualisations of architecture practice for sustainability. Our premise comes from our interest in understanding how we get to and overcome ‘the root of something’ and how radical architecture can manifest and thrive in its multiple and many modes that shift current dominant paradigms of evidence based and quantifiable measures to deliver sustainable outcomes. A radical approach specifically aims to uncover root causes as opposed to surface explanations, viewing ecological problems as rooted primarily in socio-political notions of nature, multispecies activity and needs, building and not building, activating and resisting as well as entangling (Ehrenfeld 2013).
RAPS Bristol 2021 invites a range of submission formats including papers, performances, exhibition, film and more that will encourage and captivate discussion and debate on below themes. The 2021 themes coalesce around the key question of how architecture and architects could accelerate and meaningfully inhabit and embody a radical, effective and new experimental set of approaches that move beyond the status quo, that challenge dominant paradigms, that offer new perspectives into practices for sustainability.
KEY DATES
Abstract Submission: 31st March 2021 Extended until 30th April!!
We invite abstracts (300 words max) in any format that explain original research, discuss artefacts, exhibitions, monologues, dialogues or reviews in any of the following themes listed below.
All abstract submissions must include the following:
Theme: Describe which theme your abstract contributes to.
Presentation format: Explain the format of the research presentation as either: Presentation, Exhibition, Film or Physical Performance.
Title of abstract: Maximum 120 characters.
Authors: Author names, affiliation as well as corresponding author email address should be included.
300 word abstract: each abstract should make clear the aims and context of the research as well as methods undertaken. Findings and contribution of research should be clearly explained.
Appendix: An Appendix of up to 3 pages or images including tables/charts and/or other appropriate supplemental material may be included as a PDF. Please note that the abstract and appendix submitted for the review process will be printed in the proceedings following the conference.
There will be no opportunity for additional edits.
Abstracts should be submitted by 30th April 2021 to rapsbristol@gmail.com
Submission of full papers: 31st May 2021
Following review by conference committee, authors will be invited to submit full papers and artefacts by 31st May 2021. Papers are to be submitted to rapsbristol@gmail.com
Registration: 31st July 2021
Registration to the conference should be made by 31st July 2021- Registration details will be available by January 2021.
Conference date and location: 17th & 18th September 2021
The conference will be held in Bristol (location to be confirmed) as well as online via zoom on 17th and 18th September 2021. Full details to follow.
CONFERENCE THEMES
Green Dream
How do we conceptualise nature in the designed environment 2021 onwards? What are the dream possibilities of urban, suburban and rural interventions in which the architecture becomes a background and nature is the real protagonist? How do we continue to challenge boundaries between city and nature, between inside and outside? Predominantly, nature has been conceptualised as an obstacle to be overcome or utilised by human capabilities, whether humanity is situated within or outside of it (Phelan 1992). This theme invites proposals, projects and ideas that develop new radical conceptualisations of nature in the designed environment whereby new architectural habitats and typologies can evolve such as urban green meal mines, digital colosseums, parking towers, functional bridges, as well as innovative habitat concepts, signalling what could be the next step in the development of cities that mitigate rising climate emergency issues.
Architect as activist
Necessarily building design practices are interdisciplinary and involve a broad range of vocational actors. Some have wrongly claimed that sustainability in architecture is predominantly a question for Building Services Engineers. But what is the specific role of the architect and architecture in the sustainability transformation? Where are the unique skills of architects? What are promising intervention actions? Rethinking the role of the architect in sustainable futures and her relation to an issue action-based approach to practice. How can an architect initiate sustainability? How should the architect as a steward of the environment practice responsibly?
NOT building
The culture of unlimited economic growth and modernist passion for the new has come to an end. Built space is a precious resource, that has a heavy ecological footprint. How can architects develop new sustainable practices that begin with the paradigm of not building? Sharing, new forms of ownership, building as a service, reduction, virtualisation might be possible directions. What else can you introduce to us?
Ecological Entanglements
Architecture and architects are entangled in multiple ecologies and impact on human and non-human species, entities, systems and environments. How can we practice architecture and through affect, mutualism and interdependency, sustain life and its diversity? How can artificial intelligence, geographical information systems, bio-technologies be directed to create emergent pathways to more equitable adaptation and co-habitation of environments? How can architecture become more positively symbiotic with its ecological, biological and technological contexts?
Utopian Realism
Societies are shaped by discourses and visualisations. The “World of Tomorrow” in General Motors’ Futurama exhibit at the New York World’s Fair of 1939 was powerful example to visualise and forestall the car-centred city, that later materialised in US American cities in the 1950s. How to develop radical visualisations of sustainable futures? Visualisations can open up new opportunities, make them tangible, discussable and bringing them from the future into the present. Visualisation help aligning diverse stakeholders around a shared vision. How do we want to live in the future? How to visualise our dreams?
Beyond disruptive events – Post pandemic practices
Disruptive events including pandemics and society’s responses to them have historically shaped spatial and urban planning practices. Our current condition of isolating to hinder the spread of a virus is already shaping notions of practice in design in the physical and virtual realms. How will isolation shape future post pandemic edifices, edges and environments- both internal and external/physical and virtual/global and local?
Open Call
Radical approaches beyond our wildest dreams!
