Persistent Modelling Seminar

 Wednesday 2 May 2012, 10h-16h30

Marking the publication of the title Persistent Modelling by Routledge, edited by Phil Ayres, this seminar draws together members of CITA and current CITA collaborators who have contributed to the book.

The seminar will examine and discuss the relationship between representation and the represented through the notion of persistent modelling. This notion is not novel to the activity of architectural design if considered as describing an iterative engagement with design concerns – and evident characteristic of architectural practice. But the persistence in persistent modelling can also be understood to apply in other ways, reflecting and anticipating extended roles for representation.

Drawing upon both historical and contemporary perspectives this seminar will discuss ways in which the relation between representation and the represented have, and continue to be, reconsidered. Through the presentations three principle areas will be identified in which extended roles for representation are becoming apparent within contemporary practices contributing to realisation of the built environment:

• the duration of active influence that representation can hold in relation to the represented
• the means, methods and media through which representations are constructed and used
• what it is that is being represented 

 In addition, this seminar will provide critical insight into the use of contemporary modelling tools and methods together with an examination of the implications their use has within the territories of architectural design, realisation and experience.

Venue

The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts – School of Architecture

Auditorium 3

Philip de Langes Alle 10

1435 Copenhagen

 Denmark

Speakers:

Phil Ayres (CITA)

Sarat Babu (Bartlett, UCL)

Prof. Mark Burry (SIAL, RMIT)

Dr. Rachel Cruise (University of Sheffield)

Paul Nicholas (CITA)

Brady Peters (CITA)

Martin Tamke (CITA)

Prof. Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (CITA)

The seminar programme can be found here.

This is a public event, all are welcome.

Please register by email to phil.ayres@kadk.dk

Where Art, Technology and Design meet

Some of the most exciting papers from the Ambience 11 Conference are now available in the last issue of Studies in Material Thinking, a peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to artistic and design research. This special issue explores the intersection between art, design and teechnology, with a strong focus on the design of intelligent textiles. TFRC is well represented with publications from Carole Collet, Jane Scott and Aurélie Mossé. The journal is of free access so feel free to find out more about these exciting textile projects:

An Interactive Textile Hanging: Textile, Context, and Interaction

Delia Dumitrescu, Hanna Landin and Anna Vallgårda

BioLace: An Exploration of the Potential of Synthetic Biology and Living Technology for Future Textiles

Carole Collet

Listener: A Probe Into Information Based Material Specification

Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and Ayelet Karmon

Working Patches

Kristina Lindström and Åsa Ståhl

I Mirabilia, taking care of the emotional life of hospitalised children

Erika Rossi, Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor

Towards Interconnectivity: Appropriation of Responsive Minimum Energy Structures in an Architectural Context

Aurélie Mossé, David Gauthier and Guggi Kofod

Knitting Moves: Bio-inspired Transformable Textiles for knitted Architecture

Jane Scott

Textiles: Alternative Forms of Malleability

Rhett Russo and Katrin Mueller-Russo

Wearable Technologies: From Performativity to Materiality

Valérie Lamontagne

Aura: Wearable Devices for Non-verbal Communication between Expectant Parents

Marco Righetto, Gillian Crampton Smith and Philip Tabor

Online Live Design Debate

To reg for the online webcast go to the design council website

Getting the best from People: how to chat cheerfully and successfully?

Getting People to Talk: An Ethnography & Interviewing Primer from Gabe & Kristy on Vimeo.

When I studied on my Mdes Course we called taking to our stakeholders cheerful chats, an informal process that captured insights for our research practice and development. But, when working towards designing something for the stakeholders who will ultimately use/ need/ want the end output - How do we capture their insights successfully? 

By this I mean - encouraging them to talk about what they really use/ need/ want. How to nurture them to feel comfortable enough to share their insights? And how to capture them without losing any valuable information in the process?

This video is a valuable tool.

I found it via Redjotter a fantastic blog by Lauren Currie on Service Design thinking, practice and innovation. A great resource for any service design enthusiasts! 

Beyond Green 2009

Good Design was the central them of Beyond Green this year. An event hosted on 9th Nov 2009 athe the AMFI - Amsterdam Fashion Institute of the Arts.

This theme had been chosen due to increasing concern and demand for reduced environmental impact of goods and services.

The event focused upon the role of the designers and companies application of good design thinking. The symposium hosted a range of speakers from David Shah, Dr Kate Fletcher, Mark Liu, Carolyn Strauss and many more. The symposium was accompanied by an exhibition.

Their web platform has documented the event, hosting lots of images, power point presentations and video footage. I think this has been executed really well and is a great was to disseminate the event to a wider audience: sparking future discussions and after thoughts.

Co-Everything: Defining Co-design for Fashion and Textiles’

Friday 6^th November ‘09

3.30pm – 5pm

Lecture Theatre, Chelsea Millbank

 TFRG / PhD Student Jen Ballie presents:‘Co-Everything: Defining Co-design for Fashion and Textiles’

Co-design is an all-encompassing term to describe participatory action, but how does it fit fashion? This presentation will explore a series of co-design terms and define them within a fashion context, to offer a series of solutions for designers for discussion with the audience.

If you are a undergraduate/ postgraduate student from the University of the Arts, London and have an interest in this area please come along or contact me or more info.

Future Textiles Denmark

I have been kindly invited by the Centre for Textile Research, Copenhagen to present my work during a research day dedicated to Future Textiles, where I will be presenting alongside with designers and researchers such as Mette Ramsgaard, Linda Worbin or Vibeke Riisberg and many others. Please have a look on the program which sounds really exciting !

If you wish to join us, the event will be hold at:
Multi salen, Københavns Universitet, bygn. 21, lok. 21.0.54,
Karen Blixens Vej 1, 2300 København S and you can already book tickets at this address: mebr@hum.ku.dk, entrance fees is of 100dkk.

Hacking Design: Folly, theft or a new democratic dawn?

The RSA will be hosting an event exploring the notion of "design-hacking" a term used to offer alternatives to traditional design, production and partcipation. This event will be chaired by Scott Burnham (author of the RSA Design & Society pamphlet on design-hacking) and invites Dr Otto von Busch "haute-couture heretic and DIY- demangogue".

Dr Otto Von Busch recently completed a PhD which combined a series of projects and experiments to explore fashion activism. His approach invites participants to actively engage in the fashion system and he has created a digital platform called >self_passage< which offers open source projects and proposed solutions. This is an excellent resource for designers practitioners, researchers and fashion DIY enthusiast's.

Event Description
As brave designers embrace this new frontier spirit. Design jam sessions of professional and amateur in cities and festivals all over the developed world unlock a creative energy that has, in fact, been ever-present in favelas and rural villages where necessity has always been the mother of invention.

Is design-hacking merely another post-modern phase in the history of design, or does it reveal a civic ingenuity and resourcefulness that a century and a half of industrially-fed consumerism has masked?

I have just booked tickets and really look forward to attending this event. I will update a new posting to summarise the proceedings.

Book Tickets or Further Information

Making futures - 17th & 18th September 2009

This sounds like a not to be missed conference organized in Plymouth:

'The purpose of ‘Making Futures' is to improve understanding of the ways in which the contemporary crafts are practiced in relation to significant and new emerging agendas relating to global environmental and sustainability issues.

The objectives include trying to understand whether these ‘agendas’ offer opportunities for the crafts to redefine and reconstitute themselves as less marginalised, more centrally productive forces in society, through new formulations and/or re-articulations of practices, identities, positions and markets, in ways that might engage more closely with contemporary social and cultural needs.

‘Making Futures: the crafts in the context of emerging global sustainability agendas’ aims to bring together an international cast of academics, practitioners, curators, campaigners, activists, and representatives from associated organisations and agencies, to develop and explore the conference theme. The conference seeks to incorprate a diverse range of practice-based case studies with approaches rooted in historical and cultural modelling encompassing social, technological, critical-theoretical, and economic and political perspectives. Throughout, the intention will be to advance understanding and debate of this important area where practice and aesthetics confront contemporary social and political imepratives.

The conference invites submissions from practitioners, curators, historians, theorists, campaigners, activists, and representatives of public and private agencies with an interest in the relationship between the contemporary crafts and sustainability issues.'

Check out the programme and so on, on the conference website

The Micro-Sociology of Networks

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

The Micro-Sociology of Networks

View more documents from David Armano.

Thinking Visually

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Thinking Visually

View more documents from David Armano.

Design In Alternative Futures

This free event was hosted by the Public Services team within the Design Council, London. Designers were invited to participate in a discussion about the future of the economy, society and government. As 2009 will be remembered as the year of global economic durntown - what does this mean to our future?

Dr Alex King, project leader in the governments Horizon Scanning Centre - presented "Economy and Society 2030"

He used scenario mapping to present 4 possible future scenarios to illustrate portraits of the future of Britain. All scenarios were speculative and addressed themes such as social values, behaviour, technology, community, resources, innovation, economics...

Dr King talked about 4 different worlds, these scenarios projected people uniting together and regarding collaboration more important than competition, with a strong sense of community. Or a different competitive society where people become isolated with lots of small closed communities...

Discussion was gauged around the scenario methods and I found the discussion as interesting as the presentation. The method of scenario mapping could be used to engage people to prompt discussion and debate. But, there are lots of variables that could impact each scenario differently and this creates a lot of complexity around the method.

Some interested points were highlighted throughout the discussion such as using designers to create visual scenarios/ storyboards to communicate to participants and multiple stakeholders. Therefore could we create roles for designers when creating government policy?

I found this event was really interesting and thought provoking and think it’s a create platform to bring designers together.

Design Connexity

Design Connexity will be the eight International annual Conference of the European Academy of Design. The event will take place from Wed 1st April - 3rd at Greys School of Art and Design, Aberdeen.

The concept of "Connexity" was coined by Mulgan 1998 who defined it through the growing trend of globalisation which creates a growing connectedness of all of our actions through social, environmental and economic issues. 

The event will draw upon several themes:

Design Thinking

Design Interconnections, Intersections and Convergence

Design Empathy

Design Boundaries

Responsible Design

Anti Design

The above themes will be addressed through analysis of practice based research projects, a design exhibition and key note presentations from designer practitioners exploring these issues within their practice.

I will be attending and shall upload a report on the proceedings.