What is the impact of austerity on craft making and fashion design?

Call for Contributions Closing: 31-Mar-2011 The impact of recession and periods of austerity have led to changes in textile making and the skill base that supports these activities. The recent financial difficulties in the UK are resulting in an increase in craft based workshops, retail outlets stocking textile supplies and temporary shops popping up in residential areas that offer sewing machine classes and pay-by-the-hour sewing machines. Students and graduates of textile design courses are experiencing difficulties in obtaining work placements and employment in the sector. However, speaking recently Karl Lagerfeld (1) said that his work in fashion design has not been affected as he is working in a global arena where not all markets are in recession. The Crafts Council (2) reported in April 2009 that although there was a slight decrease in visitor numbers to recent contemporary craft events, there was no discernable impact on sales figures. They envisaged however a shift in the demographic of the contemporary crafts consumer. Changes in consumer attitudes and a reduction in the teaching of textile skills in schools have led to a generation with different perceptions of making. Through this second call, DUCK wishes to explore how craft making and textile design activity is affected by austerity. Submissions are invited which address one or more of the following themes: • What changes have been observed in textile craft making and/or textile design during and following periods of austerity such as financial recessions or war? • In what ways do changes brought about through periods of financial constraint perpetuate during ‘good times’? • How do textile designers and designer makers respond to changes in consumer demand and markets for their products? • In what ways do financial constraints such as increased costs for materials lead to innovation and ingenuity in craft making? • Do periods of austerity act as a catalyst for the acquisition of craft skills? Do they change the perceived value of textile design and making? • To what extent does reduced funding for textile and textile design research impact on craft makers? • How do periods of austerity impact on notions of luxury and bespoke in relation to textile products? Authors will be informed of the outcome of their submission by the end of July 2011. Submission Instructions Contributions may take the form of written texts (maximum 5,000 words), visual essays, a series of images relating to methods (sketchbook style), visual diaries or other methods deemed appropriate but must address the research question. Duck does not advise a particular format for written submissions although we ask that contributors present their ideas in an accessible format for Duck's diverse readership of researchers, educators, artists and designers. For written texts the Harvard System of referencing is preferred. Images should be 300dpi where possible, RGB format and submitted as TIFF or JPEG files. Text should be provided in MS Word (.doc), rich text (.rtf) or pdf format. Please provide your name, affiliation, email address, a title for your submission and a short summary of your contribution. Please send submissions by email to: F.E.Kane2@lboro.ac.uk (Maximum file size: 5mb) Alternatively, please send on disk (CD or DVD) to: DUCK Journal - Textiles Research Group Loughborough University School of Art and Design Loughborough Leicestershire LE11 3TU Copyright In submitting material to Duck, contributors thereby grant permission for it to be published on the Duck website. Contributors retain copyright of their material and may use it elsewhere after publication in Duck, though we would appreciate it if Duck could be acknowledged as the original source of publication. Please note that it is the responsibility of contributors to obtain the necessary permissions for reproducing work other than their own.

Website(s): - www.lboro.ac.uk

Inhabitating Adaptive Architecture Workshop

Extended deadline for what sounds like a very exciting workshop:

Inhabitating Adaptive Architecture
Saturday 5 March 2011

Chaired by Holger Schnädelbach and Jonathan Hale [The University of Nottingham]

Deadline for papers extended to Friday 28 January

Announcement of acceptance 4 February 2011

This workshop will bring togehter experts from the various disciplines contributing to Adaptive Architecture to discuss the challenges faced by inhabitants (individuals, groups & organisations) in occupying adaptive buildings over various time scales.

To download the call for papers (pdf) click HERE.

Please submit a one-page A4 document to include a brief bio and a position statement (of no more than 500 words), reflecting on what it means to you to inhabit Adaptive Architecture. Participants will be selected from all submissions based on peer-review. Submission should be formatted as MSoft Word document, 12 point Arial, singled spaced. It should also include five key words (normal type), your name, institution, qualifications, role, contact address, contact e-mail address, telephone number at top of document (bold type).

Papers should be submitted by 28January 2011 to adaptivearchitecture@buildingcentre.co.uk. If the file is larger than 10MB please send an ftp link or similar and we will download from there.

Source

Pop-up christmas shop

The christmas spirit is spreading all over from Copenhagen to London. If you still miss ideas for gifts, brush the snowflakes from your eyelashes and come take a peek at the Puff & Flock pop-up shop on Newburgh Street (just off Carnaby and around the corner from Liberty's of London). You will discover a series of textile christmas delights and other decoration accessories.

Location:
8 Newburgh Street, London W1f 7RQ

Opening Hours:
Monday, 13th December: 12 - 7 pm
Tuesday, 14th December: 12 - 9 pm *special evening event 6 - 9pm*
Wednesday, 15th December: 12 - 7pm
Thursday, 16th December: 12 - 8pm
Friday, 17th December: 12 - 7pm
Saturday, 18th December: 11 - 8pm
Sunday, 19th December: 12 - 6pm

List of Designers & Artists:
retourve by Bang Bang / Exclusive collection of up-cycled statement jewellery
Monstify / Anatomical crochet badges and more
Grit Hartung / Games, prints and t-shirts
Yuko Taguchi / Paper rings
Masako Sato / Mushroom hooks
Jo Angell / Printed cushions
smths / animated jewellery and vintage toys
Elisabeth Buecher / Make Up Wallpaper and greeting cards
Delight Rubellery / Colourful rubber jewellery by Ros Weaver
Super Chic Chick/ / Hair decorations by Marilou Rabourdin
Think-if / Elegant tea set and Zen Cup
Lucy Hall / Art works and textile design
Alexandra Cakyova / Cittatas - bird brooches
Fantastica / Laid-back intimates and vests
Tactile Wonderland / Intimates and jewellery

Read more:
http://www.carnaby.co.uk/news/news_item.cfm?id=213

Adaptive Architecture Conference

An International Conference at the Building Centre, London,
3-5 March 2011

Architecture has always been inventive and adaptable. However, our current era is unique in its technological potential combined with societal and environmental challenges. The need to generate sustainability, developments in design techniques and technology advances are leading to the emergence of a new Adaptive Architecture.

The built environment is becoming truly responsive in terms of physical, real-time changes acting under intelligent control. Adaptive Architecture can be characterized by four key attributes; it is Dynamic, Transformable, Bio-inspired and Intelligence.

Drawing on these themes, the Adaptive Architecture Conference will bring together leading practitioners, researchers and industry experts who will present built work and practical research. Presenters will demonstrate new types of reconfigurable architecture, and will show how adaptive strategies can extend a building’s life cycle, enhance energy efficiency and optimise resource utilisation.

The conference will be organised into four modules:

Dynamic Facades
Next-generation, responsive facades will be examined, including the creation of a building fabric that is both intelligent and communicative. Presenters will demonstrate systems that are capable of reducing energy demands, enhancing occupant comfort and integrating energy generation into contemporary architecture.

Transformable Structures
Methods to create building-scale structures that change their size and shape will be demonstrated. Speakers will discuss architecture that adapts over different time-scales, whether daily cycles or long term response to changing economic demands, climate adaptation, weather patterns, emergencies and other external factors

Bio-inspired materials
Nature creates responsive organisms and materials that transform, heal, and change colour. These functions originate at the molecular level and scale up to create adaptive systems that actuate by chemical and physical cues. Utilizing insights from the natural world, researchers are now creating a new generation of adaptive materials and devices. Speakers will present state of the art research, and discuss how nature’s strategies can provide inspiration for design

Intelligence
As buildings develop the capacity to adapt, the challenge is to implement effective control where building automation systems, user interfaces and services can interact seamlessly, to embed intelligence within the architecture. Speakers will present current strategies as well as explore the future potential of intelligent systems.

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Adaptive Architecture international conference will be running a peer reviewed stream for research papers.

The review committee is composed of:

Philip Beesley, Philip Beesley Architect Inc. and University of Waterloo
Professor Ulrich Knaack, TU Delft
Professor Robert Kronenburg, University of Liverpool
William McLean, University of Westminster
Andrew Scoones, The Building Centre
Holger Schnädelbach, University of Nottingham
Bob Shiel, Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Professor Michael Stacey, University of Nottingham

If you are interested in participating in the Adaptive Architecture international conference please contact
adaptivearchitecture@buildingcentre.co.uk

website

Organisers: The Building Centre and The Architecture & Tectonics Research Group of the University of
Nottingham.

ArchiTextile. The Textile Medium in Architecture, Past to Present

Zurich, May 19-20, 2011

Concept:
The conference explores the textile medium, technology, material and metaphor in the history and theory of architecture from antiquity to the present. Contemporary experiments and phenomena in the architectural discourse open new perspectives onto the history and theory of architecture. Textile surfaces create architectural, social and topological spaces and are essential to the built space. Their qualities such as elasticity, foldability, plasticity, opacity and transparency are an important part of architectural language, but have not yet been studied systematically. The tension between the textile and the tectonic generates notions such as building as clothing and myths of the textile origins of architecture, and the ornamental grammar of textures connects building structures to the textus, the textual weaving. The textile medium connecting a variety of fields of human activity is equally open to historical, sociological, psychological, technological and aesthetic enquiries as it addresses issues of veiling and revealing and phenomena such as the fold, the fleece, the membrane, the curtain, the interface or the network. Historians and theorists of architecture are invited to reflect on the textility in architecture from a broad thematic and historical perspective as to contributing to a history of the textile medium.

We welcome papers that discuss subjects such as, for instance:

- Myths: textile myths of the origins of architecture (e.g. Moses' Tabernacle); anthropological origins (e.g. Gottfried Semper's Bekleidungsprinzip); nomadism in post-modern theory; modern and contemporary tent structures (e.g. Frei Otto, Herzog & de Meuron); history of the curtain wall

- Identities: sacred textile spaces (e.g. vela and cortinae in Christian, Jewish and Muslim architecture); textile display of power in the medieval and early modern period; gendered interiors (e.g. Adolf Loos, Henry van de Velde)

- Ephemerality: textile spaces in public display (e.g. medieval war tents, contemporary stadiums); theatricality of painted cloths; flexibility, changeability and performativity in contemporary architecture; mobile tents (e.g. medieval travel tents); foldable sails (e.g. antique stadium vela); tent interiors (e.g. Schinkel)

- Materials and Designs: from concrete to fiberglass; translucency of high-tech weavings; digital images and projections in space; texts printed and incised in architectural surfaces; textile geometry; CAD/digital textures; textile interiors; textile structures in urbanism

Please send your proposal for a 20 minutes paper (max. 300 words) together with a short CV and list of publications to mateusz.kapustka@access.uzh.ch. The deadline for the proposals is December 10, 2010. PhD candidates and young researchers are especially welcomed to submit their proposals.

Conference languages are German and English. The organizers will apply for funding as to cover travelling and lodging expenses. Selected papers will be published in a volume of conference proceedings.

Organizers:
Mateusz Kapustka (mateusz.kapustka@access.uzh.ch)
Laurent Stalder (laurent.stalder@gta.arch.ethz.ch)
Philip Ursprung (philip.ursprung@gta.arch.ethz.ch)
Tristan Weddigen (tristan.weddigen@khist.uzh.ch)

Institutions:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
University of Zurich

Link

Computation & Craft Symposium

The Digital Crafting Research network is organizing the first Digital Crafting symposium. It asks how the progressive integration of design, analysis and making challenges the knowledge spaces of design, engineering and craft. It seeks to investigate areas of collaboration and super-imposition, and to discuss the potentials for the discipline.

Leading practitioners and researchers from fields critical to the profession are invited. Designers engaging fabrication and computation within the design process, software developers integrating physical behaviour in design environments and engineers working on the integration of analysis and design will discuss the impact of computation on design from their perspective. Together we will work to synthesise a vision for design and making in the 21st century.

The DigitalCrafting symposium is open to the public and addresses practitioners, students as well as researchers.

Date: Friday 10.12.2010

Venue: Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture
Auditorium 2
Philip de Langes Allé 10
1435 Copenhagen K
Denmark

Program: 10.30 Registration
11.00 Intro to the Digital Crafting Symposium and Network - Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Martin Tamke, Claus Peder Pedersen

11.15 Session 1: Computation and Fabrication – How to fabricate?

Enric Ruiz Geli (cloud9 / Barcelona) http://www.ruiz-geli.com
Martin Antemann (Blumer Lehmann AG/ Gossau) http://www.blumer-lehmann.ch
Fabian Scheurer (designtoproduction / Zuerich) http://www.designtoproduction.com

13.00 Lunch

13.45 Session 2: Computation and Simulation – How to Analyze?
Azam Khan, Autodesk Research (Toronto, Canada) http://www.autodeskresearch.com
Tristan Simmonds (Simmonds Studio / London) http://www.tristansimmonds.com
Sean Ahlquist (icd / University of Stuttgart) http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de

15.25 Coffee break

15.45 Session 3: Computation and Design - How to design?
Michael Meredith (mos-office New York) http://www.mos-office.net
Tobias Wallisser (Lava / AKA Stuttgart) http://www.l-a-v-a.net http://www.architektur.abk-stuttgart.de
Max Maxwell (Supermanouvre / London-NYC) http://www.supermanoeuvre.com/

17.30 Closing remarks and end of Symposium

The role of Material Evidence in Architectural Design

This seminar, in which I will take part, is organized by DKAD, the Danish Doctoral School and will take place in the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, school of Architecture on the 3rd & 4th of November. PhD students will discuss the role of material evidences in their research in respect to the work of the guests panel, including Michael Hensel, Jonathan Hill, Billie Faircloth or Mikkel Kragh.

More info and program are available at this link.