School of Art and Design, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland May-June 2011
Nordes calls for perspectives on ‘Making Design Matter’. In the 2011 Nordic Design Research Conference, you are invited to present and discuss how design matters today.
Nordes 2011 in Helsinki is the 4th in a series of biannual conferences, which has included conferences in Copenhagen in 2005, Stockholm in 2007 and Oslo in 2009. Organized by Nordes – an open network of people interested in design research in the Nordic countries – the conference is attended by about 200 people and has rapidly been established as an important venue for design research. It serves several constituencies in design, ranging from design studies, history and management to professional design and practice-based research in art, crafts and design.
Participation is also open to people from outside the Nordic countries.
Monty Python fans from all over the world are preparing to make a special pilgrimage to Doune Castle in September for the 35th anniversary of cult comedy film, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’.
Fans of the spoof movie based of the legend of King Arthur have been visiting Doune Castle since it was filmed there; it’s estimated they account for around a third of the 25,000 annual visitors to the 14th century stronghold.
On Sunday 12 September, Historic Scotland’s ‘First Farewell Monty Python Day’ will be the latest special event staged at Doune Castle for Python fans since the first in 2004.
Events manager Nick Finnigan said: “For this year’s Python day, we’re returning to the less structured, more spontaneous format of our early events, and of course, loads of fun and games. We’ve got some of the most popular comic sketches being recreated, prizes for the best costumes, a trail - ‘Monty Python and the Holy Trail’ – highlighting the various filming locations of scenes from the film, a quiz with prizes, singing, and of course, lots of coconut shells!”
Coconut shells have been a fixture at Doune since the Holy Grail film became a cult hit. Visitors use them to mimic horses’ hooves, just as King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his faithful servant, Patsy (Terry Gilliam) did in the film’s opening scene.
In addition to Gilliam and Chapman, who died in 1989, five years after the Pythons made their last film, the other Pythons who starred in the film were Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Jones. Jones made a return to Doune – at least in voice – last year when he recorded the castle’s new audio guide. The tape begins: “Welcome to Doune Castle. I’m Terry Jones, and in 1974 some friends and myself made a very silly film here called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS- ARCHITECTURE OPEN LABORATORY
now/next: performance space at the crossroads
WHAT IS A THEATRE NEXT?
an 11-day open laboratory in the architecture section of the Prague Quadrennial 2011
The Architecture Section of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, asking “what is a theatre now and what could it be next?” will include also an Open Laboratory where selected participants will collaborate and work with renowned international experts in theatre architecture, theory, and design to propose alternative models for citing performance. Theatre will no longer be considered art form or built form but a social, cultural, and political venture; no longer a single receptacle of performance, but a civic meeting place that addresses local and global realities.
The auditorium is often considered a static object designed to contain performance. But performance cannot be contained… it exceeds architecture, especially in this age of media spectacles, fluid technologies and uncontainable bodies. So what role does the auditorium now play other than forcing us to perform as well-behaved spectators? If we acknowledge that architecture itself performs, as space-in-action, then perhaps we can explore new strategies for experiencing live performance as a more dynamic, creative and communal spatial event.
Dr Dorita Hannah: Professor of Spatial Design & Commissioner of Architecture Section at PQ11
Deadlines for Open Laboratory:
Applications: 31 October 2010.
Announcement of selection: 30 November 2010
Requirements
Applicants have to be PhD students or emerging practitioners.
Selected candidates must be present during the entire workshop (16-26 June 2011)
Costs:
Workshop fee is covered by the PQ
Travel or accommodation costs or per diems are covered by candidates
For details on Architecture Section of the PQ, the Open Laboratory, conditions of participation, application forms, click here: http://www.pq.cz/en/architecture.html
Exhibition Focuses on 11 Built or Under-Construction Projects in Locations throughout the World
Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement
October 3, 2010—January 3, 2011
Special Exhibitions Gallery, Third Floor
Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, organized by The Museum of Modern Art, explores contemporary architecture as a powerful means for improving social conditions, focusing on 11 noteworthy built or under-construction projects in underserved communities around the world. The exhibition is on view from October 3, 2010, through January 3, 2011. Concentrating on a group of architects who confront inequality using the tools of design, Small Scale, Big Change examines the ways these architects engage with social, economic, and political circumstances to develop positive architectural interventions that begin with an understanding of and deference to a community. Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement is organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, and Margot Weller, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
Without sacrificing aesthetics, the 11 projects—situated in the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Lebanon—reveal a specificity of place, with architectural solutions emerging from sustained research into local conditions and close collaboration with communities. These radically pragmatic projects, which include schools, community centers, housing, and infrastructural interventions, signal a change in the longstanding dialogue between architecture and its environs, wherein the architect’s roles, methods, and responsibilities are dramatically reconsidered. The exhibition presents a selection of materials on each project including models, drawings, videos, large-scale photographs, and sketchbooks. Additionally, three Internet-based networks—The 1%, Open Architecture Network, and urbaninform—extend the exhibition’s scope beyond individual projects to include stakeholders in various areas of practice around the world.
Full press release here: http://press.moma.org/images/press/SmallScale/SSBC_PressRelease_FINAL.pdf
SIEF 2011 Call for papers:
People Make Places – ways of feeling the world
10th international SIEF congress in Lisbon, 17-21 April 2011.
The ways in which people construct their views, opinions, values and practices are constantly being re-negotiated and re-interpreted in various creative forms. The 10th SIEF International congress intends to elucidate and develop perspectives on this topic by focusing on the making of places, and invites colleagues and other scholars to present new perspectives on how people’s lives, memories, emotions and values interact with places and localities. http://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2011/
Papers are invited for presentation within Panel 106, ‘Mediating the global in city life’, on 18 Apr, 2011.
The general aim of the panel is to discuss tensions and consequences in a changing urban landscape. Papers may address, but are not limited to: discussions of the formation of material and immaterial borders within city life when processes of globalization meet and create local identity.
The call for papers is now open, closing 15 October. To submit an abstract of maximum 300 words and for more information:
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2011/panels.php5?PanelID=752
AFFIRMATIVE ARCHITECTURE SYMPOSIUM
Friday 20th August & Saturday 21st August 2010
Storey Hall, RMIT University, Melbourne
Affirmative Architecture is a two-day symposium convened by Dr Martyn Hook of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University, Melbourne. The event seeks to define an emergent trend amongst young architects to re-engage with the ability of architecture to make life better.
Registration now available on line
$50.00 per day/ $20.00per day Students
Speakers
Tezuka (Tokyo)
DSDHA (London)
Veronika Valk (Estonia)
NMBW
m3 Architecture
muf_aus
Phooey
Antarctica
Terroir
Pendal & Neille
Richard Black
Sue Anne Ware
iredale pedersen hook.
The symposium draws together international and Australian architects and landscape architects who have demonstrated commitment to a social agenda and have made significant contribution to the public realm. Curated as a series of interactive lectures and panel discussions the speakers will describe their predominately built work and real projects that address real problems. Arguably these young practitioners are revising the Modernist ethos that architecture should provide effective solutions that benefit the community and the individual. In a contemporary context their work deals with positive consideration of social engagement, careful analysis of existing conditions and a deliberate, often challenging architectural response.
Organised in terms of geographic situation the symposium shall explore projects that expand the potential of architectural intervention in the city, the suburbs, the urban fringe, rural towns and remote locations.
Supported by RMIT School of Architecture & Design, Design Research Institute and ar magazine.
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