What’s the Matter - Call for Papers

24.04.2014

The European Network of Heads of Schools of Architecture and the European Association for Architectural Education in collaboration with The School of Architecture of Valles UPV and hosted by the Chamber of Architects of Catalunya and The School of Architecture of Barcelona UPC are organising an International conference addressing the following questions:

How can materiality and materialism be rethought in the rich and multifaceted context of contemporary computational architecture, and in the systemic context of pervasive computer simulations? How can this context nourish integration, build bridges, break barriers, alleviate fragmentation and clustering and above all nourish, foster, promote and advance innovation, while paying attention to the most important social challenges we are facing regarding the deep impact of technological changes? The conference invites architects and designers, engineers, software developers, mathematicians, biologists, materials and computer scientists, philosophers, theorists and educators to present their views on the question: What’s the Matter when rethinking materiality and materialism at the age of computation in design-related practice ranging from the small scale of object design to large scale cities?

Theme What’s the Matter when rethinking materiality and materialism in contemporary architecture creations? Is it a matter of matter’s morphogenetic power revived with the ubiquitous involvement of digital technologies in contemporary design and fabrication? Is it a matter of the omnipresent shift from mutant material to dynamic matter? Is it a matter of increasing awareness, exchanging knowledge, thinking differently, on matter matters through transdisciplinary research? Is it a matter of reconsidering the role of matter in contemporary design processes as a whole? Is it a matter of reconsidering the role of materialism in social discourse associated with large scale and energy intensive projects?

Sub-themes Emergent materialities • Intelligent and adaptive materialities • Matter and material(s) • Material-based design • Encoding and encoded materiality • Informed tectonics • Matter as morphogenetic agent • Materialising form • Forming matter • Real time fabrication and malleable matter • Experimentation on matter-form generation • Creating the machine to form matter • Agile fabrication • Fragile materiality • Mutant Materials • Smart Materials • Materialisation technologies • Form-generating materiality • Responsive materiality • Associative potential of material • Empowering matter in contemporary design • Matter and sympathy • Top down materiality-bottom up matter • Neo-materialism and architecture • Neo-materialism and matter • Material ecologies • Materials and the Anthropocene • Speculative materialism and architecture • Paramateriality • Performativity versus performance

For more please visit the conference site http://www.enhsa.net/WhatsTheMatter/