FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

The Art of Research IV: Making, Reflecting and Understanding

28-29 November 2012 at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Helsinki, Finland

While the power of artistic imagination is widely recognized, the exploration of artistic and designerly methods of knowledge acquisition underway in academia has only just become accepted by other professional communities of researchers and practitioners inhabiting the academy. Building on contemporary discourse regarding notions of practice-led research, the Art of Research Conference 2012 aims to explore the relations that can be constructed between making and critical reflection, and how these enable artistic and designerly practices to be characterized as art and design, or artistic or designerly research. Given how different fields of creative practice may be constructing these relations in different ways -- e.g, in methods, tools and skills -- the main aim of the event is to explore how these fields might relate to and influence each other. This aim is guided by following questions:

•  How do different art and design practices utilize artistic and designerly methods in practice-led research?

•  How do artistic and designerly approaches to knowledge production enrich or impoverish the professional art and design-related practices of those who engage in them?

•  How are  artistic and designerly processes of critical reflection and intervention be productively synthesized in practice-led research?

•  How can different forms of art, craft and design contribute new knowledge and understanding and how do they function in the distribution of knowledge?

•  How can critical reflection be interpreted and understood as embodied in practice-led research?

This conference celebrates the 10th anniversary of the European Academy of Design conferences and contributes to a  discussion on the role of design and designers in crafting our futures.

The theme of the conference is the practical knowledge of the designer. How can the specific knowledge of designers be brought forward, articulated and made visible, and how can it be understood and used in contexts like innovation, business development and social change?

It would be good if you could contribute to any of the strands below, the main idea is of a return to the roots of design practice as well as theoretical frameworks that enable us to explore and further our understanding of the role of our practice in design, education, business and society. Go to the website and click on the strands you are interested in and submit an abstract.

Call for papers:
The organizing committee of the 10th European Academy of Design Conference -­ Crafting the Future -­ is pleased to invite proposals for papers to the following tracks:

These three TED talks happen to delineate and clarify the aims of the main themes and hypotheses of sLab's Visualizing Emergence project, part of CIV-DDD, a collaboration between OCAD University, York University, and University of Toronto.

It might seem odd to focus this material, given the pop overtones, and the sense of being scooped. But these are top people working on the same questions in serious scholarly ways, so rather than hesitate to make the comparison, I'm inspired to chase a similar dream. We can always add more dry references to the bibliography -- but we need to understand each other first.

Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations
West, theoretical physicist and former president, Sante Fe Institute, asks if a city is more like an organism, like an ecosystem, or like a company. In answering he clarifies rules about sigmoidal (s-curve) and 'hockey stick' (power law curve) dynamics. He reminds us that these patterns are given by the properties of social networks that underly all these phenomena.

Seeing and Shaping Our Future: Becoming Better Agents of Change and Transformation
Ruben Nelson, of Foresight Canada, held at the Design Exchange April 2-3, 2012
Sponsored by the British Council

The workshop was primarily held for the Transatlantic Network 2020 and was supported by the British Council, which sustains this group of young social and business leaders from around the EU and North America.  The Canadian branch of the British Council is moving to Toronto from Ottawa and this is one of its first sponsored events.
 
The workshop was attended by some thirty community leaders and activists, and was a great opportunity to understand the workshop process from a participant’s point of view. Attending from OCAD University were Peter Jones, Jeremy Bowes, Petri Tanninen, Peg Lahn, and recent SFI graduate Jon Resnick. It was a great opportunity to participate with a diverse and savvy group of young leaders and our own students in the mix. We earned a lot of positive regard from the other Toronto participants in particular, who will be following up with us, through Peter Jones and the Design with Dialogue group and other SFI and OCAD U community events.

Two teams of masters degree students from OCAD University's Strategic Foresight & Innovation program in Toronto competed in the third annual Rotman Design Challenge, held on March 24, 2012 at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. The OCAD SF&I teams were awarded second and third place, with Chicago's IIT Institute of Design winning first place in the competition organized by the Rotman Business Design Club. The SF&I teams also won two out three of the peoples choice awards for 'Best Narrative', and 'Most Innovative Concept'.

[source: OCAD University press release]

April 2, 2012

Oksana Kachur, a Master of Design candidate in OCAD U's Strategic Foresight and Innovation program, will present her project "Challenging Contexts: Hearing the Voice of Residents and Families in Hospice Care Design Research" at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) conference, CHI 2012, held May 5 to 10 in Austin, Texas.

Kachur is presenting as part of the workshop "Memento Mori: Technology Design for the End of Life." The project is a collaboration between Kachur, OCAD U's Strategic Innovation and Ambient Experience labs, and Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital's Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research Division. The hospital is in turn partnered with Toronto's Kensington Health Centre and the Kensington Hospice. Kachur's project represents the first step in a series of efforts to uncover design futures for interactive artifacts and experiences that would help the hospice residents and their families through difficult transition points at the end of life.

An interior view of Kensington Hospice.

"It is commonly believed that the sensory environment influences the experience of end-of-life care for patients and families in this circumstance," states Kachur's project abstract. "However, there has been relatively little empirical evidence in this area. As part of a program of experience research and design in palliative care, we are surveying patients, families, professional caregivers and volunteers in a newly renovated residential hospice regarding their experience of the sensory environment. Hearing the unique perspectives of these individuals provides information that can lead to improvements in the sensory experience of patients who are approaching the end of life in hospice settings."

Congratulations Oksana!

I have not blogged here recently. Its time to end the drought. Below is a statement I contributed in a panel on March 6, 2012, at the Council of Ontario Universities (COU) Symposium of Ontario Research Chairs in Public Policy. The event brought together a mixed group of professionals to ask:

"How can academic research be translated into better public policy?" "How can policy leaders get the evidence they need?"  Find out at the 2012 Symposium of the Ontario Research Chairs in Public Policy, hosted by York University on behalf of the Council of Ontario Universities.  Knowledge translation is the focus in four key areas – health, the economy, education and the environment. Join us at Osgoode Professional Development on March 5 & 6, for interactive discussions on Ontario’s key public policy challenges and initiatives with thought leaders from academia, government, industry and the media.

Here are my remarks:

Annually, the Design Research Society holds a symposium at the time of its AGM. The symposium is a public event open to non-members of the society.

This year, the DRS symposium ‘2050 and all that...’ to be held on Friday 10 December 2010 in Birmingham UK, will explore design opportunities for a sustainable future and consider how we may envision changes that will be needed - perhaps especially in consumer behaviour - between now and the apparently pivotal year 2050.

We have assembled some leading thinkers to address scenarios leading to 2050. The keynote speakers are: the well known design sustainability activist John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Tracy Bhamra (Loughborough University), and Emma Dewberry (Open University). There will be plenty of opportunity for discussion, including a networking party at the close.

This event will be of interest to design academics and practitioners across a very wide range of subject specialisms. There are also some free places for research students.

Full details of the event and how to book a place are available on the DRS website:

http://www.designresearchsociety.org
Please pass this message on to anyone you feel may be interested.

David Durling FDRS PhD   http://durling.tel

ARCHITECTURE IS ALL OVER
A Workshop Investigating Architecture in the Context of Cross-Disciplinary Spatial Practices
February 12, 2011
OCAD University
Toronto, Ontario

CALL FOR PAPERS AND DESIGN-BASED PROVOCATIONS

Building projects continue to proliferate at a global scale in spite of the economic climate. Architectural concepts are being incorporated by a variety of discourses. Ever-expanding arrays of spatial practices are able to be considered within the bounds of the discipline. Is architecture becoming ubiquitous?