Call for Papers, 10th Annual Conference, All-Ireland Architecture Research Group - Sharing Ground: Propinquity 

Sharing Ground: Propinquity

In their 1999 publication (Verso Books), ‘Giving Ground: The Politics of Propinquity’, editors Michael Sorkin and Joan Copjec invited a range of theorists and writers to reflect on matters including the importance of indeterminacy and the relationship between democratic social relations and spatial propinquity. The space of ‘nearness’ which supports ongoing conversation, for neighbourliness and a generosity of kinship, so crucial to the making of neighbourhood is also the space that was, in large part, the scene of so many deaths in the current pandemic.

The annual conference of the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) promotes innovative academic and practice-based research as well as the pedagogy and progress of architecture in its fullest sense.  They are currently welcoming contributions from researchers, practitioners, theoreticians and pedagogues of architecture, and from those of other disciplines working within and around the interests of architecture. AIARG are inviting papers under the theme of ‘Sharing Ground: Propinquity’ to consider the impact, contribution and responsibilities of architecture, across a range of topics that could include but is not limited to the following, and which will be threaded into the structure of the research clusters of Ulster University’s architecture research group whose members will lead each conference session:

Policy, Politics and Agency

• adaptive governance, politics and policies
• globalised and alternative economies
• visible and invisible barriers and drivers for change
• spatial standards and contingency in the public - private space /non-space
• street action, history and the revanchist city

Climate Change

• sustainable, positive energy neighbourhoods
• zero emission realities
• climate action, sustainable futures and networked societies
• empowerment of citizens in an era of climate emergency
• ‘lighthouse projects’ that transfer knowledge to practice and to the wider society

Materials, Means and Media

• materials, technologies, structures, innovation
• cultural artefacts, literature, photography, imagination, design
• geology, geography, light, air, atmospheres, energy, time
• immersive technologies and integrated research and teaching

Education as Environment (Workshop Event)

• innovative pedagogies
• experiments in education
• learning in the pandemic
• architecture as a public service

Please forward abstracts of not more than 300 words to aiarg2021@gmail.com no later than Monday, 5 October 2020 and add a 100-word biography with your contact details. Following the conference, authors will be invited to submit their conference papers for publication in Building Material, the peer-reviewed journal of the Architectural Association of Ireland, the Irish Architectural Foundation and the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group.

At this stage, we intend the conference to be in the physical space of the university and the city, but as circumstances change, we may shift locus to the digital domain. This will be confirmed with notification of acceptance of author’s papers at mid-November. 

Timeline