CR|PT|C Agora II Symposium: Call for Papers
February 24, 2022
The Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism at Carleton University has issued a call for papers on the theme (Un)common Precedents for the international CR|PT|C Agora II Symposium, taking place September 22-23, 2023.
The deadline for abstracts is May 22, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. EST. All submissions will be blind peer-reviewed.
CLICK HERE FOR CALL FOR PAPERS
CR|PT|C Agora II is co-curated by PhD candidate Kristin Washco, PhD student Isabel Potworowski, and Dr. Federica Goffi, interim director of the Azrieli School and co-chair of the PhD in Architecture program.
“Precedents can be both common and uncommon,” the organizers write. “One can seek inspiration in nature, a meal shared with friends, a work of literature, a painting, a musical score, etc. What happens when precedents are drawn from outside the discipline and translated into architecture through the design process? How does one translate past experiences into not just spatial form but atmospheres?”
The conference will be held from September 22 to 23, 2023, at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The event includes three workshops:
– Architecture + Literature
– Architecture + Music (in collaboration with Dr. Jesse Stewart)
– Architecture + Culinary Arts (in collaboration with Dr. Sheryl Boyle)
Proposals may address one or several aspects of the following questions:
The Reference, or What we study: Which types of places are presently underutilized in the development of one’s frame of reference in education and practice? How can tacit knowledge, everyday experience, context, place, materiality, sensory experience, social, cultural, and political factors, etc. be foregrounded in the study of precedents? Which disciplines outside of architecture carry the potential for informing the design process?
The Media and Methods, or How we study: How do the media through which we receive and interpret references differ in their capacity to provoke design imagination and exploration? How might different media change our understanding of a building? What are the cultural conditionings of our drawing practices? What is lost or gained in acts of translation and transmediation that are central to the study of precedents? How are precedents from other disciplines “translated” or “appropriated” during the architectural design process? How does the situatedness or context of study impact the results?
The Intentions, or Why we study: How do design intentions and personal and cultural values orient the content of our perception, and thus the aspects that we extract from precedents? What are the consequences or implications of the study of existing places? How do the contents of one’s frame of reference influence new design speculations and built work?
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of proposals: May 22, 2022
Acceptance notification: End of August 2022
Registration: Coming soon
Symposium: September 22 and 23, 2023
About CR|PT|C Agora
CR|PT|C Agora is a biennial event hosted by the doctoral students of the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism at Carleton University. The first symposium, Architectures of Hiding, took place September 24-26, 2021.
Each symposium brings the focus on different themes while addressing questions about the history and theory of architecture in relation to practice. The symposia invite contributions from a multiplicity of fields to consider and discuss the nature of architecture today and the impact it makes on the world. Starting from the doctoral program’s intention to fuse research with critical practice in architecture, each event invites contributions by written and/or creative work, expanding the dialogue between both mediums and allowing for further speculation on the relationship between the two.
Some of the work presented in CR|PT|C Agora is disseminated to a wider audience through the CRIPTIC website and other forms of publications. A book proposal is in the works for Agora I.
About (Un)common Precedents
In order to design new buildings, one must first understand existing buildings. Often, early design years include pedagogical exercises in building surveys and recording. Yet, design influence for architects can also expand beyond buildings. Precedents can be both common and uncommon. One can seek inspiration in nature, a meal shared with friends, a work of literature, a painting, a musical score, et cetera. What happens when precedents are drawn from outside the discipline and translated into architecture through the design process? How does one translate past experiences into not just spatial form but atmospheres?
The Agora II Symposium tackles these issues by posing the question(s): How do architects build a frame of reference? In architecture, what does the current approach to precedent study leave out? How might methodologies be reimagined to embrace a more holistic understanding of existing buildings? Which are the under-acknowledged and (un)common precedents that inspire architectural design in terms of diversity of media, culture, and socio-political contexts? Is there potential in seeking architectural precedents in adjacent disciplines such as literature, music, and the culinary, visual, and performing arts? What mediums present underexplored potential in the development of an embodied, multisensory frame of reference? How do emerging factors such as new media, technology, globalization, and social justice initiatives, among others, impact this process?