Multidisciplinary studies dealing with migration phenomena have highlighted the particular historical stratification of flows of people passing through the border areas of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, in Italy. It is a succession of movements of subjects – defined one after the other: deportees, exiles, refugees, migrants – which also includes the current migration flow from the Balkan route. Because of this phenomenon, the term ‘profuganze’ was coined from the words ‘refugee’, in Italian ‘profughi’, and ‘transhumance’ – the periodic and seasonal movement of herds – to represent the constantly recurring waves of people in transit. The talk examines how the phenomenon of the ‘profuganze’ has been spatialised and stratified over time. All places for temporary collective housing show what makes architecture inhospitable, what makes housing a label of marginalisation, how identity features can make architecture homely and how, on the contrary, they can mark exclusion. Institutional places of refugee reception and control, oscillating between humanitarian reason and security logic, contrast with unauthorised settlements where housing becomes a practise of resistance to institutionalised life and displacement.
Bio
Giuseppina Scavuzzo is associate professor of Architectural design at University of Trieste where she is Director of the MSc in Architecture. Her books include Senshome. Architecture and atypical sensitivities (Letteraventidue 2023), A Human Restoration. Architectural lessons from a border asylum (Letteraventidue 2021), Il Parco della guarigione infinita. Un dialogo tra architetura e psichiatria (Letteraventidue 2020).
Wednesday, May 10, 11 and 12th, there will be place to the last conference of our Marie Curie RISE Research Project HORIZON 2020. The event will take place in Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian at 9:30.
The shrink of biodiversity, unprecedented climate swings and the rising costs of maintenance are symptoms of a planet struggling with Climate Change. To reestablish a healthy condition, cities seek to develop strategies of adaptation to make the built environment more resilient to face floods, droughts, high tides, tropical hurricanes and urban heat islands effect. Resilient urban environments are able to face the present challenges like sponges are able to absorb without degrading.
The concept of sponge implies porosity, urban waterscapes, sustainable strategy and cultural heritage. It requires a shift in the way cities have been designed in terms of dealing with Green infrastructure; planning with nature; regionalization, infrastructure; transportation; sustainable urban development and circular economy. Sponges take and give, they are passive and active and open a new realm of opportunities. Which urban strategies should be implemented? How solutions to adapt and mitigate will be able to enhance the resilience of cities?
Sustainable open solution on the waterfront facing climate change emerges from interdisciplinary and comparative cases to preserve the setting/world/locality. Recent research that proposes innovative resilience methodologies is also increasingly relevant.
Researchers will be working on the following three topics:
• Sustainable strategy and Cultural heritage Concepts and projects relating to water landscapes and cultural heritage focusing impacts on contemporary uses; Natural and anthropomorphic transformation during the time and in the present; Influence on public space impact of tourism and economic factors, learning from the past; Re-signification of elements of value, new functions or conservation of heritage buildings along the water; Adaptive heritage based on the integration between landscape and cultural heritage.
• Urban waterscapes
Transformation based on interdisciplinary approaches, new solutions that emerge from the exchange of expertise integrating various fields of knowledge geographic, social, environmental. The role of communities along waterfronts, new approaches and emerging strategies. Cross visions between cities, exchange of best practices identified in the present. New landscapes facing risks of floods and high tides; Blue infrastructures and waterfront as a part of cultural sites.
• Porosity Transition of the built environment, from hard edge to soft edge. Emergent trend of new urban and waterscapes that negotiate with nature. Systems of resilience to adapt and mitigate effects of climate change, such as environmental planning addressing new patterns brought by extreme swings in the waterfront facing climate change. Future strategies to mitigate the heat urban island effect and enhance sponge effect. Shifts to face the approach of modernity towards the dialogue with the existing landscape.
Lusofona University – @ulusofona of Porto and Lisbon together with the Manchester School of Architecture – @manchester_architecture – and University of Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture – @univerza_v_ljubljani, organise an online International Conference Cycle – *Architecture: Design and Research International Seminar* – , dedicated to doctoral students and open to all interested! Join us via Zoom!
Architecture Research: Theory, History and Practice
The seminars are a new research collaboration between the Manchester School of Architecture, Liubliana University and Lusófona University (Porto and Lisbon). The online sessions comprising talks about ongoing research followed by questions and discussion are open access. The seminars aim to encourage academic exchange between researchers and postgraduate students working in cognate areas. The intention of the project is to build an international network of shared interest across the architectural sector, to think critically and philosophically about architecture, design and research to foster new forms of research enquiry.21 April
Kathleen Chakraborty – “Expanding Agency: Researching the Diversity of Women’s Contributions to the Global Dissemination of Modern Architecture”? | 21 April, 14h30
This talk will focus on the first stage research of the newly formed Zaha Hadid Foundation, exploring archival and oral histories of the foundational years of her eponymous practice. Hadid’s unique working methods incorporated painting, drawing and model making and her office was an early adopter of CAD methods. Using archives and collections, the ZHF research team are devising curatorial and documentation methods to inform exhibition planning. The talk will highlight some early projects and discuss research questions arising from this material.
Jane Pavitt is Head of Research and Learning at the Zaha Hadid Foundation. She is a curator and historian of architecture and design, and a Visiting Professor at Kingston University (Kingston School of Art). From 2017-2021 she was Professor of Design and Architectural History at Kingston University, and from 2011-2017 she was Professor and Dean of Humanities at the Royal College of Art, where she also led the V&A/RCA History of Design Programme (Masters and PhD). Before that she was University of Brighton Principal Research Fellow in Design at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, for 13 years. At the V&A, she curated a series of major exhibitions on 20th century and contemporary design including Brand. New (2000), Brilliant: Lights & Lighting (2004), Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70 (2008, co-curated with David Crowley) and Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 (2011, co-curated with Glenn Adamson). In 2017 she curated the exhibition Superstructures: The New Architecture 1960-1990, which was the first major study of High-Tech architecture in the UK, at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (co-curated with Abraham Thomas). She was co-editor/author of all the accompanying publications for the exhibitions. She is now the lead curator for a forthcoming major retrospective of Zaha Hadid, planned for 2025.
Future Storage: on digital preservation and data decay
The world is experiencing an unprecedented demand for data storage. Data centre capacity dictates the rhythms of everyday life.
It is critical to fields such as planning, climate science, and healthcare and fundamental to delivering developments in AI, the Internet of Things,
and the Metaverse – which demand vast amounts of data stored for extended periods. As digital-data production is outpacing the scalability
of today’s storage solutions, data centre architecture becomes a critical site of investment and innovation. This thriving industry, however,
is dependent on extractivist practices and involves vast energy consumption, land occupation, and CO2 emissions. It is fuelled by outdated
notions of progress and endless growth. As a result, creating these profit-driven digital worlds results in the degradation
of communities and ecosystems and puts the only world we all inhabit at risk. In this lecture we will explore alternative architecture paradigms for storing data.
