ACSF is proud to announce the publication of “Architecture and Displacement,” a full issue of 2A Magazine: Architecture & Art (published in Tehran, Iran; issue 45, summer 2020) guest edited by Karla Cavarra Britton and Nader Ardalan. This issue contains the selected proceedings from the ACSF10 annual conference held in Miami in 2018. The journal has 20 essays by ACSF members, including artists, architects, urbanists, and philosophers. The issue also features a special section by Nader Ardalan on the ACSF Declaration of Transcendent Habitat. Here is a link to the full 2A issue: https://magazine.2aincorp.com/issue-45-summer-2020/
Karla Cavarra Britton announces the publication of a new book co-edited with Robert McCarter: Modern Architecture and the Lifeworld: Essays in Honor of Kenneth Frampton (London: Thames & Hudson, 2020). This well-illustrated volume of 29 essays by prominent architects, scholars, and historians addresses the study and teaching of architecture and its impact on the social and cultural contexts in which we live. Of particular interest to ACSF members, the volume includes contributions by ACSF award winners Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Perez-Gomez, and Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Architecture-Lifeworld-Cavarra-Britton/dp/0500343632
Tom Barrie has published the book Architecture of the World’s Major Religions (Brill, 2020).The book presents and explains religious architecture in ways that challenge predominant presumptions regarding its aesthetic, formal, spatial, and scenographic elements. Two positions frame its narrative: religious architecture is an amalgam of aesthetic, social, political, cultural, economic, and doctrinal elements; and these elements are materialized in often very different ways in the world’s principal religions. For more info: https://brill.com/view/title/59042
Caitlin Watson would like to tell our members about US Architects Declare ( https://us.architectsdeclare.com ) a network of architects organizing for radical change in the building sector around climate, social justice, and biodiversity, which I've been helping to organize since this spring. This group is hosting a Town Hall event on October 15 to officially launch a series of working groups on Carbon, Social Justice, and Biodiversity. The group has put together an email template here to make this easy. She encourages members to consider signing up for the mailing list and joining. For more info, contact Caitlin at <watson@kliment-halsband.com>
Michael Benedikt shares a podcast in which he is interviewed about his latest thoughts and scholarship. It is a mind-expanding discussion. Here is a link: https://nightwhiteskies.libsyn.com/ep-079-_-michael-benedikt-_-architecture-beyond-experience
Nader Ardalan shares the Virtual Launch and Webinar Series honoring the seminal publication of two volumes on Phase 1: Gulf Sustainable Urbanism. Toward a Sustainable Urbanism in the Gulf --The Past. It will take place Wednesdays, October 7, 14 & 21, 2020 in separate two-hour sessions. Led by Harvard University Graduate School of Design, this research project, which took place in 2011-2014. Scholars from Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran (in geographic order) and Harvard contributed to the research. This impressive edition of 900 pages, size 11”x17" in two volumes, illustrated with over 1,000 high resolution analytical diagrams and graphics effectively present the research studies of how the study of the past may inform a future sustainable urbanism in the Gulf. For info on webminar link or other info, contact Nader Ardalan at nader.ardalan@gmail.com
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Pope Francis’s Vision of a Post-Pandemic World
https://religionnews.com/2020/09/08/pope-francis-launches-his-post-covid-agenda-with-announcement-of-new-encyclical/
The head of the Roman Catholic Church urges economic justice going forward.
Buddhist Hermeneutics
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thebuddhasaid/2020/09/buddhist-hermeneutics/
Within the varied religion of Buddhism, how to arrive at a common understanding?
Spiritual and Civic-Minded
https://religionnews.com/2020/09/23/report-people-who-are-highly-spiritual-tend-to-be-more-civic-minded/
A new study reveals that those who identify as spiritual also are more likely to be civic-minded.
My Kinda Pope
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pope-francis-sex-food-divine-pleasure_n_5f5bd9c3c5b67602f6051a6e
Pope Francis wants you to eat well and enjoy sex.
All Highly Intelligent People Share This Trait, According to Steve Jobs
https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/this-is-number-1-sign-of-high-intelligence-according-to-steve-jobs.html
Jobs offered surprising advice to those looking to maximize their intellectual potential
The Rise of the Chaplains
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/why-americans-are-turning-chaplains-during-pandemic/611767/
Amid the pandemic, there is a growing trend of people turning to chaplains for spiritual guidance.
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God is Dead, and So is the Office. These people want to save both.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/business/remote-work-spiritual-consultants.html
What happens when spiritual consultants take on the sacred space of working remotely?
Sacred Place on the River
https://religionnews.com/2020/09/04/kayak-church-gathers-pennsylvania-church-in-person-and-on-the-water-amid-pandemic/
A congregation chooses to make the river a sacred place for kayaking believers.
Inside the Holy Restoration of Houston’s Rothko Chapel
https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-holy-restoration-of-houstons-rothko-chapel-11599568084
An extensive renovation of Houston’s Rothko Chapel aims to honor the original vision of its creator, Mark Rothko.
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How three artists take on race and mythology
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/arts/design/black-female-art-mythology.html
The stories a culture tells itself, and the place of race in that mythology, as interpreted by artists.
The Art of Solitude
https://imagejournal.org/article/solitude-as-art/
How can the practice of being alone be an artistic exploration?
Early Works by Edward Hopper Found to Be Copies of Other Artists
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/arts/design/edward-hopper-copies-paintings.html
A grad student’s discovery “cuts straight through the widely held perception of Hopper as an American original,” without a debt to others, a Whitney curator said.
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Pandemic, Ecology and Theology. Perspectives on COVID-19 by Alexander Hampton (Routledge, 2021)
https://www.routledge.com/Pandemic-Ecology-and-Theology-Perspectives-on-COVID-19/Hampton/p/book/9780367615826
This volume addresses the collective sense that the pandemic is more than a problem to manage our way out of. Rather, it is a moment to consider our broken relationship with the natural world, and our alienation from a deeper sense of purpose and meaning.
Space and Anti-Space: The Fabric of Place, City, and Architecture by Steven Kent Peterson and Barbara Littenberg (ORO editions, 2020)
This book challenges the conventional idea of what constitutes the physical form of the contemporary city. Observing the absence of extended urban fabrics—the missing urbanism—in the new global cities developed today, it argues that these cities are merely statistical accumulations of density that lack the positive attributes of a genuine urban condition. Cities as urban places cannot be made by individual buildings alone but rather depend on the intertwined combination of an architecture that is bound to the creation of public spaces and streets, and engaged in the structure of urban blocks to form a complex field pattern of interactive solids and voids. For more info: https://www.oroeditions.com/product/space-anti-space/
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The “Awe” Factor
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/awesomeness-is-everything/508775/
How is it that scale and vast space makes us more spiritual, generous, and content?
Is There Really Life on Venus? There’s Only One Way to Know for Sure
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-really-life-on-venus-theres-only-one-way-to-know-for-sure/
If phosphine detected on the planet next door is really a signature of alien biology, we can send a space probe to find out
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How Will We Live Together?
https://bustler.net/events/latest/12572/biennale-architettura-2021-17th-international-architecture-exhibition-how-will-we-live-together
The 2021 Venice Biennale will focus on the global challenges we face in living in harmony.
Beirut: Between a Threatened Architectural Heritage and a Traumatized Collective Memory
https://www.archdaily.com/946829/beirut-between-a-threatened-architectural-heritage-and-a-traumatized-collective-memory
A couple of trivial seconds were enough to determine the fate of the urban and social fabric of the Lebanese capital and its architectural heritage. Years and years of accumulated cultural assets fell instantly in distress, causing more harm than the infamous 15-year civil war. These seconds have erased the past, present, and destroyed future aspirations.
The Cultural Courtyard - Elephant World / Bangkok Project Studio
https://www.archdaily.com/948268/the-cultural-courtyard-elephant-world-bangkok-project-studio
Elephant World is a governmental project to bring the Kui and their elephants back to their homeland and to ensure the suitable living conditions for the elephants. The project includes the Kui village, an elephant hospital, the pre-existing temple and graveyard for both humans and elephants, and a museum telling stories of the community’s age-old culture.
Sir David Adjaye Wins the 2021 RIBA Royal Gold Medal
https://www.archdaily.com/948768/sir-david-adjaye-wins-the-2021-riba-royal-gold-medal
Sir David Adjaye, over the course of 25 years, has achieved international recognition and attention with a series of groundbreaking and worldwide interventions, ranging from private houses, exhibitions, and furniture design, to major cultural buildings and city masterplans. In 2000 he founded his practice Adjaye Associates with studios in Accra, London, and New York. Combining practice with teaching, Adjaye taught at the universities of Harvard, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Princeton.
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Meet the dazzling flying machines of the future | Raffaello D'Andrea (TED talk)
https://youtu.be/RCXGpEmFbOw
When you hear the word "drone," you probably think of something either very useful or very scary. But could they have aesthetic value? Autonomous systems expert Raffaello D'Andrea develops flying machines, and his latest projects are pushing the boundaries of autonomous flight — from a flying wing that can hover and recover from disturbance to an eight-propeller craft that's ambivalent to orientation ... to a swarm of tiny coordinated micro-quadcopters. Prepare to be dazzled by a dreamy, swirling array of flying machines as they dance like fireflies above the TED stage.
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THE SACRED SPACE: Imagining a Place of Faith for the Secular World
Total Prize worth -INR 200000 (registration deadline thru Oct 20) Submission: Oct 30
https://archdais.com/competition/the-sacred-space8343
BERKELEY PRIZE 2021
Full-time undergraduate students in an architecture degree program or majoring in architecture in accredited schools of architecture throughout the world, including Diploma in Architecture students, may submit a 500-word essay proposal responding to the Question.
“This year’s topic…will require students to turn inwards, take a reflexive stance, while also thinking outwards about the role of architects in society - so appropriate in these difficult times and aligned with the larger goal of the PRIZE!” (Nov 1 due)
For more info: http://www.berkeleyprize.org/competition/essay/2021
2021 COTE COMPETITION
The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE) in partnership with The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), is pleased to announce the 2021 AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition. The competition recognizes 10 exceptional studio projects that integrate creative and innovative design strategies. Studio projects from the 2020 calendar year are eligible and due January 13, 2021. For more info: https://www.acsa-arch.org/competitions/2021-cote-competition/
A Meditation and Power-Nap Studio
https://bustler.net/competitions/7349/cocoon-power-nap-and-meditation-studio
A Covid world has made us all more sleepy; design a Cocoon—a place of rest.
Korean War Memorial Park for Civil Victims
https://bustler.net/competitions/7603/the-international-design-competition-for-korean-war-memorial-park-for-civil-victims
A memorial that will honor the memory of civilians killed in Korea during the war.
“Pause”
https://bustler.net/competitions/7263/pause-building-a-place-for-contemplation-and-meditation
Design a place for contemplation and meditation.
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Why Go to College?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/06/opinion/college-students-learning.html
The best reason for a college education is to learn that the world is more than issues that divide us.
Teaching Religion in College
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/colleges-should-teach-religion-to-their-students/284296/
The author, an historian, argues that teaching college students about religion may help them when eventually they find themselves adrift.
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Coming up Events Available Online
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The Architecture of Cinematic Space
https://bustler.net/events/latest/12909/michael-bricker-design-for-narrative-the-architecture-of-cinematic-spaces-the-university-of-texas-at-austin-school-of-architecture-virtual-lecture-series
An online lecture on the design of architecture in film.
Chicago Houses -Oct 15! (CAC, IIT-CoA, Mies Society)
On October 15th (5:30-6:30 pm CST) the Mies Society (with Chicago Architecture Center and the CoA) is hosting a discussion about the new book Susan Benjamin and Michelangelo Sabattino co-authored: Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses, 1929-1975. The program also includes interviews with architect Margaret McCurry and photographer/activist Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe who grew up in the houses their fathers (IIT grads) designed. If you are interested you can register here: https://www.miessociety.org/events/mies-society-book-launch
Great Sacred Places of the World. The Interplay of Architecture and Faith. Lecture at the Smithsonian (Washington, DC) by Travis Price. October 29 at 6:45pm
Architect Travis Price leads a global visual pilgrimage to examine how metaphor and architectural elements such as light, geometry, material, scale, and proportion have shaped some of the most revered sacred places and spaces, as well as how that heritage influences architects today. For more info:
https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/great-sacred-places-of-world
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Special Lectures Available Online
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Recently, an online discussion forum on architecture called Poché started in India. To launch the initiative the group conducted an interesting online studio in architecture/urban design, which was titled ‘Alter Ego'. This studio was not part of any formal curriculum, it was a discussion and exploratory space and any student or young professional was free to register. The studio looked at the Central Vista in New Delhi, a significant site and one that is highly contested at the moment. It received a very good response.
As part of the studio, they organized an excellent online lecture series. All of the lectures are documented on YouTube. The ones listed below are recommended by ACSF board member Prem Chandavarkar as worth sharing with ACSF members.
- Arshia Sattar (translator, writer, director) speaks on cities in the Indian epic “The Ramayana”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOrtWX8vZdI&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=10&t=0s
- Gulam Mohammed Sheikh (painter, poet, critic) uses his paintings to speak on “Tree of Life, City of Silence”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGYloxsXwZs&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=8&t=2236s
- Anthony Acciavatti (architect, cartographer, historian) speaks on “Ganga: A Monsoonal Machine” – his fascinating decade long study of the Ganga, a sacred river in India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd6CaG9gmZ8&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=15&t=0s
- Shabnam Virmani (film maker, writer, singer) speaks on metaphors of the city in the verses of the 16th century mystic poet Kabir, and also sings some of his verses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSWnTPSErJM&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=9&t=2812s
 - Pritzker Laureate Balkrishna Doshi speaks on “City & Life”, reflecting on the attitudes required for design of transcendental space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nITCMuoK-c&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=7&t=2296s
- A conversation between Balkrishna Doshi and Juhani Pallasmaa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piRfjT_2APE&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=1
- Ranjit Hoskote (poet, cultural theorist, curator, translator) uses Kaiserbagh, the 19th century palace in Lucknow built by Wajid Ali Shah, the Nawab of Awadh, to reflect on the city and art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTX_HGbUoPc&list=PLZBrDyRfTYPFJj1lxfS_wCBLFWbvVMmr1&index=2
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The Panentheism and Religious Life project, generously supported by the John Templeton Foundation, seeks to award up to 10 non-residential fellowships to enable researchers to write a scholarly article on a topic relating to Panentheism and Religious Life. Each fellowship comes with an award of $1200 to support research in this area. An outline of the philosophical foundations and orientation of the project can be found here:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/trs/research/projects
Submissions will be judged by the project leaders, Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University) and Clare Carlisle (King’s College London), according to the following criteria: (i) quality and originality of proposal; (ii) the relevance of the proposed article to the project questions; (iii) the applicant’s proven expertise on the topic in question; (iv) the applicant’s strong track record in publishing research, commensurate with career stage.
Applicants may be at any career stage working in a range of disciplines, including Philosophy, Theology, Religious Studies, and the History and Philosophy of Science. Applicants must either be enrolled in a Ph.D. program, or have a PhD in a relevant discipline, and submissions by early career scholars are particularly welcome. For more info or how to apply, contact Yitzhak Melamed at ymelame1@jhu.edu . Application deadline: December 15th, 2020.
The New Institute, Hamburg, incl fellowships
What is a Sustainable Value-System for the 21st Century? Fellowship applications are sought. For more, visit https://thenew.institute/en/what/value-and-values
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EDRA52 DETROIT: Just Environments
Transdisciplinary Border Crossings
The Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) invites practitioners, researchers, and educators to join us at the 52nd annual conference to collaboratively rethink how research, design, and relationships between people and environments contribute to the creation of justice. EDRA52 will take place in Detroit, Michigan and online through a hybrid format. The conference is co-hosted by University of Detroit Mercy and Wayne State University. See the Call for Proposals for more information. Deadline for submission have been extended to November 2nd.
The world is in the middle of several global crises at once—of pandemic, overpolicing, racism, environmental degradation, economic and gender inequality—all of which together demand us to interrogate how we imagine just environments. EDRA52 invites proposals that both describe and speculate on transdisciplinary modes of inquiry using novel approaches in research, teaching, practice, and co-production to create “just environments.” LINKS: EDRA52 DETROIT homepage: https://www.edra.org/edra52 + EDRA52 CALL FOR PROPOSALS: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.edra.org/resource/resmgr/edra52/edra-52_cfp.pdf
European Academy of Religion in Muenster, Germany (29th August – 3rd September 2021).
Call-for-papers for the panel “Religion, Faith, Spirituality, and Sustainability.” The deadline for submitting paper proposals (250 word abstracts) is 15th October 2020. For specifics contact Hanna Klinkenborg: hannah.klinkenborg@uni-muenster.de
CITIES IN A CHANGING WORLD: QUESTIONS OF CULTURE, CLIMATE AND DESIGN
Place: Virtual and City Tech, CUNY, New York
Dates: 16-18, June 2021
The premise of this conference is that the city is a site of interconnected problems both today, and for the future. No single issue dominates its needs. No single discipline has the answers to its questions. As a result the range of issues we deal with is vast. Urban designers are developing models of settlement planning to address the housing crisis of the growing metropolis. Architects are finding more technologically informed ways to renovate existing buildings. Infrastructure designers are developing faster modes of transportation. In a COVID-19 context healthy cities are on the agenda like never before. Planners are demanding lower C02 emissions from industry. Policy makers are responding to grass-roots demonstrations for global and regional democracy. Community activists are establishing new modes of self-organized governance for migrants.
Abstracts: 30 Nov, 2020 (Round One) | 30 Mar, 2021 (Round Two)
https://architecturemps.com/new-york-2021/
URBAN ASSEMBLAGE: THE CITY AS ARCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AI AND BIG DATA
Today, the city is technological infused entity premised on a plethora of digital phenomena including the Internet of Things, ubiquitous computing, computer-led infrastructure, big data and AI. It is also a place designed, envisaged and increasingly built through data based digital architecture, planning and construction. Both scenarios mediate how we design and experience of the city. The result is a series of complex interactions of people, place and data and the establishment of the 'digital city', 'smart buildings' and 'intelligent' urbanism.
https://architecturemps.com/london-hatfield/
Dates: 28-30 June 2021
Organisers: University of Hertfordshire
Place: Virtual / London / Hatfield, UK.
Round One Abstracts: 01 December, 2020
Eleventh International Conference on The Constructed Environment
12th to 14th May 2021 -- Calgary, Canada
Website: https://constructedenvironment.com/2021-conference/call-for-papers
Contact person: Elizabeth Costa
11th International Conference on The Constructed Environment, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada (12-14 May 2021) Special Focus: Building the Anthropocene BLENDED (IN-PERSON & ONLINE) CONFERENCE
Organized by: Common Ground Research Networks
Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 12th April 2021
Lesser Ethics: Retrieving the Good Life in the Franciscan Tradition
24th to 25th June 2021 -- St. Bonaventure, NY, United States of America
Website: https://www.sbu.edu/about-sbu/sbu-campus-maps-directions/franciscan-institute/summer-2021-programs
Contact person: Krijn Pansters
This virtual conference seeks to tease out a new, more relational methodology for ethics in our time, by addressing the question how we can make the Franciscan intellectual and spiritual tradition relevant for a present-day ethical practice.
Organized by: Franciscan Study Center/ Franciscan Institute
Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 15th January 2021
Frascari Symposium V: Theaters of Architectural Imagination
online/in-person event at the Centre de design, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)
Call for Abstracts
https://www.marcofrascaridreamhouse.com/future-events
May 27 2021 - May 29 2021
We invite proposals for 20-minute paper presentations exploring one or more of the three themes (Memoery; World; Action) set out in the linked PDF. Proposals should be historically and/or theoretically grounded; develop clear and compelling arguments around specific examples based in history, practice and/or pedagogy; and contribute to disciplinary and/or transdisciplinary knowledge. Collaborative proposals and/or submissions from authors in theatrical disciplines are welcome.
Abstract submissions must include the following in pdf format suitable for ‘blind’ peer-review:
· title;
· identification of theme (Memory, World, Action);
· 300-word abstract
· one image (optional)
Additionally, include in the email (not the abstract): name, contact, affiliation, and 150-word bio.
Due: Friday, December 18, 2020. Submit to both co-chairs: Lisa Landrum lisa.landrum@umanitoba.ca and Sam Ridgway sam.ridgway@adelaide.edu.au
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