Arts and Architecture

Papers sought for conference on spatial practices

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Young researchers and practitioners in architecture and affiliated disciplines are invited to participate in the conference on the Nature of Spatial Practices, to be held Feb. 1. The conference will be opened by keynote speakers followed by oral presentations of papers and discussions. The conference is open to graduate students and practitioners who have graduated within the past three years.

Increasing mobility, advancing technologies and changing socio-cultural patterns across the globe in the past few decades have accelerated the continuously transforming nature of spatial practice. The conference welcomes contemporary perspectives from graduate students and recent graduates in different disciplines to examine shifts in boundaries, agencies, instruments and vocabulary of practice. How does spatial practice respond to cutting-edge technologies? How does pedagogy respond to new tools? How does a shifting political discourse affect practice? How do we posit ourselves within transformations? How does this changing nature of spatial practice affect societies?

Areas of interest for submission include, but are not limited to, the following:

-- Culture: Urbanism and planning, heritage and identity, place making, urban renewal, mobility, policy, embodying space, politics and space, cultural economy, representational geography, housing, pedagogy

-- Technology: Innovations in construction techniques, environmental sustainability, computation and design, digital media, housing, pedagogy

Interested authors are requested to submit abstracts written in English to natureofspatialpractices@gmail.com. The Advisory Board will review all abstracts and papers. The submission should include the title of the paper, name of the presenting author and key words. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. Any accompanying illustrations should be 72 DPI. The deadline for submission is midnight Dec. 9.

Accepted authors will be notified within two weeks of submission of abstract. The final date for registration is Dec. 19. Graduate Student Awards are available on a competitive basis.

All submitted papers will be considered for publication in the conference proceedings, which will be made available digitally. The papers can be submitted up to a month after the conference. Papers should not exceed 3,000 words, including citations. Please follow the paper template formatting guidelines available in January. Submitted papers must be in the Word document format, no larger than 5 MB, including illustrations. PDFs will not be accepted.

For more information and updates, go to www.natureofspatialpractices.blogspot.com.

Last Updated October 30, 2012

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