Polyphonic narratives for built environment research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to construct a series of narratives by assessing a selection of the key literature generated by Open House International (OHI) over a period of 15 years. The paper also presents a brief review of the latest developments of the journal while introducing concise observations on the articles published in this edition – Volume 45, Issues 1 and 2. Design/methodology/approach Through a classification procedure of selected special issues published by OHI since 2006, 10 issues were identified based on the currency of the issues they generated. Following the review of the editorials, the key content of more than 100 articles within these special issues, the content of this edition and relevant seminal literature, the analysis engages, through critical reflection, with various themes that echo the polyphonic nature of built environment research. Findings The analysis conveys the plurality and diversity in built environment research where generic types of narratives are established to include three categories, namely, leitmotif, contextual/conceptual and open-ended narratives. Each of which includes sub-narrative classifications. The leitmotif narrative includes design studio pedagogy, sustainable environments for tourism, responsive learning environments, affordable housing environments, diversity in urban environments and urbanism in globalised environments. The contextual/conceptual narrative encompasses architecture and urbanism in the global south and the tripartite urban performance and transformation. The open-ended narrative embraces thematic reflections on the contributions of this edition of OHI. Originality/value Constructing polyphonic narratives in built environment research based on contemporary knowledge is original in the sense of capturing the crux of the themes within these narratives and articulating this in a pithy form. The elocution of the narratives stimulates a sustained quest for re-thinking concepts, notions and issues of concerns while invigorating research prospects and setting the future direction of OHI

Human Security: Does Normative Europe Need a New Strategic Narrative?

Alongside a sustained debate about the role of the EU in the international system and the nature of its power as an external actor, foreign and security policy making continues to reflect an awkward mixture of civilian, military and normative instruments, and ambiguous goals. The European Security Strategy of 2003 and the drive, via ESDP, to make the EU respond more effectively to crises, are the most systematic attempts yet to resolve this incoherence and to project the EU as a different kind of international actor by deploying an integrated range of civilian and military capabilities and resources. This paper examines whether the EU also needs a new conceptual framework for its international presence which can organise and improve the integration of its civilian and military characteristics , and at the same time express to both its own citizens and the outside world, the values and goals which underpin its external action. The paper takes the concept of Human Security and explores whether a Human Security doctrine could provide a shared strategic narrative for the EU which would serve to clarify and consolidate the nature of EU actorness. The paper takes the example of the EU mission to DR Congo in 2006 to show how a Human Security doctrine could provide conceptual coherence to the exercise of EU external power

Interaction Design: Foundations, Experiments

Interaction Design: Foundations, Experiments is the result of a series of projects, experiments and curricula aimed at investigating the foundations of interaction design in particular and design research in general. The first part of the book - Foundations - deals with foundational theoretical issues in interaction design. An analysis of two categorical mistakes -the empirical and interactive fallacies- forms a background to a discussion of interaction design as act design and of computational technology as material in design. The second part of the book - Experiments - describes a range of design methods, programs and examples that have been used to probe foundational issues through systematic questioning of what is given. Based on experimental design work such as Slow Technology, Abstract Information Displays, Design for Sound Hiders, Zero Expression Fashion, and IT+Textiles, this section also explores how design experiments can play a central role when developing new design theory

Metaphorical patterns in Anthropocene fiction

This article explores metaphorical language in the strand of contemporary fiction that Trexler discusses under the heading of ‘Anthropocene fiction’ – namely, novels that probe the convergence of human experience and geological or climatological processes in times of climate change. Why focus on metaphor? Because, as cognitive linguists working in the wake of Lakoff and Johnson have shown, metaphor plays a key role in closing the gap between everyday, embodied experience and more intangible or abstract realities – including, we suggest, the more-than-human temporal and spatial scales that come to the fore with the Anthropocene. In literary narrative, metaphorical language is typically organized in coherent clusters that amplify the effects of individual metaphors. Based on this assumption, we discuss the results of a systematic coding of metaphorical language in three Anthropocene novels by Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, and Ian McEwan. We show that the emergent metaphorical patterns enrich and complicate the novels’ staging of the Anthropocene, and that they can destabilize the strict separation between human experience and nonhuman realities

Dealing with \u27western classical music\u27 in Indian music schools. A case study in Kolkata, Bangalore, Goa and Mumbai

This article summarizes the design and results of an efficiency study that accompanied a skill-enhancement project for Indian teachers of Western classical music in selected cities in India, undertaken by the Goethe-Institut Kolkata from 2009 to 2011 in collaboration with the University of Music Würzburg. At the same time it contributes to a segment of comparative music educational research with an interdisciplinary approach to provide further thoughts on a methodological and theoretical foundation in comparative music educational research. The framework of this case study is a challenge for the researcher since it evokes right from the beginning various prejudices ranging from postcolonial criticism to political intentions and workouts of (German) development policies and so forth; however, by understanding comparative research as the careful evaluation of one’s diversity of experience by acknowledging that this music praxis has roots in the past as well as in the present leads to an adjustment and a holistic understanding of this segment of music education in India. (DIPF/Orig.

Sculpting a mobile musical soundtrack

We present an in-the-wild project to design and study a mobile musical soundtrack that enhances the experience of visiting a sculpture park. As with soundtracks for films and games, the goal was to enhance the emotional and narrative aspects of the experience while remaining in the background. We describe a compositional approach in which we first established a broad musical landscape before treating specific exhibits with detailed musical trajectories. Our study reveals how our soundtrack dramatically shaped visitors’ experiences while they remained largely unaware of its operation. We distil seven experiential factors to be addressed by mobile soundtracks alongside ten compositional guidelines

Revealing the Hidden Dimensions of Place Experience in Primary School-aged Children

The everyday local environment of incidental spaces routinely encountered by children is an important contributor to their social development and general health and wellbeing. There remains, however, a significant loss of connection between children and outdoor settings and this is increasingly raised as an issue that may have long-term implications. It is now recognised as important that the voices of children should play a pivotal role in the arrangement and content of their spatial realm and that achieving this will require new ways to understand children’s perceptions of place and how this contributes to individual and social development. This paper outlines UK-based doctoral research to develop a range of participatory tools to facilitate exploration and analysis of the spatial experiences of primary school-age children with particular reference to their perceptions of the outdoor places they encounter in their daily life patterns

Cinejack : using live music to control narrative visuals

We present Cinejack, a system for directing narrative video through live musical performance. Cinejack interprets high-level musical content from live instruments and translates it into cinematographic actions such as edits, framings and simulated camera movements. We describe Cinejack's technical development in terms of a novel and highly pragmatic approach to interface design, where the affordances of users' own musical instruments are used as controllers through an interpretive interaction scheme