78 research outputs found
Star Architecture as Socio-Material Assemblage
Taking inspiration from new materialism and assemblage, the chapter deals with star architects and iconic buildings as socio-material network effects that do not pre-exist action, but are enacted in practice, in the materiality of design crafting and city building. Star architects are here conceptualized as part of broader assemblages of actors and practices âmaking star architectureâ a reality, and the buildings they design are considered not just as unique and iconic objects, but dis-articulated as complex crafts mobilizing skills, technologies, materials, and forms of knowledge not necessarily ascribable to architecture. Overcoming narrow criticism focusing on the symbolic order of icons as unique creations and alienated repetitions of capitalist development, the chapterâs main aim is to widen the scope of critique by bridging culture and economy, symbolism and practicality, making star architecture available to a broad, fragmented arena of (potential) critics, unevenly equipped with critical tools and differentiated experiences
Fertility and digital technology: narratives of using smartphone app âNatural Cyclesâ while trying to conceive
Fertility awareness apps, which help to identify the 'fertile window' when conception is most likely, have been hailed as 'revolutionising' women's reproductive health. Despite rapidly growing popularity, little research has explored how people use these apps when trying to conceive and what these apps mean to them. We draw on in-depth, qualitative interviews, adopting a critical digital health studies lens (a sub-field of science and technology studies), to explore the experiences of cisgender women and partners with one such app, Natural Cycles, in the context of their daily lives. We found that many women valued the technology as a 'natural', inobtrusive alternative to biomedical intervention, and a means of controlling and knowing their bodies, amid a dearth of fertility-related education and care. Yet this technology also intervened materially and affectively into the spaces of their lives and relationships and privileged disembodied metrics (temperature) over embodied knowledge. Meanwhile, app language, advertising and cost have contributed to characterising 'typical' users as white, heterosexual, affluent, cisgender women without disabilities. In the context of neoliberal shifts towards bodily self-tracking, technologies appealing as novel, liberating and 'natural' to individuals who can access them may nevertheless reproduce highly gendered reproductive responsibilities, anxieties and broader health and social inequalities
Fashionable curiosities: extreme footwear as wearable fantasies
This paper considers an aspect of the material culture fashion, focusing on shoes. Like clothes, shoes are used every day: they are essential objects that primarily allow people to perform daily and socially accepted activities, walk comfortably and adorn the body in a fashionable way. Furthermore, shoes are associated with the idea of individuality and can be highly practical or decorative, depending on their design and fashion style.
With regard to their style, one phenomenon emerging in high fashion is that of the âimpossible-to-wear shoesâ: exhibitions and fashion shows staging designersâ bizarre shoes are becoming more frequent. During these shows, the spectators are presented with an unusual variety of footwear (e.g. heelless shoes; shoes without soles; fish-shaped shoes). These shoes are not made to fit the individual. On the contrary, their shape and forms are imposed on the individuals.
This paper explores the extreme, impossible-to-wear shoes and considers the visual statements they make about contemporary society, women and femininity. I will argue that impossible-to-wear shoes are puzzling yet charming objects, epitomizing a spectacle-centered society: they are part of unexpected and personal performances, which blend the boundaries of fashion and art and allow the wearers to shift from an ordinary âselfâ to the extraordinary âotherâ
The Hard Life: A Pedagogical Experience in Industrial Design
Thispaperseekstoanalyzeanddiscussaredesignprojectdeveloped by students of masterâs degree in industrial design. Based on the book The Hard Life, from English designer Jasper Morrison, the briefing proposed the devel- opment of concepts for new products inspired by the selection of objects in the book, and respective written interpretations. It seeks to explore the dialogue between the original objects â their use, Morrisonâs interpretation - and the reinterpretation made by the students considering the current material culture.
Accompanied and coordinated with Bisarro, contemporary studio dedicated to the artisan production of small series in BisalhĂŁes black clay, UNESCO Immaterial Cultural Heritage, the project seeks to explore the boundaries and common ground between memory and contemporary times.
More than the results, it is intended to discuss proposals and approaches, from functional interpretations, formal inspiration, to the appropriation of affordance and gesture.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The Enthusiastâs Eye: The Value of Unsanctioned Knowledge in Design Historical Scholarship
If design history research relies solely on institutionalized documentation and academic scholarship â that is, sanctioned knowledge â not only will its purview be limited to a very narrow segment of design culture, it will also lose out on a vast array of sources to valuable knowledge about our material environment produced by amateurs, collectors, and enthusiasts â what we in this article define as âunsanctioned knowledge.â Because of its dissociation with professional institutions and academic protocols and their â albeit admittedly utopian, but nonetheless upheld â ideals of objectivity, this type of knowledge is typically considered fundamentally subjective in nature and therefore of little or no relevance and value to academic scholarship. In this article, we argue that, to the contrary, design historical scholarship has much to gain from engaging more seriously with the unsanctioned knowledge represented by the enthusiast's eye
Audio Description Washes Brighter? A Study in Brand Names and Advertising
Dealing with objects in audio description, and particularly with those objects that have a clear designer imprint or branding, is a complex matter when a brand name is part of the scene in a film. Deciding whether to describe or not, and how, becomes more than a technical matter that depends on textâimage synchronization: it is a complex decision-making process comparable to other forms of audiovisual translation that needs to be approached as a paradigmatic example of intersemiotic translation. DĂĄvila-Montes and Orero address the audio description of branded objects in movies, and their intersemiotic translation from images to spoken words, a complex issue that may harbour additional insights into topics of a wider scope
At the Crossroads of Sustainability: The Natural Recompositioning of Architecture
It is widely acknowledged that the mantra of sustainability has triggered a fundamental reversal in the core of design practice: If the original purpose of architecture was to protect humans from the destructive actions of nature,today it should protect nature from the damaging actions of humans. But sustainable design is far from being a coherent body of fully totalized ideas:it has a broad spectrum of disputing interpretations that oscillate between the
deterministic models of energy control and technological efficiencies, and the moralistic and romantic approaches that attempt to see in nature and natural processes a fundamental way to de-escalate the global urban footprint and its associated patterns of consumption.
However, mainstream green design has been evolving by progressively absorbing the narrative of deep ecology. Nature has been being integrated into architecture literally, by inserting vegetation onto buildings; digitally, by bringing environmental data into the design process (climate records, wind streams, sun rotation and air flows are computed, modelled and effectually shape architectures), and transcendentally, by claiming that sustainable architecture nurtures âthe existing and evolving connections between spiritual and
material consciousness.â The acknowledgement of the inexorable affiliation between architecture and the environment is, of course, not exactly new. What
is distinctive today is the reification of the role of nature in architecture as an ideological stance, now totally intertwined with state-of-art data processing
and the market-driven tools brought by Natural Capitalism.
This paper will examine emblematic âgreenâ buildings produced by leading architects such as Pelli Clarke Pelli, William McDonough, Stefano Boeri,
Norman Foster and BIG in the light of Tim Mortonâs, Slavoj Zizek and Bruno Latourâs critique of nature. It will illustrate how, despite being able to successfully
forge new creative freedoms by exploring hybridizations between the domains of design and science, sustainabilityâs self-righteous ânaturalisticâ narrative is enabling a vision of the architect as an âexpert managerâ
focused on producing projects of ecologic âbeautificationâ while assumed to be âsaving the world,â effectively depoliticizing the architectural practice.
Nevertheless, these examples attest that there is a vast and fertile field of ideas to be explored and in this regard it is important to underline that we are still
in the embryonic outset of the engagement of architecture with sustainability
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