The School of Planning, Architecture & Civil Engineering (SPACE) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), Northern Ireland recently announced the event, Peripheries 2011 – the ninth International Conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) which occurs on the 27th to 29th of October. More information on the event after the break.
Peripheries are increasingly considered in contemporary culture, research and practice. This shift in focus challenges the idea that the centre primarily influences the periphery, giving way to an understanding of reciprocal influences. These principles have permeated into a wide range of areas of study and practice, transforming the way we approach research and spatio-temporal relations.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
M. Christine Boyer, Professor of Urbanism, Princeton University, USA Kim Dovey, University of Melbourne, Australia Mary Arnold Forster, Dualchas Building Design, Isle of Skye, Scotland Paul Larmour, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland Tarla MacGabhann, MacGabhann Architects, Letterkenny, Ireland Glenn Patterson, Belfast, Northern Ireland Shih-Fu Peng and Roisin Heneghan, heneghan.peng.architects, Dublin, Ireland William Roulston, Ulster Historical Foundation, Northern Ireland
Peripheries 2011 conference will invite discussion via papers and short films on the multiple aspects periphery represents – temporal, spatial, intellectual, technological, cultural, pedagogical and political – with, as a foundation for development, the themes of peripheral practices, practice-based research, urban peripheries, non-metropolitan contexts, and peripheral positions. Core paper sessions will be complimented with a programme of films at the Queen’s Film Theatre and guided tours of the city and region.
- How do notions of periphery and proximity impact on the construction of cultural memory? - Is globalization facilitating the inclusiveness of peripheries or denying their local value to favor the center? - How does architecture respond to the challenges of temporal peripheries in varying historical, spatial and political contexts? - Does being on the edge heighten or transform architectural practice? - What infrastructure is required for peripheral positions to exist? How are peripheries networked to one another and to centres? - Can architecture support peripheral populations, and can these voices offer critique of architectural practice? - How does interdisciplinarity — the communication between perceived peripheral disciplines — affect architectural practice? - What are the shifting boundaries of alternative or peripheral currents of education, research and practice? - Do architecture schools recognize the importance of peripheral subjects in their teaching?
Queen’s University’s School of Planning Architecture and Civil Engineering operates within a context of an increasingly non-metropolitan society, on an island of rural communities resistant to normative patterns of urbanization. The culture, economies, politics and social networks in Ireland are often perceived as “on the edge of Europe”; it is a place of experimentation, translation and evolution. Belfast is thus an ideal setting in which to pose questions of periphery: it is a city in simultaneous states of flux with multiple political and social reiterations and repositionings. In a city where extremism was once the norm, there is much to ask about how to moderate and manage the tensions and potentials that exist between the edge and the center.
For more information, including how to register, please visit here.
