NORDES Summer School Oslo 2012
Title: Design on the Move
Date: 27, 28 & 29 August 2012
Venue: Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)
Submission: 1-2 page position paper about your project and the
relevance of summer school theme. Deadline for submission: 1
August.
Design researchers increasingly do approach complex environments
to find new possibilities and solutions. This challenges the research
methods as well as the design methods we use. This year we have put
together a programme for NORDES Summer School 2012 that will
focus on how the research methodologies in several design based
research approaches do relate to the complex issues of mobility and
urban contexts.
The theme Design on the Move are to do with the shaping of
interdisciplinary inquiry and methods following the medley of theory
and practice related to the use of designed artifacts or solutions in
mobile situations. This year’s summer school will be dedicated to
practical workshops as well as formal research presentations and talk
focusing on of how methods develop, in accordance to theories and
current approaches to designing for mobility and place-making.
Mobile life, mobility and urban place making entail new forms of
citizen participation as well as community building that concern a
wide spectre of design related disciplines, such as urban planning,
cultural heritage, sustainability and green design movements. Mobility
is currently conceptualized as going beyond the mundane movementspaces function that move ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’ about (Thrift 2004)
into forms of mobility that transgress types of places and spaces. This
summer school has put focus on how we can explore, observe and
conceptualize these place-making processes methodologically.
The summer school is based on two formal research seminars where
invited keynotes present diverging approaches to design methods into
mobility, and where PhD students present mobility issues from their
own research project, in addition to an experimental workshop day
focused on practical activities with a variety of research methods
related to mobility. The aim is to motivate participants to shift their
current activities towards sharper and faster production of written
texts and hopefully papers for the next NORDES Conference (2013).
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Events
These events are designed to address mobile tools and research
methods in design, not only on mobility, but also on changing methods
in carrying our design inquiry.
Sunday 26 August: Welcome event
Monday 27 August: Mobile Impulses Seminars
10h00-14h00 Invited speakers on different aspect on methods for
designing and researching mobility
14h00-17h00 project presentations, discussions
Venue: AHO
Tuesday 28 August: 2 Workshops: Design Research Methods on the
Move
The two workshops will approach research methods on mobility from
different angles. The walkshop will focus on semiotic and material
means while the watershop will focus on participation and
performativity. Attendance at one only for practical reasons.
Participants from the two workshops will meet at the end of the day
and exchange their research findings from the day. Camera phones,
iPADs, cameras etc will be needed as tools.
A: Walkshop
10h00-12h00 On the move
This moving workshop will be carried out in and on the streets of
Oslo, stretching notions of urban probes and ethnographic eyes
through perambulation and situationist inflected humanist inquiry.
The walkshop examines signals, sensors and urban data alongside
mobile apps and locative media tools. Short mobile reflections will be
produced via smartphones / iPads and location based services and
social media tools based on historical and socio-cultural aspects of
place-making and movement in the city. The participants will be
working in smaller groups of 5 persons.
12h00 Lunch at locations identified en route
14h00-1600 Reflections and write ups at AHO.
B: Watershop
10h00-16h00 On land and on board
This event will take place at the harbor as a floating mini-laboratory
for reflecting on the emergent practices of mobile design and harbor
areas of the city. The Watershop draws on an assembly of artifacts,
digital tools and shared activities to examine the given roles of mobile
tools and media in documenting, designing and conveying urban
spaces. The harbour represents a border into other kinds of
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placemaking and mobility, in the limited space of boat and ships and
on maps, navigation instruments and so on. How can a harbour space
integrate means of these other types of movement and mobility?
Wednesday 29 August: Parallel Seminars: Moving My Research
Onwards
Venue AHO
10h00-13h00 Seminar presentations of student papers and discussions
13h00 - Closing lunch, evaluation and Award (for ‘most moving’
contribution to the summer school)
This formal session will be based on a set of time based presentations
of PhD research projects drawing on 4 modes of presentation:
1) a core issue you need to address in either theory or methods
2) a pointed discussion of a key text you have selected from your
readings
3) an identified debate in design research that move you but needs
new direction
4) a draft text of your own for presentation and review.
Depending on the total number of students, participants will be
grouped in accordance to research focus and interest, and will be
given the role as discussant for at least one presentation. Each group
will be 5-8 persons.
Participation in NORDES summer school is free, but participants have
to cover travelling and stay by themselves. We will suggest reasonable
bookings.
For further information:
http://www.nordes.org/index.php?Summer+Schools
Course co-oordinator
Dr Dagny Stuedahl, InterMedia, University of Oslo
(the school will be co-hosted by AHO and InterMedia).
On the NORDES summer schools
The summer schools are usually based on seminars and workshops
that take place every second year. Their overall aim is to:
- introduce areas of reflection, theory and design that typically are
regarded as a marginal a part of the PhD curriculum at a design
faculty
- provide a common ground for Nordic PhD students to meet and learn
from one another
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- facilitate means for developing and discussing both formal and
informal research programs and projects.
- support fresh design researchers in developing their projects and
confidence in research through seeing it in respect to that of others
- present and rehearse material for further development as paper for
the bi-annual NORDES research conference in the following year
- strengthen regional knowledge and collaboration on doctoral
education, including contributions from participants to the summer
school, for further development and international extension and
exchange.
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