Assembling Architecture
 
B
T
 
E
S

2009 Conference

 
Building
Technology
Educators'
Society University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.
August 6 - 8, 2009
The Building Technology Educators' Society is an organization of architectural educators passioniate about the technology of building design and construction
co-hosted by:
Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning, University of New Mexico
Department of Architecture and Interior Design, College of Art and Architecture, University of Idaho
Theme SUBMISSION
REQUIREMENTS
FEATURED
speakers
 
 

Conference Theme
In keeping with the BTES Mission, this year’s conference will assemble architectural educators, researchers and practitioners “who are passionate about teaching the technology of building design and construction” to engage in lively discussion and debate. Assembling Architecture hopes to bridge the gap between the theoretical and the practical, providing participants the opportunity explore advancements in technology at the intersection of design, theory, and practice.

Significant developments in material science, design and manufacture of building components, innovative building systems, and dynamic structures, require specific knowledge and expertise and are driving design practice. However, one of the emerging challenges in architectural education, research and practice is to promote integrative design through interdisciplinary models of teaching, research and practice. Despite this call to action, many architectural programs remained fractured and collaborative work between technologists, theorists, and designers is undervalued and underrepresented. At the same time, new models for teaching, research, and creative work are required to intersect these contrasting developments.

Additional Questions we hope to address through this conference include:
• How do we promote and reward collaborative or interdisciplinary modes of research and practice?
• What emerging materials and fabrication methods are affecting building construction and architectural structural designs?
• What, if any, trends are emerging in the tectonic expression of new materials and systems?
• With today’s focus on sustainability, what regional and/ or vernacular technologies are being (re)introduced into architecture?
• How is academia reasserting itself within the practice-driven research and development?
• Should well-integrated systems and assemblies be one of the criteria use to evaluate student design work, or to judge prize-winning architecture?
• What is the role of detailing architectural assemblies in the day of easy internet downloads?
• How can developments in architectural technology become a catalyst for a transformative educational experience?
• What innovative teaching practices and methodologies are being utilized in today’s building technology courses?
• How might building technologists position themselves to dialogue with architectural theorists and vice-versa?

Plenary Session Topics
In addition to the overall conference theme, there are two plenary panel sessions led by invited speakers that focus on specific, related topics. Abstracts that address these topics will be identified during peer review and selected for presentation by plenary topic leaders.

Concept + Construct

The translation of the design concept into a physical construct has been viewed, in recent history, as a leap between two discrete realms. Now, with architecture, structure, services and building envelope being conceived as an integrated whole, and with design and construction becoming ever more closely connected, thinking and making are once again united. This session will focus on the integration of design and construction. Papers are invited that explore and examine collaborative and multidisciplinary ways of working; tools that are transforming design, prototyping, fabrication and project delivery; and the challenges of integrating design and construction in architectural pedagogy, research and practice.

Local Complexities: Integrating Technology and Ecology

This plenary session advocates three observations: local biologic analogues and material investigations can lead to effective thermodynamic management, responsible ecologic intervention leads to an increased reliance on materials and technologies, and sustainability has principally to do with energy, passive and active, local and global. These observations suggest realignment towards regenerative principles based on physical and digital testing using the simulation of forces to develop effective strategies for performance, effectively creating the built ecology.

We invite papers that address the complexity of integrating Technology and Ecology, from the opportunistic viewpoint of local forces. Authors of selected papers will be invited to partake in a panel discussion to address, as a provocation, the following questions. What is the usefulness to building technologists of biological analogues? How will the requirements for a broader understanding of ecological impact influence current models of education? How do we as educators, practitioners, and researchers implement strategies for opportunism in local ecologies? And what is it that we are actually trying to sustain?

Submission Requirements and Schedule
For submission requirements, click here

Call for Abstracts Closed

 

 

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