Architecture Is All Over
A Workshop Investigating Architecture in the Context of Cross-Disciplinary
Spatial Practices
February 12, 2011
OCAD University
Toronto, Ontario

CALL FOR PAPERS AND DESIGN-BASED PROVOCATIONS

Building projects continue to proliferate at a global scale in spite of
the economic climate. Architectural concepts are being incorporated by a
variety of discourses. Ever-expanding arrays of spatial practices are able
to be considered within the bounds of the discipline. Is architecture
becoming ubiquitous?

Or think about the same circumstances a different way:
Architects are constructing ephemeral environments, micro-scalar
interventions and even invisible phenomena. Other fields are unremittingly
appropriating architecture. The cleft between the discipline of
architecture and its own professional practice is
deepening. Is architecture evaporating?

Either way, it is becoming more apparent that architecture needs to be
re-conceptualized to address disciplinary conditions that are becoming
harder to ignore. Where do we go from here?

This workshop is an opportunity for creative thinkers and practitioners
from a variety of disciplines to work through the paradoxical expansion
and contraction of architecture as it both affects and is affected by a
larger milieu, and as it is situated within a range of cross-disciplinary
spatial practices. We seek innovative discussion papers, graphic
provocations and design-based proposals from emerging practitioners and
theorists that analyze, re-imagine or foment architecture in new ways.

Here are the rules of the game:
1. At the core of each discussion paper and design-based/ graphic proposal
should be a specific, fresh and speculative proposal for thinking or
acting architecture differently.
2. Submissions should evince a creative integration of interdisciplinary
methodologies, historical perspectives, contemporary case studies or a
combination thereof.
3. Discussion papers and design-based/ graphic proposals must reflect
previously unpublished and original research that is not the property of
an existing organization or academic institution. Course or studio
assignments cannot be accepted.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION

Graduate and doctoral students, emerging practitioners and theorists are
invited to submit abstracts by November 1, 2010.

Abstracts for discussion papers (limited to 300 words) should be
accompanied by a curriculum vitae and one sample of expository writing
(limited to 1500 words). Excerpts are allowed. Papers should not exceed 20
minutes.

Design-based/ graphic provocations in embryo, illustrated in a single-page
PDF (of no more than 1 megabyte) should be accompanied by a brief
rationale (limited to 250 words) summarizing the importance of the work
and its relevance to the call, a curriculum vitae, one example of
design-based work in a PDF, and a brief synopsis (limited to 250 words)
describing the previous work.

All submissions should contain the applicant’s name, professional
affiliation (students’level and status should be indicated), and the title
of the paper or proposal.

Submissions will be accepted at
officework-books.org<mailto:officework-books.org>.

Selected presenters will be notified by November 30, 2010.

Some funding is available for participants; however, presenters are
responsible for travel and accommodation costs.

LOCATION

Gathering a series of international thinkers and practitioners from a
range of fields in Toronto, Ontario, for a one-day public event, this
workshop will take place at OCAD University on February, 12, 2011.

Confirmed participants include Sanford Kwinter (Harvard University) and K.
Michael Hays (Harvard University). A complete list of invited speakers
will be announced shortly.

PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS

A selection of the discussion papers, design-based/ graphic proposals, and
event proceedings will become the basis for a forthcoming publication by
Work Books, a nonprofit publisher of design research and discourse based
in Cambridge, MA. Inability to attend the event does not preclude
inclusion in the publication.

Previous Work Books publications include Architecture at the Edge of
Everything Else (Work Books/ The MIT Press, 2010), which showcases a range
of critical texts and conversations between emerging and established
scholars and practitioners about projective architectural practice.
Architecture Is All Over is intended as the next publication in this
series. Work Books publications are edited by Esther Choi and Marrikka
Trotter.
www.work-books.org<http://www.work-books.org>.