PUARL+BB Conf 2020: Patterns, Beauty, Reality (Sep 2020, Sorrento, Italy)

Dates: 17-20 September 2020
Location: Sant’Anna Institute, Sorrento, Italy
Website: PUARL+BB 2020
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 May 2020

Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab (PUARL), University of Oregon Building Beauty: Ecologic Design & Construction Process (BB), Sant’Anna Institute, Sorrento

PATTERNS, BEAUTY, REALITY
Pattern Languages, Societal Change and Design Education for a Post-Carbon Civilization

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION, PAPERS, AND CONTRIBUTIONS

Following the successful completion of the 10 Year Anniversary PUARL Conference in Portland Oregon US in 2018, we are looking forward to our next conference in partnership with the Building Beauty Program (BB) at the Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento, Italy. Continuing our cooperative conferences with PURPLSOC, at Donau University in Krems Austria, University of San Francisco (USF), and the Pattern Language of Programs (PLoP) in Portland, PUARL plans to conduct conferences in different parts of the world together with people and organizations using the pattern language approach to address relevant current problems in the world.

Humanity is facing a crisis that seems to go to the heart of the industrial civilization built over the past 200 years. Global warming, climate change and their impacts on human settlements are but symptoms of a larger crisis that is cultural at heart. Yet, at a time when decisive and coordinated global action is necessary, there is also growing inequality between and within nations, and a failure of democratic governance and values. The internet, which promised to bring knowledge and openness, and to connect us all in a ‘global village’, has become a tool for spreading disinformation, fostering fear and hate, and allowing universal surveillance and loss of privacy – for governmental or commercial ends.

What is our role, as professionals, activists and educators in confronting this crisis? How can the tool of Pattern Languages, created for analysis and resolution of complex problems help us deal with the current crisis? What is the role of Beauty, a value almost forgotten in the last 200 years of industrial civilization, in guiding us towards a new post-industrial and post-carbon civilization? How can each of us contribute in some real and concrete way to the solution of these world wide problems?

The conference will serve as an opportunity to discuss the ideas, methods and practice based on the knowledge encapsulated in Pattern Languages to engage with the conference’s main themes below. Both PUARL and BB focus on current socio-spatial and design challenges in the world, including climate change, urbanization, regenerative systems, migration and their impact on the local worlds we inhabit, their character and beauty. Both work for cultivating a new professional practice that allows humans to pursue wholeness, beauty and life in the world.

Conference Main Themes:

Patterns and Current Problems

The Pattern Language approach is a qualitative research and design method that has been applied in a considerable number of academic fields and professions. It is used in social, spatial and information sciences and in the arts, as a method of tackling complexity at different scales. In our conferences, we are looking for concrete local solutions that can contribute in dealing with large scale environmental and social problems such as: climate change, forced migration and refugees, homelessness, growing inequality, over-urbanization, and the crisis in democratic governance. One key element of any pattern or pattern language is to find solutions to problems, large or small, local or regional. Here we are working with processes of generation and regeneration, participation and involvement, grassroot and direct activities, such as the design and development of clusters and neighborhoods for refugees. We also work directly with our hands to create beautiful and edible gardens, shelter facilities for tsunami victims, and public urban furniture. Most recently, we look into urban public health improvement, seeking regeneration of life on earth.

Beauty in Education and Practice

The destruction and banalization of beauty may be considered a major problem in the world. In the past century beauty has become suspect as a value; it is often seen as an unnecessary and unimportant luxury or frivolity. Architects and urban planners are uncomfortable discussing it. Yet, evidence shows its enduring power, importance and value in nature and human life. People seek beauty in their surroundings and value it. At the heart of many social and environmental movements is a vision of the beauty of the natural world, and of society living in harmony within it. In this conference we are concerned with applications that help to bring beauty back into our everyday ordinary life, building and construction. How might patterns help bring about beautiful buildings, building clusters, streets, grassroots actions, local activities and livable, beautiful, neighborhoods and cities? How can we learn to recognize beauty within our own selves, and use it as a guide to making a more wholesome, sustainable world? How can beauty be reintroduced as a core value in architectural education?

Reality: Building a Post-Carbon Civilization

The pattern language approach allows the solutions to large scale problems to evolve from small scale solutions of local impacts. Thus, the design and construction of livable and beautiful buildings, gardens, and neighborhoods, is always understood both in the local context of the project, as well as in the context of more global issues. Each individual project, while solving a particular local problem, can thus contribute to the emergence of a larger and more coherent whole, and a new positive Reality. There is little doubt that one of the largest challenges facing humanity in this century is to build a post-carbon civilization: an economy that is not based on exponential growth depleting the world’s resources, and yet is able to support human life with dignity. This enormous task cannot be achieved top-down, nor can it be built from the bottom-up only – it has to combine both approaches. How can the pattern language approach help us to confront this challenge?

SUBTHEMES:

Patterns and Social Change
Patterns for Migrants, Refugees, and Internally Displaced People
Sustainable Design and Building Processes
Health and Beauty in the Design of Cities
Homelessness and the Housing Crisis
Urban Public Health Improvement
Pattern/Project Languages for Built Projects
The Culture of Building
The Science of Patterns and Beauty
Case Studies of Beauty in Design and Construction
Patterns toward Quality of Life and Well-Being
Patterns of Patterns
Open Topics

There will be space for different kinds of contributions to the conference:
• Research Papers
• Talks and Presentations
• Posters
• Workshop Proposals
• Roundtables
• Exhibition Fair

Preliminary Conference Schedule:

September 17, 2020      Pre-conference workshops and opening plenary
September 18, 2020      Plenary and parallel sessions
September 19, 2020      Plenary and parallel sessions
September 20, 2020      Local Tours

Submission

Please send abstracts and proposals to puarl@uoregon.edu with the subject: 2020 PUARL.BB Conference. The deadline for submission of all proposals is: May 1, 2020.
Proposals should address major conference themes and be around 300 words. Please note in your submission which theme(s) your proposal addresses. Workshop and Roundtable Proposals should specify the participants and topic and any particular requirements that they may have. All proposals will be peer reviewed by the Program and Academic International Committee and acceptance will be announced by June 15, 2020. Once accepted, full papers can be submitted to 2020 PUARL.BB by September 1, 2020 for inclusion in the conference proceedings.

Important Dates

May 1, 2020     Submission of paper abstracts and other activity proposals
June 15, 2020   Notification of acceptance
July 15, 2020   Early bird registration with discount
September 1, 2020       Submission of completed papers for proceedings

Conference Fees:

Early Bird Registration €300    $340    (for those registering before July 15, 2020)
Full registration               €350    $400 
Students                                €120    $135 
Fees include: Participation in full program, program booklet and electronic book of abstracts and conference proceedings. Paperback copies of the conference proceedings may be ordered upon request, for an extra fee.

Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab PUARL is a Laboratory at the University of Oregon, US, that conducts yearly conferences on pressing problems in the world of Architecture, Urban Design and Planning, and in corresponding disciplines. The main current research focuses on refugees and the development of a Refugee Pattern Language RPL. http://puarl.uoregon.edu/

Building Beauty BB: Ecologic Design and Construction Process, is a Post-Graduate diploma course in architecture which aims to educate architects to serve life and people on earth. The course builds on Christopher Alexander’s teachings and engages students with the design and construction of real projects in the Institute’s garden.

Additional information such as ‘International Program Committee’, keynote speakers, accommodations etc. will be provided in our next messages on our conference website. We will also inform you about any development of the corona virus as it may affect our conference.