BK Talks: Probable, plausible, possible, preferable*
Imagine the future before it is too late
19 May 2022 18:00 till 20:00 - Location: OOSTSERRE & ONLINE - By: Communication BK | Add to my calendar
On 19 May, the BK Talks 'Probable, plausible, possible, preferable*. Imagine the future before it is too late' will take place.
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s Speculative Everything characterized speculative design as a form of creative practice concerned with elaborating design projects that imagine possible futures not as a form of prognostication, but as a means of identifying and reflecting upon crucial issues facing contemporary culture and society—whether we recognize them or not.
In this edition of BK Talks—moderated by Prof. Christopher Marcinkoski of the University of Pennsylvania—we will consider the utility of speculation as a tool of critical practice; the use of systemic methodologies as a means to think about the future; and the elaboration of scenarios in order to gain insight into actions we might take in the present. We will contemplate work that departs from both large-scale systemic drivers of change and weak signals emerging at the margins.
What forces affect the future? Is there even such a thing as the future, or are there only futures—in multiple? Can we truly prepare for imminent realities and anticipate impending needs? Are designers of the built environment stunted in their capacity for imagining and elaborating worlds other than what we know today? What might be considered legitimate methods of futuring? Is it possible to know and anticipate probable, plausible, possible, or preferable futures in view of the myriad planetary crisis of the 21st century?
We certainly cannot know what the future will bring. But we can no doubt imagine what it might.
*Speculative Everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. Dunne, Anthony; Raby, Fiona. The MIT Press, 2013.
Moderator
Christopher Marcinkoski
Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, UPenn Weitzman School of Design and Founding Partner at PORT
Christopher is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design (with tenure) at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design in Philadelphia. His design work and research have been widely published internationally in academic, professional and mainstream media platforms. His recently published book, The City That Never Was (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), explores the phenomenon of “speculative urbanisation” and considers the environmental, social and political implications of urbanisation activities that are wildly out of sync with economic and demographic realities. He is editing a forthcoming issue of the journal LA+ (University of Pennsylvania and ORO Editions) on the topic of Speculation (#16), exploring the interface between the creative and the economic. Additionally, as a founding partner at PORT, Christopher leads many of the office’s large-scale urban design and planning projects.
Speakers
Roy Bendor
Assistant Professor of Critical Design, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft
Dr. Roy Bendor explores the capacity of design to disclose alternative social, political and environmental futures. He is Assistant Professor of Critical Design in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, Fellow of the Urban Futures Studio at Utrecht University, and author of Interactive Media for Sustainability (Palgrave, 2018). He is cautiously hopeful that humanity will find a way to avoid climate breakdown. Find out more about him on his website: www.digitalsustainability.com.
Jesse Hoffman
Assistant professor at the Urban Futures Studio and the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
Dr. Jesse Hoffmann studies how societal and political groups can become more resourceful and creative in tackling climate change and related issues such as the global transition to a post-fossil society. Jesse is fascinated by the way in which visions of the future give direction to social changes. The waves of protest from all over the world in recent years indicate that social changes may encounter resistance and opposition, but also raise the question of whether a different, more hopeful kind of politics is possible. A core concept in Jesse's work is ‘futuring’, defined in the Urban Futures Studio as "attempts to shape the space for action by identifying and circulating images of the future: a process of establishing relationships between past, present and future."
Félix Madrazo
Founding Partner at Inter.National.Design
Félix Madrazo (Saltillo, Mexico 1972) is an architect, researcher and lecturer. He is a founding partner of the architecture studio IND [Inter.National.Design], co-founder of the research collective Supersudaca and lecturer in various universities including TU Delft /The Why Factory. Competitions since an early stage of his education have drastically changed the course of his career and ultimately of his firm. He is co-author with Prof. Winy Maas of the books City Shocks and Copy Paste done at The Why Factory and published by Nai010 Press.
Heidi Sohn
Associate Professor of Architecture Theory, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft
Heidi Sohn is academic and interim coordinator for the Architecture Theory chair. She received her PhD from the TU Delft in 2006 for her dissertation 'The Emergence of Urban Monsters: Postmodern Sublime and the Unconscious of Architecture'. Her research interests oscillate between the impact of political economy on territorial, spatial and material phenomena, and wider theoretical and philosophical concerns of architectural culture at large. She has edited the journal Footprint, and contributed to numerous publications. Over the years, she has been guest lecturer of architecture theory and design instructor at various institutions, among them DIA, Germany, and UMA, Sweden. Heidi is the Graduate School PhD mentor for the Architecture Department.
Angeliki Sioli
Assistant Professor at the Chair of Methods of Analysis and Imagination, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft
Angeliki Sioli, PhD is an assistant professor at the Chair of Methods of Analysis and Imagination at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She is a licensed architect, holding a PhD degree from the History and Theory Program of McGill University, Canada. Her research seeks connections between architecture and literature in the public realm of the city, focusing on aspects of embodied perception of place in the urban environment. She has edited the volume Reading Architecture: Literary Imagination and Architectural Experience (Routledge, 2018) and she is currently working on a collection of essays dedicated on sound and acoustic atmospheres of architecture. She is the co-leader of the Working Group 2, within the COST Action “Writing Urban Places”, working along with the group’s members to create a strong, contemporary and interdisciplinary theoretical context for the study of mid-sized European cities.
Practical information
This BK Talks will be streamed live from the Oostserre and can be followed via this link.