Novel Approaches (Asynchronous Session)
The Impact of Graphic Design on Environmental Concerns: How Visual Communication Strategies Can Strengthen Visual Campaigns View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tyhe Reading
This paper reports on research into the efficacy of visual communication campaigns aimed at changing attitudes and influencing behaviours towards the marine environment to mitigate the negative effects of human behaviour upon it. Much of the existing literature in the growing field of environmental communication examines the public’s perceptions of the world and how these perceptions shape human-nature relations. Consequently, it draws on the fields of environmental and conservation psychology which use “the insights and tools of psychology toward understanding and promoting human care for nature” (Clayton, 2012). As such these fields of research remain largely theoretical and propositional with little research into the efficacy of environmental communication campaigns in changing people’s attitudes and influencing their behaviour towards the environment. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the role of visual communication, one of the main communication forms used in environmental communication. This paper reports on research that draws upon these fields to develop a theoretical framework to evaluate and shape the use of visual communication in environmental communication with a view to having a more sustainable impact on changing attitudes and influencing behaviour towards the marine environment. This paper reflects the early stages of the research in the form of a literature review and case study analysis, with the research reported informing the next stage, which is the implementation and evaluation of a visual communication campaign.
A Fusion of Service, Technology, and Environment: An Interdisciplinary Experimentation through Participatory Community Design View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jeff Feng, Ziad Qureshi
This paper describes a studio project in exploring innovative healthcare solutions via the design of a new clinic facility for a community. Collaboratively determined community needs were identified, with an emphasis on the unique local vulnerable neighborhood conditions and previously disenfranchised community in a local city context. This project offers a supportive experiment deploying a broad-based methodology, integrating diverse design results addressing community health and well-being. Design solutions were developed in a collaborative, transdisciplinary framework that harnessed participatory community design, co-disciplinary teams comprised of participants from Interior Architecture, Industrial Design, and community partnership with health-oriented non-profit organizations. Through analyzing prominent challenges in managing the highly complex project with stakeholders’ unique expertise and perspectives, strategies were experimented to synthesize the innovations. The outcomes demonstrate that despite increasingly complicated challenges to community well-being, a broader definition of health enables new abilities for design to successfully respond.
Landscape Architecture as Cooperative Practice: From Object-oriented to Process-oriented Design Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Otto Paans
Landscape architecture – like architecture and urbanism – faces a fundamental choice: either it develops its own, aestheticised “starchitecture”, or it invents new practices of transformation for our current societal crises. Being a hybrid discipline from the very start, it is strategically positioned to address issues like climate adaptation, the energy transition, circular agriculture, rural vitalisation strategies, demographic change and mobility, but will it live up to this potential? This paper presents an experimental design approach towards spatial development planning that has been applied in three different cases in the southernmost province of The Netherlands – Limburg. The concept underlying these cases has always been to create added value for all actors involved in developing an area, region, or municipality. This approach shifts the role of the designers from being creators of objects to acting as initiators of processes, putting them in the roles of mediators, coordinators, communicators, and “imagineers”. The role of design changes radically, moving away from proposing fixed, aestheticised schemes to leading discussions, bridging differences, proposing new avenues of development and participating in multidisciplinary engagements. Consequently, landscape architecture invents new process instruments to guide and coordinate the large-scale transformations that our societies face. However, the complexity of these questions is not tackled by proposing rigid measures or unifying schemes, but by continuously weighing options, opening possibilities and coordinating discussions. The designer becomes a mediator; consequently, the discipline of landscape architecture may become a process-oriented craft that discusses while sketching and mediates while imaging new courses of action.
Architectural Expression and Its Double Articulation: A Case Study Analysis of a Conceptual Approach View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amra Salihbegovic, Domenico Chizzoniti
Architectural expression plays a significant role in the process of conceptualization, representing the first impulse toward the recognition of meaning that an architectural design denotes. With the rapid technological development, the role of architectural expression became exaggerated, leading to an architecture devoid of qualitative aspects. This study demonstrates the underlying logic of two conceptual approaches, where the figurative aspects denote the essence of creative work but embody the aesthetic and qualitative value. These approaches relate to the visual appearance but impart distinct spatial and formal qualities, where the symbolic expression not only affects built form, but clearly defines the structure of space. This paper sets out to define a theoretical framework and demonstrate its variety through several precedents. Precisely, it elaborates on the concept of enclosure as mask as a rich source of symbolic expression and the concept of mimesis and its manifold implications in architecture. A comparative method is used to make an in-depth analysis of contemporary precedents, where the symbolic and iconological value of the building design embody the essence of built work. The precedents will be evaluated according to several determinants of the architectural form in the design process. Finally, this research attempts to clarify the manifold connotations these approaches have, where the conceptual in architecture refers to the intention that carries universal qualities from design process to built work, and where the concepts of mask and mimesis represent tools in contemporary design toward an architectural expression denoted by a variety of meanings.
