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reHousing International Housing Conference
State of Design
reHousing Internation Housing Conference.
05.10.06 - 08.10.06
Melbourne
Karen and I went along to a day of the conference Sunday just gone. The speakers were very good and the audience though very small were engaged. The plenum session, in its review of the conference agenda made clear that good design was felt to be missing from the volume housing market, and this was (for them) because architects are virtually without a role to play in it.
It was at this point that Karen and I felt compelled to raise the obvious that the conference organisers had organised a conference of architects talking to themselves (yet again) about the villany of others in the housing market. So we felt compelled to ask: where were the invited speakers from the developers / builders / in-house architects who were the targets of their vilification? Why were they not part of a useful dialogue? And maybe the conference would have achieved more by opening up the conversation to such outsiders.
Karen emphasised that this situation is not exclusive to this conference alone. She told of her experience of recently attending a similar conference on housing organised by the Housing Industry Association (HIA) to discover that she was the lone architect at the conference!!
How can the industry hope to benefit from good design when the players that make up the industry do not see the importance of dialogue between one-another through such potentially useful opportunities like these conferences? Such a ruse serves only to belittle the aspirations of conferences as opportunities for public debate and waste the support of the organisers, sponsors and attendees. Conferences provide informal and congenial spaces for dialogue outside of commercial constraints. Isnt it about time we engaged in extended interaction so that we may expose our misunderstandings, our commonalities and our shared visions to one-another? We must see ourselves as all being responsible for both creating and solving the problems of poorly designed mass housing.
I recommend that Arch-Peace learn from this and be mindful of keeping our forums as open as possible to ensure that nobody is cast as an outsider.
reHousing Internation Housing Conference.
05.10.06 - 08.10.06
Melbourne
Karen and I went along to a day of the conference Sunday just gone. The speakers were very good and the audience though very small were engaged. The plenum session, in its review of the conference agenda made clear that good design was felt to be missing from the volume housing market, and this was (for them) because architects are virtually without a role to play in it.
It was at this point that Karen and I felt compelled to raise the obvious that the conference organisers had organised a conference of architects talking to themselves (yet again) about the villany of others in the housing market. So we felt compelled to ask: where were the invited speakers from the developers / builders / in-house architects who were the targets of their vilification? Why were they not part of a useful dialogue? And maybe the conference would have achieved more by opening up the conversation to such outsiders.
Karen emphasised that this situation is not exclusive to this conference alone. She told of her experience of recently attending a similar conference on housing organised by the Housing Industry Association (HIA) to discover that she was the lone architect at the conference!!
How can the industry hope to benefit from good design when the players that make up the industry do not see the importance of dialogue between one-another through such potentially useful opportunities like these conferences? Such a ruse serves only to belittle the aspirations of conferences as opportunities for public debate and waste the support of the organisers, sponsors and attendees. Conferences provide informal and congenial spaces for dialogue outside of commercial constraints. Isnt it about time we engaged in extended interaction so that we may expose our misunderstandings, our commonalities and our shared visions to one-another? We must see ourselves as all being responsible for both creating and solving the problems of poorly designed mass housing.
I recommend that Arch-Peace learn from this and be mindful of keeping our forums as open as possible to ensure that nobody is cast as an outsider.
Comments
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I was thinking Su about your last comment "I recommend that Arch-Peace learn from this and be mindful of keeping our forums as open as possible to ensure that nobody is cast as an outsider."
I am happy to say that we have done pretty well in that aspect. This has not been a chance but by design.
In the our principles, "and more", more than 2 years ago, I wrote
We have kept our word and we have been able to deliver 2 excellent conferences and our monthly talks (words@bldg50) free of charge. We do this with a lot of effort. However, this probes that it can be done, by us - busy people with lots to do like everyone else."what you should not find here - and if you do please alert us!
Unaffordable membership fees, exorbitant prices for seminars/conferences, compromised verbatim, commercially driven publicity in the form of serious talks, meaningless and pointless discourses, ego/hero architects, or exclusive clubs." http://www.architectsforpeace.org/us.html#andmore
Then I wonder, why conferences such as 2050 Forum "Building a Future", which have important industry sponsors cannot make these for free or at least at an affordable price? What are the sponsors for? Are they to subsidise the cost of the conference so students can attend for free? The answer is not.
Is it because, to use their motto "black is the new green", and being so, the glitter and superficiality continues to be the driver of what should be important political/environmental discussions such as global warming?
It took me a while to find the conference fees [prices], and here they are:-
Standard Registration Single Day Registration Options
**Member $400
Non-Member $500
Student (built environment course) $250.00 Day Delegate (conference only) $150
Day Delegate Student (conference only) $75
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