Docomomo International is pleased to share the new call for abstracts for the OASE #112 with the theme “Ecological Aesthetics”.
This issue of OASE is interested in contributions that investigate the role of aesthetics in contemporary ecological practices and discourses in architecture. OASE is primarily interested in contributions that arrive at or depart from specific cases, both historical and contemporary, and linked to one or more of the following themes:
1. Aesthetics of technology
The foregrounding of ecological issues has resulted in the presence of advanced technologies to regulate a building’s energetic performance. In addition, such technologies are often embedded in regulatory frameworks based on the abstraction of calculation and quantification, which in themselves might be argued to propose an aesthetic project. But while these technologies seem to have become excluded from architectural design as such, they hold the potential for a more meaningful intertwinement of the life of a building with those that inhabit it. Through
what aesthetic practices might such technologies become part of the social and cultural question of what it means to inhabit a building?
2. Aesthetics of materiality
The conceptualisation of a building as a mere moment within a changing flow of materials can mislead the designer to underestimate the importance of designing it as an autonomous object. Yet it is precisely the appearance of a building that becomes the site for a visual, tactile and bodily engagement with those flows of materials through which it is constructed – virgin, recycled or otherwise. What aesthetic codes have developed from the use and reuse of new types of materials, and which of these aesthetic codes further develop an ecological awareness of the material lives that buildings live?
3. Aesthetics and typology
Beyond a building’s internal logic, architectural typologies also express a specific attitude towards their environment. When approached from a situated perspective, they can be seen to shape and organise the relation between their inhabitants and the environment, anchored within specific and culturally defined systems of value. As both climatic conditions and environmental attitudes change, how does or will this affect the (re)invention of certain architectural typologies?
Abstracts of maximum 500 words must be submitted via info@oasejournal.nl by 01/06/2021 along with the author’s name(s), e-mail address, professional affiliation and a bio of maximum 150 words. Proposals can be submitted in Dutch or English.
Further information: here.