pladsn 2018 - A Stream on “Urban Places & Design”

The Architecture Unit of the ATINER will organize a Stream on “Urban Places & Design” as part of the 8th Annual International Conference on Urban Studies & Planning, 4-7 June 2018, Athens, Greece sponsored by the Athens Journal of Architecture.
Recent socioeconomic and technological advancements are profoundly transforming the production of placeness in the key spaces of contemporary collective life. The impact that this has on the ontogenesis of place – that is the way we produce places that produce ourselves (D. Harvey) – is chiefly relational and progressively based on hyper-mediated forms of interaction, complex power relations and democratised creativity. The result is an unprecedented blurring and hybridity of the traditional spatial dyad composed by conception (ideation, design, intervention and management) and reception (everyday routines, lived actions and collective representations). From a socio-spatial perspective, this transition has been primarily driven by the augmentation of two main processes strongly supported by digital technologies: prosumption and transduction. The first, prosumption, is a participative instance of transformational engagement with our context, concerning an intimate intertwining of consumption and production processes (G. Ritzer) that originates post-consumerist practices. The latter, spatial transduction, is a process of experiential switch between alternative realms with different contextual references. Its dynamic and reiterative mechanisms (R. Kitchin and M. Dodge) have the capacity to bring the individual across realms of ambiguous and ambivalent double forms of real, semi-real and hyper-real (e.g. with forms of theming that stage local culture). This redistributed and transitional condition of opposing spatialities is highly problematic and matches the one that Sharon Zukin defined as liminal: an ambiguous and ambivalent condition that complicates the constructions of spatial identity. The way it counters the abstractive forces of the traditional geographies is subject to a major threat: a spatial recombinant openness making places in steady and mobile reterritorialising and reterritorialising processes. This stream of the conference will offer a platform for reflecting on this emerging form of place production, framing it in the “repoliticising” perspective of the recently adopted “New Urban Agenda,” and its illuminating “Right to the City” notion. You may participate as presenter of one paper, chair or/and organizer of a session, or observer.
Fee structure information is available on https://www.atiner.gr/2018fees.
Special arrangements will be made with a local hotel for a limited number of rooms at a special conference rate. In addition, a number of special events will be organized: A pragmatic symposium (as organized in Ancient Athens but fine tuned to synchronous ethics), a special one-day educational island tour, a Mycanae and island of Poros visit, an Athens educational walking tour, an one-day visit to Delphi and an ancient Corinth and Cape Sounion visit. Details of the social program are available here.
Please submit an abstract (email only) to: atiner-AT-atiner.gr, using the abstract submission form by the 5 February 2018 to: Dr. Manfredo Manfredini, Director, School of Architecture and Planning, The University of Auckland, New Zealand & Honorary Professor, Hunan University, China. Abstracts should include the following: Title of Paper, Full Name (s), Affiliation, Current Position, an email address, and at least 3 keywords that best describe the subject of your submission. Decisions are reached within 4 weeks.
If you want to participate without presenting a paper, i.e. organize a stream, chair a session, review papers to be included in the conference proceedings or books, contribute to the editing of a book, or any other contribution, please send an email to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER & Honorary Professor, University of Stirling, UK (gregory.papanikos-AT-stir.ac.uk).
The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established in 1995 as an independent world association of Academics and Researchers. Its mission is to act as a forum where Academics and Researchers from all over the world can meet in Athens, in order to exchange ideas on their research, and to discuss future developments in their disciplines.
The organizing and hosting of International Conferences and Symposiums, the carrying out of Research, and the production of Publications are the basic activities of ATINER. Since 1995, ATINER has organized more than 400 International Conferences and other events, and has published close to 200 books. In 2012, the Association launched a series of conference paper publications (click here), and at the beginning of 2014, it introduced its own series of Journals (click here).
Academically, the Association is organized into 7 Divisions and 37 Units. Each Unit organizes at least an Annual International Conference, and may also undertake various small and large research projects.
Academics and Researchers are more than welcome to become members and to contribute to ATINER’s objectives. If you would like to become a member, please download the relevant form (membership form). For more information on how to become a member, please send an email to: info-AT-atiner.gr.