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19 - 22 November 2009
AHRA: Field/work

6th annual Architectural Humanities Research Association international conference

University of Edinburgh

Fieldwork has always been integral to the work of architects and landscape architects and the many forms of associated scholarship, from the site visit to the grand tour to the social survey. We visit sites - real and imagined - to collect, order, and interpret data, to establish parameters, frameworks, contexts and outlines for design work. As the sites of design work and scholarship have become increasingly complex and mediated, the questions as to what and where the field is, how we collect data, how we ensure its reliability, and how it informs design work have renewed theoretical and practical significance.

Design based disciplines share a wider heritage with empirically-oriented disciplines such as anthropology, ethnography, archaeology, material culture and georgaphy. This conference seeks to examine the question of field/work in its historical, contemporary, disciplinary and inter-disciplinary terms. What is it to work in the field, to travel to the field, make transmissions from the field, to translate between field and studio, and to process data after the field?

The conference aims to address conventions of praxis/action and field/work across media, scales, cultures; to articulate current discourses on the topic, and to identify critical dilemmas and opportunities for future practices of design and research.

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