Prominent projects conducted thus far include a complete digital recreation of the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as of Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials. Studying Salem from a spatial humanities approach revealed never before realized facets of church affiliation, judge behavior, courtroom habits, types of evidence admitted, and more that contributed to the hysteria of the time. David Bodenhamer, a historian at Indiana University, says that GIS technologies “make it possible to analyze complex and changing patterns of political preferences, religious affiliation, migration and cultural influence in fresh ways by linking them to geography.”

Others have chosen to use spatial-humanities to create maps on globalization and trade, urban studies, and even digital musicology, in which scholars create spatial representations of harmonic form.

The Scholar’s Lab at the University of Virginia Library has created a website to give access to the new field of spatial-humanities, including current projects, readings and research and how to get involved. Projects and groups abound in diversity, including architecture, anthropology, archaeology, literary space, political science, psychology, linguistics, geography, environmental history, and more.

So where does this come into play for architecture? Uses abound, as many existing projects demonstrate. Hypercities explores the historical layers of city spaces in an interactive and hypermedia environment, allowing users to see where cities have been, how they have gotten to where they are, and where they may be heading. Imagine being able to create a digital map, complete with layers including the previous 20 years of population density and demographics, changing shape of public and private space, successful and failed development, as well as up-to-the-minute information of numbers of people checking in with foursquare, local ticket sales, apartment vacancies, daily traffic density, etc. This would not only reveal tremendous depth of information about the ephemeral city, but also how people use and interact with the city, and how the culture and dynamic of a neighborhood has metamorphosed over time. Further, this would all be a presented in a spatial and digital manner, allowing users to turn layers on and off to see different spatial and cultural relationships in the city.

As a tool for anthropologists, sociologists, architects, city planners and more, there is tremendous potential to understand the city and its inhabitants in new ways, which can only lead to new methods of collaboration and new ideas for how we design and build for ourselves.

Strolls through these parts of the city are always awash with life. Wafting, blowing, hinting and delighting, smells abound in the air of the city, the air of the harbor and canals, the bakeries, cafes, sidewalks, gutters and garbage. A cool breeze brings warm smells of rolls and coffee, chills from the water, and the premonition of rain from the skies, from the clouds, grey canvases creased with strokes from the wind, laden and permanent over the land, cloaking the sun and damping out precious hours of daylight. Already the shadows of the passages seem to darken. The nose awakens, ancient olfactory machinations, aware of more in the air. Damp, moss covered corners, dusty crevices, sharp tinge of urine, stale smell of spilled beer. Echoes, reverberations, vibrations, clues, phantoms fill the auditory space of our worlds. Painting a three-dimensional panorama invisible to our eyes we understand more of the physical world and spaces we occupy. Sounds from the street recede, replaced by strengthening echoes from our footsteps, our conversations, our belts of laughter and hushed whispers. Under echoing footfalls, old and worn cobblestones greet the feet. Thin shoe soles do not impede the nerves and skin from contouring, tracing the outline of each cobble, worn corners, imperfect gaps of patterns and intervals that never repeat, lain with the uniquely creative and imperfect laboring hand. Fingertips are reassured by rough brick sliding coarsely by in the darkness, scraping fingernails add to the acoustic space while imperceptibly being ground, filed, shaped. Minute imperfections unable to hide from the sensitive skin, acutely aware of even the slightest deviance from perfection, appreciating the endless story told upon the face of brick after brick. A gasp, a rush of blood, flush of the face, pulse quickening step into the abyss. A loss of repetition in the footfalls, a dislocation of the ground plane, hands flinching to seize the unseen for support. Laughter and apologies from nearby friends and classmates, forgot to the mention the step down, won’t happen again. Winding down a street, feeling the shape of the city, the shape of the constructive forces of centuries past, cross streets and alleys signified by the opening and closing of sounds, bikes bells, conversation, echoes, distant sounds barely able to address us. A bustle is approaching, sounds of commerce, rush, heavy pedestrian traffic, walking faster, energizing the air, feeling the space of the city, the crush of the crowd. Cobbles smooth out underfoot, pace quickens, less to feel here on the recently lain cobbles, full of intricate tone and pattern (or so your friend tells you). Conversations from passerbys, sounds of transactions and inquiries, cinnamon roles, hot dogs, ice cream, meat, coffee and more roll in wave upon wave across the nose. Strangers unseen brush by, bumping shoulders, rustling coats, fragments of words bounce away in the turbulence, light smells hang ephemerally in the air, sweat, stress, masks, memories, desires. Seated upon a bench, feet value the rest from labor, leg and back muscles relax, re-adjust as they feel out the contours of the bench, the chill of metal, the spacing of the slats. Light rushes in as the blindfold is removed, squinting, blinking eyes welcome the contraction of the pupil, a return of focus to the scene, a return to the dominance of the eye.

Simple outings as powerful reminders of the deep and envoking world enlightened by the senses. A chance for a retrospective on the ocular-centric culture of our day and lives, and the archaic, embedded, indescribably rich experiences open to us if we close our eyes. Considering how much our senses contribute to how we feel about a place, how we define a place, as well as remember it, ample energy should be given to address all of our haptic system in our designs, large and small.

Related articles

• Zoned Out: Boredom In A Digital Age (3quarksdaily.com)

His project, a richly complex narrative of architecture, energy, empathy and ecology, addresses layer upon layer of historic and modern societal issues, including energy flows, infrastructure, power hierarchies, resource and labor exploitation, globalization, empathy, decentralization, individual subjectivity, technology and open-source networks.   For anyone interested in these topics and the possibilities of radical architectural and ecological shifts, I highly recommend you browse his writings, illustrations and animations.

DAYglo

For further insight into a piece of his project, watch this video summarizing Jeremy Rifkin’s “The Empathic Civilization.”

RSA Animate – The Empathic Civilization

Related articles

• Using nature’s genius in architecture: Michael Pawlyn on TED.com (ted.com)
• Open Source Ecology (susansayler.wordpress.com)
• Architectural Potential Energy (bldgblog.blogspot.com)

Reyner Banham, in his 1968 series collectively known as “Four Pieces on Los Angeles,” addresses this condition on multiple fronts.  He compares the topological organization to that of London, in that both cities are agglomerations of smaller towns that have come to fall, more or less, under some civic umbrella.  After admitting to an initially unpleasant experience with public transit upon his arrival in LA, Banham declares the city to be a rather mature and distinctively modern metropolis.  He claims not only that the failure of the railways was a natural occurrence brought on by the inferiority of the Pacific Electric Railroad when compared to the much more comprehensive and freely-flowing highway system, but that the railroad company was to blame for the crime and poverty of the Watts ghetto by having effectively used train tracks to inhibit its residents from circulating between their own neighborhood and the rest of the city. He celebrates the prevalence of libertarian individuality in the citizens of LA, and embraces the fetishisation of the automobile and the rejection of civic responsibility as an extension of the art of doing one’s thing. Perhaps one of the most interesting things Banham said was that the lifestyle of Los Angeles was one that appealed most, in Europe at least, to middle-aged professionals seeking a renewed sense of freedom and excitement that could not be found on either side of the Atlantic seaboard.  That is to say, Banham wrote with a half-admission that the attraction he and others of his demographic felt for Los Angeles was a desire to spin a mid-life crisis into a Wild West adventure.

What Banham was unable to foresee was the astronomical increase in traffic density that has since become the most widely and bitterly held criticism of Los Angeles.  In the four decades that have passed since he wrote these pieces, the population of Los Angeles has outgrown the capacity of its motorways, thus making it much more difficult to maintain the lone driver motoring lifestyle.  Traffic no longer moves reliably, and many people are commuting daily from places as far away as Ventura.  The solo commute, once a symbol of glorious independence from public transportation, has become a tedious and time-consuming battle against far too many other people who also happen to be celebrating their independence.  Indeed, the highway just ain’t big enough for everyone.  There are simply too many people doing their thing over too large and dense an area that the encapsulated lifestyle so easily and romantically manifested in the middle twentieth century has proven gravely unsustainable.

image courtesy <a href=”http://philip.greenspun.com/”>Philip Greenspun</a>

What Banham described as a freewheeling aversion to government oppression may be retroactively and conceptually reassessed as a refusal to accept the terms of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s liberal republicanism, which has long been the overarching standard of American social contract.  The longstanding Angelino illusion that one may escape society by moving to a major city is not one whose irony goes unnoticed, and it is genuinely impressive that so many people have been living this illusion for so long without having some revelation as to its progressing eclipse.

Perhaps it is not too late.  The real problem with ensapsulated transportation at this time is one of congestion and fossil fuel consumption.  People operating as individuals do not possess the collective mind necessary to allow a smooth flow of traffic.  Deficiencies in driver reflexes and lapses in concentration cause traffic jams, collisions, and infuriatingly long travel times, while idling motors waste energy and emit noxious fumes even while standing still.  In this new century though, Los Angeles has a truly profound opportunity to be, as it once was conjectured to be, the most uniquely modern city in the world.  As technology allows, the city could become a large-scale experiment for infrastructural swarm intelligence.

Let the people keep their capsules, but make those capsules subservient, on certain roads at certain times, to algorithms that will allow high densities of private capsules to efficiently flow between destinations.  Fuel emissions and expenditure will no longer be in vain, and Angelinos, if they so desire, will be able to maintain their sacred private interiors, isolated from the forced company of other people that admittedly make many traditional forms of public transit disgustingly unpleasant.  At times of day and in areas where congestion ceases to be a problem, private vehicles will be released from the swarm algorithm and the control of the journey will shift seamlessly back into the hands of the occupant.  A commuter will be able to cruise up to his or her guarded suburban sanctuary in full control of his or her capsule, bringing home none of the stress or anxiety that would have resulted from a long traffic jam.

While it is easy at present to deny Banham’s relevance, to demote his essays to the status of period pieces, there is something unique about the idea of Los Angeles that is worth preserving, worth fighting for.  The first experiment for the City of Angels may have ended with disappointing results, but just as every laboratory must move past its failures toward new endeavors, so too must Los Angeles explore new opportunities in radical individualism.

The problem with this reality of D.C. is illustrated by several references in the article, most-pointedly the city clinging to the grandiose visions of the 20^th Century as opposed to leading America in a new century of urbanism; and the large, often hot and empty spaces that cannot be utilized easily by the public.

Proponents of changing the mall cite a desire of many Washingtonians for a streetcar system, and for returning the mall to a state of civic usefulness and enjoyment, a “Central Park of Washington.”

The issue of monumentalism presented in the article brings up several interesting facets of human behavior as it relates to architecture and the built environment. The first is the determination to preserve the mall as it is, a “grand and imperial city that overawes tourists.” I cannot explain this, but perhaps a century of collective memory has generated a vast cultural value for the mall. We all know what the capitol looks like and stands for, and perhaps there is the implication that changing the physical structure of the city will change the non-physical status and values of the country and people it represents.

What is also interesting is the idea of postcard D.C. being placed above human D.C. This notion reinforces current trends of our society’s obsession with the image and the belief that the way things look is more important than the way they actually are. As technological development has accelerated, this trend has become more prevalent. The camera is often viewed as an infallible observer, the only device capable of capturing the truth. Further, these images can be transported far greater distances and to greater numbers of people than raw experiences can. Even if one has never been to D.C. or the mall, they are likely to have seen dozens if not hundreds of images of the capitol.

This value placed on digital tools and images over experience and real space extends further into architecture and urbanism. Many new developments are planned from a birds-eye view using aerial images, a position that could not be further removed from the people who walk the streets. Architectural projects are often sold on the merits of the rendered images, 2D graphics of the way something may look, but not how it will actually be for users to occupy.

I suppose what is most interesting about monumentalism is the idea that the value of a city can be contained in, and defined by, images. This absurb, but not impossible, proposition reminds me of Colonel Korn in Catch-22 who is perpetually obsessed with aerial photographs of tight bomb patterns. The photographs, in fact, are far more important that if the bombs even hit the target.

Perhaps preserving the monumentalism of D.C. helps to preserve the grandiose ideals and optimism of the 20^th Century, an attempt to counterbalance the turmoil and schizophrenia of the modern world by seeing a different, and familiar, built reality. What do you think?

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• The New Tower of London (blogs.nybooks.com)
• Silverdale Port Says No to 9/11 Monument (kitsapsun.com)

The following paragraphs will seek to shed some light on the anthropological drivers of this behavior and the role it plays in architecture.

One of the effects of this trend seems to be the artificial creation of inaccessibility; a divide between architects and the public, particularly in academia. Architects build for people and the public, generally speaking, but use language as a social tool to elevate themselves above those they build for. Why might this be?

In regards to communications between architects and the general public, the use of language may be a costly display to advertise their own knowledge and intelligence, to inspire, and to concretize their place as a trusted builder. On the level of the profession, jargon may serve to establish the profession as a social group with its own social norms and traits. Similar to how different dialects are one defining element of different peoples and cultures, language used by architects may set them apart from other professions and peoples.

If we assume the profession of architecture can be classified as a social group, several other social and selective factors come into play that may contribute to the prevalence of jargon and superfluous language.

The first that comes to mind is conforming to social norms. According to the article “The Evolution of Ethnic Markers” (see Conforming to Social Norms),  adapting to marker traits, such as dialects, increases one’s own reproductive success and helps to ensure one’s place in a given social group. In the profession of architecture, adapting this marker trait may help architects to be more socially accepted and respected by their peers and support the success of their careers. If the profession as a group has certain social traits that define it, conforming to these norms will benefit all members according to anthropological theory.

Further, architecture is a very competitive profession and as with any group, status is of utmost importance. Language may be used as a tool, or costly display, to advertise intelligence, ideas and education in an attempt to elevate one’s own status and increase one’s own success.

As I mentioned earlier, I observe this behavior more in academia than anywhere else.

Academia, for the most part, places far more emphasis on theory than on practice. Theory, both spoken and written, relies more on language than the physical practice of architecture. With nothing physical to see, occupy, or touch, words become far more important to convey ideas and establish validity and status. As a result, jargon may be far more valuable among academic theorists to establish and define themselves among their peers.

Of course there are exceptions to this trend. In the fall of 2007 I saw Cecil Balmond of ARUP lecture at the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen. He was a clearly brilliant man but was able to deftly and beautifully present his ideas and projects in a manner, and with language, that was accessible to all. This made such an impression upon me that I have remembered it ever since. In my opinion, this did not detract from his brilliance, respectability or status in any way. If anything, it was impressive that he was able to communicate such complicated ideas in a simple way.

So where does this leave architecture? This trend surely affects the social aspect and habits of the profession, but does it also affect what is actually built and the public’s opinion of the profession and built work? This seems plausible. As far is what is actually built and current direction of trends in the profession and academic realms, language and status could play large roles. Architects and theorists who can effectively use jargon and language to convey their ideas and elevate their status may become quite influential. Once their status reaches a certain point, others may copy or emulate their behavior in hopes of increasing their own status and success. Therefore, language and communicative skills may be more important than ideas and more indicative of the direction and trends of the profession, and thereby the built environment. “Good” ideas presented poorly will fail while “bad” ideas presented brilliantly may thrive. Similarly, ideas and communication strategies that are accepted and rewarded in the social environment of architecture will become more successful, common, and popular.

Taken as a whole, language seems to have the power to play a huge role in architecture and the built environment, and jargon may be an adaptive trait to establish a social group, conform to social norms and increase status.

I am very curious about this behavior and the reasons for it, and welcome any thoughts and ideas you may have.

Related articles:

• Communication skills (slideshare.net)
• Helvetica (ryanopaz.com)
• Cut the Jargon! (copychemist.com)
• Grooming and the Human House of Language (slog.thestranger.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Articles with positive themes were emailed far more often than negative or downer articles. After noticing that science articles received a surprisingly high rate of email shares, researchers concluded that articles that inspired awe were the most popular and most likely to be shared.

“More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed, the researchers found, and positive articles were shared more than negative ones…They used two criteria for an awe-inspiring story: Its scale is large, and it requires ‘mental accommodation’ by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way.”

Determining the root of this behavioral trend was somewhat trickier. Ideas of reciprocal altruism came up, meaning offering something of value and counting on a return favor in the future, as well as the possibility of status and competition, trying to elevate or maintain social status by portraying oneself and well informed. However, researchers concluded that people were actually seeking “emotional communion”

“Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion. If I’ve just read this story and that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to other about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.”

– Dr. Jonah Berger

Can this research indicate anything about how architectural projects or ideas are valued and shared? I imagine that sharing awe-inspiring experiences or knowledge holds true for architecture. There are many projects – modern, classic and ancient – that we hold in our collective consciousness as being awe-inspiring. The Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, The Acropolis, Therme Vals, The Alhambra, The City of Arts and Sciences, etc, etc. These are projects that, whether we have seen them or not, we understand to be awe-inspiring and value them accordingly.

What makes us want to tell others about architecture we have seen or (preferably) visited? From personal experience I only share projects that seem to hold a connection to the land, people and environmental forces in creative ways. Others, while I may find them interesting, radical, good or absurd, I do not often find them worth passing on. Of the projects and cities that I remember best and tell people the most about that I have visited, it is always ones that carefully, brilliantly or perhaps subtly addressed the human.

Does the potential for people sharing and spreading the word on architectural projects influence the projects? For example consider the Burj Khalifa and the never ending race for the world’s tallest building.  Its seems that the power of awe is being used in a big way; it is difficult to imagine a building reaching half of a mile into the sky. Is it possible that awe is created but also used as a mechanism to ensure that everyone tells everyone and thereby validates the existence of the tower and concretizes Dubai’s prominence? I am also reminded of the building boom in Beijing prior to the 2008 Olympic Games. The projects were, in their own right, revolutionary, a testament to the building boom and the times, and successfully generated a lot of attention. Now, however, many of the projects and planning schemes are facing criticism for being empty, and for not considering their use and value after the Olympics. These two articles, one by The Architects Newspaper and one by the New York Times, look further into this issue and compare Beijing and Vancouver Olympic construction.

Awe is powerful and probably often overlooked, but research shows that we connect strongly to it and that it influences us to share the experience in order to connect to one another. What types of stories do you share? What architectural projects generate the most awe?

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–      Herbert Simon, Recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, 1978

Information has never been more abundant than it is today, and it seems as if the trend will only proliferate in coming years and decades. More information and more outputs and means of absorbing information are inevitable developments. But what will be done with this information. Excesses of information have already begun to show potential drawbacks and weaknesses, such as the attempted Christmas Day bombing in 2009. Authorities asserted that they had all the information, but failed to connect the dots because they simply had too much information to act on (see The Blindness of Surveillance).

As of January 2009, Technorati was had indexed 133 million blogs. As of this writing there have been over 8.4 billion tweets, many of which link to other sources of information. The unprecedented plethora of information is astounding.  Even by only seeking and absorbing in a specific range or niche, the available information is overwhelming. How much information do you absorb each day through various media? How many tweets do you read? How many links do you follow? How many blogs do you read or follow? How many websites do you visit? And don’t forget books, magazines, newspapers, TV, podcasts and conversation.

I personally learn, or at least come in contact with, far more information each day than I can possibly act on. Take this post for example. The stimulus to write this came from one page from one book. Through Google Alerts I found at least half a dozen things more I would like to have done something with, and through twitter perhaps a dozen more. In addition there are easily dozens of more things that I learn, think about or otherwise strike my interest each day.

The point of all of this lead up is where is the line drawn? Or how is information best filtered and utilized? Failure to do so could lead to a paralysis from information overload, or the spiraling habit of gathering information for information’s sake.

Author Timothy Ferris proposes trying a “Low-Information Diet” and “cultivating selective ignorance”, the goal being to eliminate interruptions or distraction that are irrelevant, unimportant or unactionable. He argues that the decreased input frees time and energy for increased output. He encourages readers to only seek and consume information that is directly relevant to what goals they are pursuing and the next steps to be taken.

Can architecture and design suffer from information overload? I think it is entirely plausible that projects, both academic and professional, could sink into stagnation. Case studies, new technologies and materials, systems integration, energy, BIM, statistics and theory could weigh projects down. The balance of research and design could be thrown askew; energy far more concentrated on the information and technology of the project than the people they will house.

However, information can be integrated into architecture in creative and interesting ways that address the people and the city. The Polis Blog has a recent post about Urbanism in the Information Age. Citing the Zero Energy Media Wall project, they highlight the possibilities that thoughtful integration of systems could lead to in terms of information display, communication and social interaction in the city.

“Such possible transformations move beyond communicating building/urban data or displaying art installations to a fleeting audience, instead hinting at the reality of a responsive city that has the potential for self-correcting measures.”

–      ­Andrew Wade

Information, whether input or output, influencing or distracting, is something to be intelligently used.

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• Collective knowledge systems (cdixon.org)

Cover via Amazon

Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain, views American politics from the following perspective. Politicians on the Left generally rely on facts and what they deem to be sound arguments to attract voters. Politicians on the Right rely on the trend that voters do not like things explained to them and do not like politicians who portray themselves as know the right answers or knowing what is best for the populace. It is not a matter of which side is right or wrong, it is a difference of strategy. While politicians on the Left continue to struggle using facts to attract voters, politicians on the Right have found success with storytelling. By creating a convincing story that appeals to emotion rather than reason, opposing candidates can easily fall out of favor with the voters, even if the stories hold little or no truth. Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter with Kansas, believes that the modern voter prefers emotional argument over reasonable argument.

“For Mr. Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win”

“As Mr. Frank sees it, authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made.”

Another example that is relevant is the campaign slogans that John McCain and Barack Obama used during the 2008 election. The McCain campaign used the image of a Maverick to endorse the candidate, while the Obama campaign used the slogan Change We Can Believe In. Both candidates wanted to cast themselves as a departure from the status quo, as something new in Washington. However, to be successful in Washington it is unlikely that one can be too different. But the reality does not matter, because voters, in addition to favoring policy, will emotionally identify with the image and story of the candidate they prefer.

So what does any of this have to do with the built environment?

Imagine an election that will determine city taxes, future developments, zoning issues or transportation options. The result of the election could lead to policy, or a budget, that could significantly alter the built environment, for better or for worse.

A concrete example of this is a November 2009 election in Colorado Springs, CO. Facing a severely tight budget, the city was looking for ways to save money. The leading proposal was to cut fire fighter jobs and stop maintenance on city parks, close public swimming pools and cut youth sports. Not great options for most citizens of the city. As an alternative, a tax was proposed to alleviate the financial strain and avert a reduction of city services. The tax would have cost families approximately $120 per year over 10 years. However, facts were quickly overwhelmed by contradicting stories that passing the measure would increase taxes by 300%, as well as stories that citizens should not have to pay more taxes and outrage at the failure of the city counsel (not necessarily unjustified).

As background, Colorado Springs has some of the lowest property taxes in the state and nation, and the population largely supports small-government and anti-tax politics.

Despite facts supporting passage of the bill with tangible urban benefits at stake, stories appealing to the emotions of voters won out. The measure was defeated by nearly 2 to 1. As a result, unless private money comes through, or some other unforeseen solution develops, many of the more than 140 parks throughout the city will go without water or maintenance during the summer. No public swimming pools will open and many youth sports programs will be eliminated, and community centers closed. In addition, 1/3 of the cities streetlights will be turned off in an effort to save more money. It seems as though the city, backed by the voters, have chosen to generate their own urban blight and reduce the value of cities and neighborhoods. This decision does not seem to be in anyone’s best interest, and yet the voters were sold on the stories.

To recap, in elections and politics, facts and tangibles can be outweighed by stories, no matter if they are true or false. If the political decisions impact city resources, or civic and transportation projects, then these stories can impact the built environment. As voters and designers, we need to be aware of how stories can influence our decision making, as well as how stories can lay the groundwork for amazing and positive urban and architectural developments.

Related articles:

• Make me poorer (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Is Obama trying to please everyone? (cnn.com)
• Drew Westen: The State of the Union Is… It Depends on How You See It (huffingtonpost.com)

How has the “spatial turn” in the humanities and social sciences transformed the ways in which history of the built environment is theorized and researched?

What are the potentials and biases in the use of particular research techniques and narrative forms?

How might such interrogations help us conceive new pedagogies for design and planning?

Image via Wikipedia

This conference is full of potential to further explore and understand the connections between the humanities, social sciences and the built environment, as well as refine methods for continued learning and discovery. The multidisciplinary and collaborative approach is extremely valuable and opens broad avenues of possibility. What will be interesting to see is how knowledge communicated and developed at this conference can be practically applied beyond academia.

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