10th Annual Conference, All-Ireland Architecture Research Group, AIARG, Ulster University

In their 1999 publication (Verso Books), ‘Giving Ground: The Politics of Propinquity’, editors Michael Sorkin and Joan Copjec invited a range of theorists and writers to reflect on matters including the importance of indeterminacy and the relationship between democratic social relations and spatial propinquity.  The space of ‘nearness’ which supports ongoing conversation, for neighbourliness and a generosity of kinship, so crucial to the making of neighbourhood is also the space that was, in large part, the scene of so many deaths in the current pandemic.

The annual conference of the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group (AIARG) promotes innovative academic and practice-based research as well as the pedagogy and progress of architecture in its fullest sense.  The conference welcomes contributions from researchers, practitioners, theoreticians and pedagogues of architecture, and from those of other disciplines working within and around the interests of architecture. The conference organizers invite papers under the theme of  ‘Sharing Ground: Propinquity’ to consider the impact, contribution and responsibilities of architecture, across a range of topics that could include but are not limited to the following:

  • Policy, Politics and Agency
  • Climate Change
  • Materials, Means and Media
  • Education as Environment (Workshop Event)

Please forward abstracts of not more than 300 words to [email protected] no later than Monday 5 October 2020 and add a 100-word biography with your contact details. Following the conference, authors will be invited to submit their conference papers for publication in Building Material, the peer-reviewed journal of the Architectural Association of Ireland, the Irish Architectural Foundation and the All-Ireland Architecture Research Group.

At this stage, the organizers intend the conference to be in the physical space of the university and the city, but as circumstances change, we may shift locus to the digital domain. This will be confirmed with notification of acceptance of authors’ papers at mid-November.