Coming Up
Past Conferences

Coming up

There are currently no upcoming conferences at the School of Architecture. Please continue to the DAB conferences page for a complete list of all DAB conferences.

Past Conferences

SEAM Symposium

SEAM09, Spatial Phrases
7 - 19 September 2009

The SEAM 2009 Symposium emphasises processes of connection and addition, perforation and permeability, blending and merging. While the seam can be pragmatic and functionally driven, it is also a process of mutation and modification. Disciplinary borders are rephrased as permeable seams, whose crossing connects and mutually transforms each field. The symposium aims to question existing structures and ways of working in the fields of dance, architecture and film, in order to provoke alternative inventions and thought.

Visit the official Seam 2009 site.

Urban Futures: Architectural Type and the Urban Plan Symposium

4 May 2009

Urban Futures: Architectural Type and the Urban Plan, is a one day Symposium to explore urban renewal and re-organisation, and how urban plans are produced through the key question: What are the alternative instruments to control the design of our cities beyond land-use zoning, set-backs and plot ratios?

Rejecting the notion of a one size fits all urban plan, raising a challenge to the current blunt urban instruments of set backs, floor space ratios and block zoning, this symposium will instead begin to consider ways of working that can create a more inclusive framework for the varied stakeholders operating in the contemporary city.

Speaking at the symposium will be Chris Lee and Sam Jacoby from the Architecture Association in London, world leaders in urban design.

URBAN FUTURES: Architectural Type and the Urban Plan will be held in the Barnet Long Room at Customs House, Sydney on 4 May 2009. Tickets are available from moshtix and cost $65.00.

The symposium and exhibition are supported by UTS Gallery, the British Council, City of Sydney, UTS's Centre for Contemporary Design Practices, the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at UTS, and The Architectural Association, London.

View symposium details on Architecture events.

Techniques and Technologies: Transfer and Transformation

4th International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia
27 September - 29 September 2007

Specific technologies are continually transferred to architecture from fields such as logistics, psychology and medicine, media and entertainment, warfare, transportation, mining, food and agriculture. Technology transfer includes ´hard´ material technologies of manufacturing and construction as well as ´soft technologies´ of imaging and information that are taken up in the design process and penetrate the very structure of architectural practice. Such technology transfer is sometimes seen to threaten the supposed internal consistency and specificity of architectural techniques at the same time as it is keenly sought after. Its effect on notions of design intentions and their realization is a key problematic of interest to this conference.

For more information please visit the AASA 2007 conference web site.

Queer Space: Centres and Peripheries Conference

Centre for Social Theory & Design
20 - 21 February 2007

Drawing together scholars from a broad interdisciplinary field, the Queer Space: Centres and Peripheries Conference aims to encourage discussion of queer space conceived in its broadest sense, by scholars working in disciplines as diverse as architecture, history, urban geography, design, visual communication, cultural studies, and the social sciences. It aims to explore ways in which the built environment contributes to the construction and maintenance of queer sub-cultures, and articulate how both architectural space and the city can represent ideas such as ´queerness´.

Using the city of Sydney as one example, the conference opens to broader international approaches by proposing that, while in many spheres of world affairs Australia is seen as peripheral, in the already ´marginal´ space of queer culture Sydney is a major international location, especially during events such as the Mardi Gras. Drawing upon this reversal of definitions of ´centre´ and ´periphery´, this conference asks what is central, and what is peripheral, to the study of queer space.

For more information please visit the Queer Space: Centres and Peripheries Conference website.

Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity Conference 2006

Centre for Social Theory & Design
17 - 19 August 2006

Walter Benjamin´s work remains central to discussions of modernity within the Humanities, Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. This conference will bring together scholars working on all aspects of Benjamin´s work as well as those who deploy the insights of that work in developing projects of their own.

The conference has been organised by the Centre for Social Theory and Design, in particular: Dr Tara Forrest, Professor Andrew Benjamin and Dr Charles Rice.

The aim of the Centre for Social Theory and Design is to provide a location for research that draws on the traditions of Critical and Social Theory, Philosophy, Design Theory and History, and Architectural History and Theory.

Please visit the official Walter Benjamin Conference 2006 web site for more details.