Cabinet: Connection and Collection: Design Knowledge (May 2011, Plymouth UK)

School of Architecture, Design and Environment, University of Plymouth and Plymouth City Museum and Archives: Tuesday 17th May 2011
Deadline for submission of abstracts:  20 January 2011

This event, hosted by University Plymouth, and the Design Knowledge Research Group in partnership with Plymouth City Museum and Archives is a one-day conference to coincide with an exhibition in Peninsula Arts Gallery. The symposium will discuss notions of heritage, place-making, museums and museum/university connections and the relationship they have to design, sustainability, education and experience.

Is the best defence to funding cuts to accelerate the drive to think less about museums as places where things are kept, and more about them as places where interactive learning takes place, playing a role in a wider civic, social and economic context? Are we now shifting into an era where we move away from designing for people and towards designing with people, through active co-creation, where people are active participants in the process rather than passive test subjects or observers? And can we go further towards the emerging practice, towards designing by people? How can our museums and universities facilitate this? What can be the radical, contemporary strategies that release the historical perspectives of the architectures of the museum and refocus them towards different connections and how can the design of museums and the design of experiences contribute to this?

The conference seeks diverse responses from a broad range of disciplines. Conference will run in conjunction with an Exhibition at the Peninsula Arts Gallery featuring the work of twelve architects and designers and their responses to Plymouth City Museum and Archives. The conference proceedings will be published. Conference publication will come afterward and selected authors will be asked for a commitment to deliver a book chapter within 90 days of their return home from the conference. This book will allow people to expand and improve their papers with new insights and ideas based on the conference conversation.

Key speakers from a range of practice-based and academic backgrounds include:

Glen Adamson: Victorian and Albert Museum, London
Lucy Bullivant: Architect and Curator
Peter Higgins: Architect and Designer ‘Land Design’
Neil Leach: Architectural and Cultural Critic
Matt Hunter: Designer and Director of Design Council

Cabinet: Connection and Collection: Architecture, Design and Education: is hosted by the Design Knowledge Research Group, University of Plymouth.

The conveners are, Roberto Fraquelli, Peter Quinn Davis and Mathew Emmett.

Submission deadline for abstracts: January 20th 2010
Notification: February 30th 2011

Please send abstracts of no more than 300-words and a short CV via email to Lynne Saunders, School of Architecture, Design and Environment, University of Plymouth: email: L.C.Saunders@plymouth.ac.uk

For further information on registration details, accommodation in Plymouth http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=33911.

Roberto Fraqueill is Professor of Design in the School of Architecture, Design and Environment, University of Plymouth. His interests lie in Holistic Design Thinking, has spent many years working with IDEO <http://www.robertofraquelli.com/Web%20Pages/welcome.html> in London, Palo Alto, Chicago, Milan, Tel Aviv and Tokyo. With over 20 years of professional practice Roberto Fraquelli has designed products, environments and experiences for clients including PRADA, Shell, Procter & Gamble, BBC, LEGO and LGE.

Peter Quinn Davis is Director of Post Graduate Progammes in Design in the School of Architecture, Design and Environment in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Plymouth, UK.. He has published on the nature of creativity/drawing/and the design process; the new practices emerging in sustainable design debates and how this relates to the education for design and its relationship to universities, cities, markets and business. He is interested in ideas of identity/how this contributes to place-making, artefact manufacture and the understanding of heritage.