11-12 May 2021
organized by Maria Argenti, Anna Bruna Menghini
The conference will address the theme of contemporary living in developing countries, in particularly vulnerable and high-poverty areas, affected by humanitarian, environmental and health crises. This theme is only apparently distant from us, in fact it closely touches the western world, increasingly involved in the problems of emergency and sustainability.
The conference will examine issues about culture of "living" and "building" that characterize the rural and urban contexts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Also about the role of international cooperation in supporting processes of sustainable growth of the areas and enhancement of local cultures.
The investigation of these situations can also be useful for those who are not specifically involved in this issue. Infact it allows an approach to the original and essential acts of living and building, universal and at the same time linked to local contexts, which have been weakened by globalization.
The Conference can give the opportunity to reflect on: permanence of widespread material cultures; crisis of rural development and criticality of urban development; forms of living different from those established in Western culture, based on different relationships between public and private space, between living and working place; simple project principles and sustainable techniques integrated with the environment; assisted self-building and the development of participatory models and implementation processes that unite the figures of the designer, the builder and the user.
The conference is composed of different sections and based on these particular subjects: the "living" (between rural villages, slums and megacities), the "building" (low tech, assisted self-building, emergency structures), the "sustainable development" (environmental resources, material culture and local identities). It intends to activate a comparison between lines of research and contemporary design experiences, identifying synergies and theoretical and applicative interdisciplinary fields (involving architects, engineers, urban planners, anthropologists, sociologists...) and cross-sectoral (addressing not only the academic world but also professionals and individuals active in the field of international cooperation).
The event is public on the zoom platform:
11.5.2021
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/84310745943?pwd%... (ID riunione: 843 1074 5943 Passcode: 712837)
12.5.2021
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://uniroma1.zoom.us/j/84265816768?pwd%... (ID riunione: 842 6581 6768 Passcode: 747634)