Hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Design (EVDS), the Design Matters lecture series challenges the university community to broaden its thinking on myriad issues related to design. This month the series welcomes historian Vittoria De Palma.
A newly appointed faculty member at the University of Southern California, School of Architecture, Di Palma will be on campus Oct. 15-18 as the Gillmor Visiting Lecturer.
Established in honour of the founding director of the architecture program, Douglas Gillmor, the lectureship features a four-day workshop with EVDS Master of Architecture students, as well as a public lecture.
“Vittoria’s visit to EVDS is timely,” says David Monteyne, associate dean of architecture. “We invited her here to teach a seminar about the perceptions and design issues around contemporary waste landscapes of industrialism and urbanism. In the meantime, the floods happened in Calgary, and she has been able to restructure her seminar to focus on ‘muddy urbanism.’”
Di Palma and students will explore urban systems that stop working due to overload, creating overflow or stagnation instead of flow.
De Palma’s public presentation will examine the broader context of our perceptions about productive versus wasteful landscapes.
In recent decades the rehabilitation of such landscapes has emerged as one of the most pressing tasks confronting architects, urban planners, and landscape designers. Abandoned or disturbed post-industrial sites, often located close to urban centers, are increasingly being redeveloped for recreational use. Transforming such derelict sites into flourishing public parks, however, is a trend not merely motivated by economic and practical concerns. Reclaiming, restoring, and apparently redeeming these “manufactured sites" are activities that speak volumes about our modern crisis of faith in technology, and about our continuing belief in the healing powers of “nature.”
Di Palma’s public lecture, Wasteland, A History, will go back to the 17th-century British origins of these concepts of rehabilitation by reconstructing early histories of landscapes that were understood as "waste."
Join EVDS for Design Matters with Di Palma on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 6-7:30 p.m. at the University of Calgary’s Downtown Campus, 906 8th Ave. S.W.
Admission is free for students and $10 for non-students. For more information, click here.