ENHANCEMENTS International Training School, 29 March - 01 April 2016, AUTH, Greece

The School of Architecture at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Cost Action TU1306 are pleased to organize the  International Training School in thinking and making hybrid spaces “Enhancements: Mediated Urban Landscapes” to be held 29 March - 01 April 2016 in Thessaloniki, Greece. The venue will be the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Architecture, University Campus, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Enhancements is an international COST Action training school that brings into question our contemporary outdoor life as dominated by touchscreen-action and technology mediated realtime interaction by multiple users. Considering that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) accompany almost all of our outdoor real-world activities, the experience of open public space is now affected by the digital to such an extent that becomes fully mediated. In this sense, Mediated Urban Landscapes are simply real. In order to explore further the emergence of such hybrid environments, the training school aims to develop an understanding of our urban landscapes as territories of interacting influences using ICT to define both spatial features and human activities.

The general context of the training school is based on creating a shared understanding of the forms of man/machine/space interactive narratives related to the shaping and making of technologically enhanced public spaces. It aims to increase the awareness of new methods, techniques and materials for the production of responsive and inclusive urban places, as well for their effects on human behavior, preferences and responses.

The New Waterfront of Thessaloniki has a world award-winning architectural and landscape thematic layout of rooms-as-gardens. This is a key territory for outdoor public activity of the city and will be used as the main case study of the training school. The course will explore new enhanced forms of storytelling through the Gardens’ individual narrative areas. We will investigate the role of ICT in enhancing this linear urban feature as a hybrid space able to adapt and assimilate to shifts in social requirements.

Four main teaching modules will inquire the new transformative reality of a coastal Mediated Urban Landscape:
1. Transforming Value: responsive technologies, prototypes and concepts
2. Spatial and Digital Methods: from analog to networked design processes
3. The Esthetics of Mediated Experiences: new forms of outdoor materiality
4. Social Life in Mediated Environments: architecture, space and postdigital humanities

The confirmed applicants from COST countries will be granted for accommodation, daily meals and travel expenses the maximum flat rate grant defined by both TU1306 project and the Organizing Committee.

For more info please visit
cyberparks-project.eu/sites/default/files/files/cyberparks_Call%20for%20participants%20040116.pdf
or enhancements.arch.auth.gr

Best Regards
Konstantinos Ioannidis (local organizer)