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REWORLDING. Collectively Redesigning our worlds in socio-ecological crises
A conference and exhibition curated by four international collectives: Reworlding, Building Beyond Borders, Architecture Sans Frontières and ITTT. The event is hosted and organised within institutions in Hasselt and the surrounding region, including Hasselt University (UHasselt), through its Faculty of Architecture and Arts, School of Social Sciences and Global Minds; PXL-MAD and LUCA School of Arts.
The worlds we inhabit are shaped by and shape the relationships between people, places, institutions, technologies and our ecological environment. Yet these relationships are increasingly challenged by ecological, social and political transformations. Responding to these challenges requires more than designing new solutions. It calls for designers, researchers and policy makers to question how our worlds have been shaped, how they are organised today, and how they might be transformed in more societally and ecologically just ways. This conference creates the space to bring together fragmented efforts to tackle the above challenges and showcase open, collective practices, methods and tools that enable us to build cross-sector partnerships in different places in the world (cities, villages, neighbourhoods, buildings etc). We want to learn from each other how we can make the transition from failing systems (e.g. flooding neighbourhoods) toward pluralist and more-than-human co-existence (neighbourhoods where water and people can coexist). This can take shape in alternative collective doings of research; novel technical infrastructures, and updated organisational and governance practices in the many fields of research concerned with reworlding (collective design for energy, water, circular and collective building processes; novel soil, food, agricultural practices, etc).
The REWORLDING conference is organised by four networks,
- REWORLDING: an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network focussed on Participatory Design for socio-ecological challenges; (Universiteit Hasselt, University of Limerick, Malmö University, Aalborg University, Università degli Studi di Trento, ETH Zürich, Workroom Brussels, Stad Genk, AsIAm, TRACK, Intercommunale Leiedal, Landscape Choreography, Tænketanken Demokratisk Erhverv, Institute Pilar, AAK (Aalborg Kommune) and ASD Ireland);
- Building Beyond Borders: a cross-border learning platform to enhance knowledge and push action towards regenerative and bioregional design and building processes;
- Architecture Sans Frontières (ASF): an independent network not for profit organisations concerned with social justice, the cultural and environmental aspects of architecture;
- ITTT network (Impact of transdisciplinary and transformative education; Erasmus+ network of University of Liechtenstein, the Free University of Bolzano, Technical University Munchen and Uhasselt) maps out forms of transdisciplinary education within architecture and design and analyzes their long-term effects on key stakeholders, such as students, alumni, lecturers, researchers, project partners, and end-users.
The four networks understand reworlding as an ongoing process of questioning, making and remaking the worlds we share as collectives. It involves looking back at the histories and practices that have shaped our collective present, exploring new ways of designing and living together, and reconsidering our methods, infrastructures, institutions and systems through which collective change can take place.
Through this conference, the networks invite researchers, designers, practitioners, policymakers and other actors to explore how design (research) in different disciplines such as architecture, product design, engineering, computational design and social sciences can contribute to such collective processes of socio-ecological transformation. The overarching ambition is to build shared capabilities across design research, policy, and practice, enabling diverse actors to address socio-ecological transitions in situated, collective ways. We are interested in alternative working practices where grassroots initiatives, designers, policymakers, and civic partners collaborate directly rather than operating in isolation. We aim to mobilize empirical evidence by disseminating field-tested case studies that center on regenerative material reuse, lived realities, and adaptable governance instruments. We aim to show examples of design researchers who translated situated knowledge into systemic change by introducing concrete measures to integrate more-than-human approaches into university curricula, building standards, and municipal policy. It secures long-term impact by constructing open, lasting resources like the open methods toolbox Reworlding Atlas of Synergies, ensuring that these cross-geographic alliances endure far beyond the conference itself.
The conference is structured around three interconnected tracks: Retracing, (Re)building Memories and We Are Policy.
Key Topics:
Reflective and Ethnographic Work on Everyday Socio‑Environmental Realities
Challenging how we engage as designers/researchers in understanding and learning about, in, and with this world
Subthemes
- Retracing Everyday Practices: Situated Knowledges and Hidden Relations
- Seasonal Rhythms, Temporalities and Socio-Environmental Uncertainty
- Marginalised and Community-Led Knowledge in Design Research
READ MORE about RETRACING
Inspiring tangible examples of building with and for communities, while respecting the stories of the past and shaping those of the future
Challenging how we engage as designers/researchers in designing/building this world
Subthemes
- Reused Materials, Soil and Regenerative Building Practices
- Care as Infrastructure: Domestic, Communal and Ecological Forms of Maintenance
- Heritage, Rural Cultural Infrastructure and the Village as a Site of Transformation
READ MORE about (RE)BUILDING MEMORIES
More-than-Human Governance and Policy Design
Challenging how we engage as designers/researchers in organising/governing this world
Subthemes
- Redesigning Policy Institutions
- Redesigning Policy Infrastructures
- Redesigning Policy in Dialogue
READ MORE about WE ARE POLICY
Across tracks
Other themes may also be considered - please contact the coordination team to discuss your ideas.
Rather than treating the different tracks dimensions as separate, the conference invites contributions that move between them. We are particularly interested in contributions that connect reflection with practice, situated knowledge with collective action, and design with broader social, ecological and institutional change.
Within each track, contributors can engage through different formats, including reflective papers, practice-based papers, works and artefacts for exhibition, and works combined with participatory workshops.