Blind spots exist in every society, culture, and urban fabric. They can be spatial, social, economic, or policy related. On the one hand, blind spots are typically situations and topics that are obscured by other themes; they fall outside our radar because they are neither considered topical nor pressing enough to be addressed by policy or planning. On the other hand, blind spots also describe necessary places of informality; places and spaces which are overlooked by the authorities, by planning or other users, and thereby allow for indeterminate, unregulated, informal, non-prescribed and open uses.We also understand blind spots as those cities and urban conglomerations that are usually overlooked or sidelined by the Euro-centric canon of urban history or an urban discourse that focuses on those global, fast growing metropolises that provide us with a high level of imagery, staggering data and socio-spatial extremes. Blind spots also relate to approaches, research and teaching projects that look beyond the conventional approaches of architectural and urban history in order to value and champion other ways of surveying and of accounting for cities; ways that aim at transforming the tools with which both citizens and architects might understand cities. In this sense, blind spots refer to different perceptive and representationa
Participation is free of charge and open to the public.
Speakers:
> Teresa Stoppani
> Francesco Sebregondi
> Fernando Quesada
> Marian Potocar
> The SUPERTANKER network
> Professor Bernd Kniess
> Jo Hudson
> Katja Grillner
> Dr Hélène Frichot
> Dr. Isabelle Doucet
> Dr Gary A. Boyd
> Christine M. Boyer
> Sabina Andron
> Paulo Albuquerque
This year’s forum is organised by Dr Florian Kossak, Dr Tatjana Schneider and Dr Stephen Walker.
URBAN BLIND SPOTS is part of on-going research on Radical Urbanism (Kossak/Schneid
Contact
Theory Forum 2012: Urban Blind Spots Sheffield School of Architecture University of Sheffield The Arts Tower, Western Bank Sheffield S10 2TN theoryforum2012
