EAA 2024

Abstract

Reflecting history in architecture and vernacular design – Directing sustainable futures.

Scholars from Aalto University, Finland, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, National Technical University, Athens and Tampere University, Finland, have proudly joined forces to organize a multidisciplinary session called: ‘Reflecting History in Architecture and Vernacular Design – Directing Sustainable Futures.’ This headline illustrates a session that provides knowledge facilitating essential insights from the past for the development of a sustainable built environment in the future. The objective is to explore the past and offer possibilities for directing the future towards sustainability, to shape our perception of the present and the vision for tomorrow more clearly: ‘Historia magistra vitae,’ wrote Cicero.

Through case studies of architecture and urban design, heritage, and material culture in relation to designing sustainable dwellings and settlements, the approach of sustainable innovations that enrich the cultural heritage of various regions in Europe will be presented and critically analysed. This perspective primarily focuses on place and space and the ways in which design is influenced by sustainable inventions and interventions at sites. By applying architectural theory and history and viewing vernacular heritage as innovations that fit a thriving, sustainable future, the session is expected to provide new insights into creating architecture and ways of living that are sustainable and suitable for the cultural characteristics of different sites in Europe.

We hereby invite scholars in architecture and urban design, architectural conservators, and archaeologists to participate in the session, submit papers, and make contributions within the overall theme of the session, which is specified in four directions: 1) Sustainability, heritage, and the urban space, 2) Innovation, new thinking in architecture, and learning from the past, 3) Expressions of history in sustainable design, 4) Architecture and archaeology in cooperation.