EDRA45NewOrleans

EDRA45NewOrleans: Building With Change, will take place on May 28 – 31 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s conference will focus on new research methods and design strategies for the human habitation of our dynamic environment. Without sacrificing the principles of safety, comfort, justice, cognition, and choice, how can design lead to innovative ways of accepting, absorbing, and reacting to change? Does change present us with design opportunities? Can building with change, in fact, provide opportunity for even greater environmental, social, and economic health and stability? Conference themes will engage diverse approaches to building with change, from resisting dynamic environmental forces to accepting and accommodating them. Sessions will address a range of research and design methods including cognition and developing awareness of change, anticipatory planning for possible future scenarios, and design inquiry about dwelling in a dynamic landscape. EDRA45NewOrleans asks what we can gain by building a more robust relationship between the inhabited and natural environment. As a research community we seek to build a body of knowledge, a combination of design and research that elevates the inhabitable environment to something that is not only beautiful or merely functional but that also adapts to the complex needs of an ever-changing landscape.