Constructions of Tradition: Vernacular Architecture, Country Music, and Auto-Ethnography

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ann Williams ◽  
Larry Morrisey
Author(s):  
Niki WALLACE

It is widely agreed that in order to contribute to transitions towards sustainability, both practitioners and design itself must also transition. This paper presents findings from the first two years of transition in my Australian-based design practice. The paper explores what this transition has required of me personally, politically, and professionally, and draws on cases from my PhD. The PhD and paper are both part of an analytic auto-ethnography of my practice’s transition from ‘making greener things’ towards design for transitions. The projects discussed use ethnography, action research and reflective practices in their temporal approaches. This paper explores how slower methods such as transition design and autonomous design can extend the political reach of a design practice and discusses sacrifice and the financial stabilisation that comes from enveloping old practices within the new. The analysis presented here also reflects on my experiences practicing design for transitions and on data collected through participant engagement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 582-589
Author(s):  
DUNCAN M. YOON
Keyword(s):  

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria Cristofaro

From a phenomenological perspective, the reflective quality of water has a visually dramatic impact, especially when combined with the light of celestial phenomena. However, the possible presence of water as a means for reflecting the sky is often undervalued when interpreting archaeoastronomical sites. From artificial water spaces, such as ditches, huacas and wells to natural ones such as rivers, lakes and puddles, water spaces add a layer of interacting reflections to landscapes. In the cosmological understanding of skyscapes and waterscapes, a cross-cultural metaphorical association between water spaces and the underworld is often revealed. In this research, water-skyscapes are explored through the practice of auto-ethnography and reflexive phenomenology. The mirroring of the sky in water opens up themes such as the continuity, delimitation and manipulation of sky phenomena on land: water spaces act as a continuation of the sky on earth; depending on water spaces’ spatial extension, selected celestial phenomena can be periodically reflected within architectures, so as to make the heavenly dimension easily accessible and a possible object of manipulation. Water-skyscapes appear as specular worlds, where water spaces are assumed to be doorways to the inner reality of the unconscious. The fluid properties of water have the visual effect of dissipating borders, of merging shapes, and, therefore, of dissolving identities; in the inner landscape, this process may represent symbolic death experiences and rituals of initiation, where the annihilation of the individual allows the creative process of a new life cycle. These contextually generalisable results aim to inspire new perspectives on sky-and-water related case studies and give value to the practice of reflexive phenomenology as crucial method of research.


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