INTEGRAL DESIGN & RESEARCH LECTURE SERIES
Università Iuav di Venezia
Mark DeKay, AIA, Professor of Architecture, University of Tennessee, USA
Lecture outline
Lecture Series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLupJvAA-uIP4lpqUQ_S5CIyaFrl-138Yq
Along with four collaborators, I gave a series of lectures for Iuav. The series of presentations and discussions introduced a framework for thinking about design and design research at any scale. It is an approach built on the “integral theory” of the independent philosopher, Ken Wilber and developed for architecture in my book Integral Sustainable Design: transformative perspectives (with Susanne as editor). In our contemporary times, we find ourselves in a messy terrain of competing and partial theories. The integral approach starts with the notion that everyone is partially right and then attempts to examine how, together, mixed approaches from different perspectives help us understand any problem more fully. The collaborative teams represented in this series use the approach because we have found it to be useful in tackling and making sense of the difficult and complex problems facing the design and planning disciplines today. Throughout the series, participants learned about diverse “integrally-informed” applications in sustainable design, watershed planning, architectural photography, design to address climate change, people’s inhabitation of buildings, biophilic design and research project methods.
INTEGRAL PERSPECTIVES: Design and Climate Change
March 29, 2021
Mark DeKay and Susanne Bennett gave the third in a series o five lecture for Iuav University Venice.
Understanding the climate crisis across different fundamental perspectives and multiple contemporary worldviews. Solving the climate crisis by design; design’s multiple roles in the solution. What is missing in the environmental and sustainable design conversation. Successes and failures of the lecturers’ employing the Integral Model to audiences in four countries.
Communicating the Climate Crisis
Lecture and discussion by Susanne Bennett and Mark DeKay. Integral European Conference, May 26–31, Siofok, Hungary (online)
From different integral framings the climate crisis looks radically different and its solutions also vary. As author and editor of a book on integral sustainable design, we each have 13 years of experience in the scholarship of applying integral thought. Recently, we have delivered numerous presentations on the topic of "Solving the Climate Crisis by Design." This paper presents four different integrally-informed approaches for disseminating this scholarship and research to academic and crossover communities. Audiences in Lebanon, Scotland, Australia and USA consisted of design and construction schools, building science educators and a mixed audience at a spirituality and peace centre. Models included two different multiperspectival "4-quadrant" approaches, a "Big-3" approach, and a format where worldview levels dominate. Each presents the problem of climate change and how building and urban design can provide solutions.
Presentation design and scholarship about this work are guided by an integral methodological pluralism (IMP) with reflective practitioner (Schön) and emergent learning (Darling) infuences. We typically present a narrative of 40-60 minutes, informed by a scholarship history where an integral approach informs the content, the message, the structure of the talks, their delivery, and how we assess and improve this dissemination over time. We learned to only speak integral to integral, that much bad news activates a collective shadow, that pluralistic values and rational science miss the opportunity to enroll the pre-rational level and that a multilevel message is needed.
Link to Workshop Presentation:
https://www.academia.edu/video/kALV3l
Link to Conference Paper:
https://www.academia.edu/43205404/COMMUNICATING_THE_CLIMATE_CRISIS_BY_DESIGN
Unpacking Integral Thought
October 1, 2020
Lecture by Mark DeKay and Susanne Bennett to University of Tennessee APX's "Mind of the Maker" series.
Using the Integral Model, we have given talks on “Solving the climate crisis by design” in five countries. Underlying what we deliver is a powerful conceptual technology that can give you access to breaking open any complex problem and generating more effective solutions. We will pull back the veil from our usual lecture to show you how we use the four foundational integral perspectives to make sense of both the thorny situation of climate change and what designers can do about it.
Link to Lecture:
https://www.academia.edu/video/Ekpy8j
Dekay, Bennett & KaratZAS lead photo course in greece
The class at the Acropolis Museum, Athens
Click for video montage clip
In May of 2019, 3 staff and 10 students trekked 2600 km of Greece by foot, bus, ferry and plane to study architecture and landscapes from the ancient classical sites to contemporary works, using photography to document, represent and express. Developed and conducted by prof. of architecture Mark DeKay, editor and coach Susanne Bennett, and architectural photographer Pygmalion Karatzas, we shot only in RAW format and fully manual mode, post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop. The course takes as a theme the human experience of buildings and landscape, particularly, the experience of nature and natural forces—in urban and village settings.
Building on the instructors’ collaboration and scholarship of architectural photography, students engaged its expressive, editorial and documentary types, in the technology of digital production and the presentation of work. Each photographer developed a personal creative intention to guide the artistic vision. It was a time of breakthroughs, transformations and communions with people and place.
Dekay and Bennett Help Formulate IDF
Mark Dekay and Susanne Bennett joined the School of Architecture and Built Environment as visiting scholars for two weeks in March. Dekay and Bennett worked with the five 2017 Integral Design Futures (IDF) project teams including around 30 of the School’s researchers and a significant number of Early Career Researchers (ECRs).
Dekay’s and Bennett’s input helped formulate how IDF can inform research collaboration in practice, how the process results can be articulated as research outputs and how the real-world impacts of the research might be disseminated to the public-at-large.
Their work consisted of two half-day workshops with each of the project teams; leading to a Symposium in Melbourne on March 23rd that launched IDF publicly. The projects presented at the symposium were:
During their visit, DeKay and Bennett helped select four new IDF seed projects for 2018. The four projects were funded for up to $9000 each. Two projects were led by ECRs. The four new projects are:
Engaging with rural communities Integral design Futures framework (IDF) to sustain the culture of building: the case of Anganwadi Ajjarkad in India
On a Mission: redeveloping a resilient community centre for a Lorne church
Towards End-user Engagement in Australia Green Star revolution
Integral Life Cycle Appraisal (LCA) of a Hybrid Media façade building project
Link to Deakin University Australia Blog: https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/ab/2018/05/23/dekay-and-bennett-help-formulate-idf/
DeKay and Bennett headline Sustainability Week in Beirut
Professor Mark DeKay and Susanne Bennett, a UT volunteer, headlined Sustainable Design Week at the American University in Beirut; co-delivering a lecture entitled “Solving the Climate Crisis by Design” and leading a three-day workshop for students. The workshop, “Pulchritude, Pattern & Performance,” used DeKay’s book, Sun, Wind & Light: architectural design strategies, 3rd edition, along with a game, “Bundle-Up!” that the couple developed. Bundle-Up! is designed to help students and practitioners learn strategies at multiple scales from the book and to practice collaborative learning and designing in teams.
DeKay and Bennett were joined by Martin Rauch, UNESCO Honorary Professor from Austria, an international earth construction expert, and Arturo Vittori, Italian architect and industrial designer who focuses on the "Warka Water Project." The week of workshops held October 5-7, 2016, culminated in keynote lectures which were part of the Areen Lecture Series in the Department of Architecture and Design at AUB. The theme was ”High Tech – Low Tech – Rethinking Design Tools and Strategies.” All three leaders use “high thought” solutions that express as low or appropriate technology in solutions as simple as possible.
Both trained by Al Gore in presentation via the organization, Climate Reality, DeKay and Bennett addressed the rapidly changing climate, extreme weather situation, evidence of global climate change around the world and in the Middle East, the role of architecture and cities in creating greenhouse gases, and the important contribution that design can make in solving the climate crisis. According to NASA, the Middle East is in the midst of the worst drought in 900 years. They presented solutions from Sun, Wind & Light, ranging from fundamental archetypes to passive systems and high-performance envelope design to green power.
DeKay and Bennett’s presentation is offered without fee; to schedule a presentation in your school or conference, contact Susanne Bennett.
Prof. Dekay’s publications can be found here.
Solving the Climate Crisis by Design
Integral Sustainable Design
Link to Deakin University Australia Blog: https://blogs.deakin.edu.au/ab/2018/03/15/susanne-bennett-mark-dekay-public-lecture/
A lecture by Mark DeKay and Susanne Bennett at the Deakin University School of Architecture and Built Environment, Geelong, Victoria, Australia. March 21, 2018.
DeKay Gives Keynote at South African Forum
Mark DeKay gave a keynote address at the Architectural Education Forum, hosted by the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The AEF is an African organization with members from a dozen countries that holds regular international symposia on design education.
Mark’s talk, entitled “Exploring New Terrains: the Next Design School,” headlined the “Theory at All Scales” portion of the “Architectural Education @ Different Scales” symposium, which met September 3–4, 2016.
Link to article:
dekay lectures on climate change in India
In December 2014, Mark gave an invited lecture and discussion, “Reversing Climate Change by Design,” to the school L J School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, India. In 2000, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Ahmedabad at CEPT University, so the trip, which also included presenting two papers at the PLEA conference, was a homecoming.