Desire Designum Design the Fourth Design European Academy of Design Conference Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal: 10th

Desire Designum Design the Fourth Design European Academy of Design Conference Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal: 10th - 12th April 2001

Ingram, Jack

Abstract

When the European Academy of Design (EAD) was founded to encourage a feeling of community between researchers, teachers and reflective practitioners of design, at the heart of its vision was the intention to encourage a wider participation in academic design debate. Accordingly it was launched in Salford in 1995, at a conference announced as the first of a biennial series. This most recent conference, Desire, Designum, Design, maintains the momentum generated by the launch conference, Design Interfaces, and further developed by Design Contexts (Stockholm, Sweden, 1997), and Design Cultures (Sheffield, UK, 1999). All four events have shared the aim of gathering together an eclectic mix of design-related topics, using the stimulus of a conference title chosen to encourage contributors to reflect on the nature of their subject. In exploring the nature of the boundaries of design disciplines, and examining linkages between them and with areas outside the normal limits of design thinking, the papers in Aveiro served their purpose. They probed assumptions, speculated about futures, reflected on past and present practice, and presented work in progress for comment, in the true spirit of academic conferences. Further, the event provided the stimulus for debate about the nature and purpose of conferences in general and EAD conferences in particular: some of the points made will be reported in this review, but first let us consider the main body of the conference.