“Active Matters” symposium will discuss how desert living can become more eco-friendly.
Environmentalists agree that dense urban living is more eco-friendly (just ask Tel Aviv city architect Yoav David), but desert life is a little if-ier. Living in a sprawling desert, far from water and other resources, could be taxing on the environment since it may require the transportation of food and utilities. But it doesn’t have to be. With some creativity – such as that found at the Israeli Shenkar College of Engineering, Design & Art – desert life can be greener.
After hosting a ten day interdisciplinary workshop exploring environmental studies, manufacturing technologies and parametric design, Shenkar will be holding a symposium about new green habitable environments in the desert (and specifically in the Negev desert).
The organizers of the symposium, Active Matter, “perceive our environment as an ‘ActiveMatter’, immersed in a dense field of visible and invisible forces, connected in a complex system of geological, hydrological and atmospheric relations as well as cultural and social bonds.”
The organizers believe that architects and designers can work more closely with existing natural habitats and “widen their scope of exploration in order to accommodate fully the transformative tendencies of the landscape as well as its performance potentials.”
“Bringing together architects, engineers, product designers, environmentalists and industrial manufacturers,” the symposium aims to “‘stir-up’ an interdisciplinary laboratory, speculating and cultivating the emergence of new infrastructural and recreational systems within the vast ‘Negev Desert’.”
Active Matter will take place on February 26th between 1pm-8pm at the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
Read more about other eco-friendly design conferences:
Israeli Reuse Conference Claims that Big Opportunities Come in Reused Packages
10th Kuwaiti Conference on Natural Resources and Development Kicking Off Tomorrow
Holon Design Museum Hosts Conference About Sustainable Cities
Author: Karen Chernick
Much to the disappointment of her Moroccan grandmother, Karen became a vegetarian at the age of seven because of a heartfelt respect for other forms of life. She also began her journey to understand her surroundings and her impact on the environment. She even starting an elementary school Ecology Club and an environmental newsletter in the 3rd grade. (The proceeds of the newsletter went to non-profit environmental organizations, of course.) She now studies in New York. Karen can be reached at karen (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
