Celebrating thirty years of partnership between LFU Innsbruck and UT Arlington demands to look back into a successful history of three decades full of new endeavors, experiences, and exchange of skills and knowledge. Celebrating thirty years of partnership also demands to look ahead as the role of a university is strongly tied to the questions of tomorrow. While we celebrate the past, this panel discussion with Dean Gabriela Seifert (LFU), Director Gernot Riether (NJIT), Director Brad Bell (UTA), and Program Coordinator Oswald Jenewein (UTA, LFU) aims to highlight how international academic initiatives as pedagogical tools in architectural education may be expanded in the Epoch of the Anthropocene.In a globalized, increasingly digital world, the role of academic study abroad components in architecture and other design disciplines might be up for discussion. As social media and streaming services provide 4k-footage of major parts of the planet on demand, the role of first-hand experience of local environments dematerializes. International corporations provide streamlined services for the (lucky) citizens of western democracies. The privilege of higher education includes cutting edge technology from plasma-cutters to robotic fabrication. Assignments, exercises, and projects seem to address generic formal conditions as online maps provide accurate, often three-dimensional, site-specific data on natural and built topographies. The ugliness of the complex systems which maintain the built environment have become visible and the scale of industrial production perceivable. As the changing climate draws new edges through landscapes, both politically and geographically, the environmental aspect of study abroad might have become the most significant condition students are unable to perceive through any type of visual media, yet.
19:00 Uhr Panel Discussion:_Gabriela Seifert Dean, Faculty of ArchitectureLFU Innsbruck _Gernot RietherDirector, School of ArchitectureNew Jersey Institute of Technology _Brad Bell Director, School of ArchitectureUT Arlington_Oswald JeneweinProgram CoordinatorExchange LFU, UTA
20:00 Party, Snack and Drink
