IMDC Events

The aim of the symposium brings together a wide range of speakers and an audience from various fields of design, art, science and industry.

2022 Mobility Metamorphosis Symposium

The Mobility Metamorphosis symposium will discuss the possibilities of a just transition in urban mobility, the cultural, technological, societal, ethical and aesthetic drivers of change which should inform the future designs for autonomous, shared, and sustainable mobility. It brings together researchers on architecture, city, mobility, technology and environment to address the need of cross-disciplinary collaboration to develop mobility solutions.

2020 Designing Intelligence into our Cities

The symposium explores what it means to design intelligence into our cities and how this differs from the smartness that has often been used to describe future cities?

2019 Transformation: arts <> cities <> mobility <> products <> services <> technology

The programme was divided into three sessions, each focused on one of the key topics: Transforming Cities and Society, Transforming Creativity and Practice and Transforming Mobility and Technology.

The Journal Club is an internal event open to RCA staff and students which brings together PhD students and researchers to discuss a paper, book, article, professional report or similar. The presenter will briefly present a paper and then lead a discussion about the paper including its subject, how well (or otherwise) the paper is written, makes an arguments, and other pros and cons.

Details on how to join the sessions is available on the RCA intranet.

2023 papers include:

Thursday, 23 February 2023

• Key speaker: Varvara Keidan Shavrova, PhD candidate, RCA School of Arts & Humanities.
• Bio: Varvara Keidan Shavrova is an artist, curator and researcher at the MFA Goldsmiths, University of London and also LAHP-funded PhD Candidate at Royal College of Art, School of Arts & Humanities.
• Title of paper: The Art of Self Determination - How the creative communities in Ukraine and the Baltic can resist the Russia's Invasion’.

Thursday, 23 March 2023

• Key speaker: Lissy Hatfield, Research Associate, AiDLab.
• Bio: Lissy is an interdisciplinary designer and now Research Associate for AiDLab. While undergoing her Masters, in Textiles, at the RCA, she implemented knitting into a variety of collaborative projects, working with Architects, Biomedics and Engineering students. Using knit as a problem-solving tool, Lissy’s research explores its potential outside of apparel. She is now using this Textile and Design knowledge working on a digital tool for material identification, knowledge and selection with her AiDLab group.
• Title of paper: Textile Logic for a soft space by Mette Ramsgaard Thomse (CITA) and Karin Bech (CITA) and I would specifically like to discuss the section: Defining a Textile Logic, pages 19 - 23.

Thursday, 27 April 2023

• Key speaker: Selin Zileli, Research Fellow in Agents, Interaction and Complexity in University of Southampton.
• Bio: Selin is researching the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI, specifically the role of trust in smart mobility and human-centred IoT implementations in urban mobility. As part of her research, she is working on the AutoTrust project that is funded by ESPRC focuses on crowdsourcing data about journey experience.
• Title of paper: Prochner, I. and Godin, D., 2022. Quality in research through design projects: Recommendations for evaluation and enhancement. Design Studies, 78, p.101061.

Thursday, 22nd June 2023

• Key speaker: Domenica Landin Burbano, PhD Candidate, Design Research.
• Bio: Domenica Landin is a designer and second-year PhD student at the School of Design. Her research looks at material transitions in sustainable design innovation. She is interested in warm data and what it can tell us about ethics and decision-making.
• Title of paper: Gigerenzer, G. (2022) 'What AI Is Best At: The Stable-World Principle' in How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms. Allen Lane, pp. 37–56.