CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS ISSUE #1

SHIFT: Infrastructure

Infrastructure is the enabling foundation of contemporary civilization, evolving over centuries to meet society's ever-changing needs. Disturbing trends suggest societal needs are increasingly outpacing the capacity of our existing infrastructure strategies and available technologies. This moment in history demands a reconsideration of the conventional, centralized, and technocratic practice of orthodox infrastructure that has subjugated ecological systems and neglected social interconnectedness. 

Initiatives such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 have invested hundreds of billions of dollars into U.S. infrastructure improvements but these funds are being directed largely towards "shovel-ready" improvements to antiquated infrastructure systems. Some of these improvements are indeed necessary, but they are merely short-term solutions. A SHIFT towards a new, integrated approach to infrastructure design and management is imperative. How this needed paradigm shift occurs will depend on creative decision-making and powerful collective efforts led by designers, planners, and communities at every level. This emerging framework of infrastructure must prioritize the quality and health of human experience while operating symbiotically within its ecological context. Rather than adhering to the rigid and deterministic models of the past, this new model must become a reflexive process that adapts temporally and spatially across diverse contexts and scales. 

The inaugural issue, SHIFT: Infrastructure will focus on issues that surround emerging infrastructure, and provide an opportunity to re-think our approach to confronting their many challenges. Our aim is to broaden the traditional notion of infrastructure to include areas such as culture, ecology, and economy, and incorporate differing levels of time, context, and scale; from rural to urban, from local to global, from immediate to imagined. How can the evolution of infrastructure be managed to maximize human and environmental health? How can integrated design approaches develop synergies among infrastructural systems that promote social equity, ecological resiliency, and economic prosperity?

We call for exceptional examples of student research and innovation that answer these questions and advance the practice of Landscape Architecture and allied professions.

Submission Deadline: June 1, 2010

JURY

Kristina Hill - Ass. Professor, Chair, Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia
Jeff Hou  - Ass. Professor, Chair, Landscape Architecture, University of Washington
Mark Johnson - FASLA, Founder and President of Civitas, Inc
Walter Kulash - PE, Green Streets Initiative
Bill Wenk - FASLA, Wenk Associates. Inc

For more information on the call and how to submit visit our website: http://design.ncsu.edu/shift