Presidents Message, May 19, 2020

Connect, reconnect

Dear Colleagues,

I hope that you are all well and that things function in your “new realities”. It gives me a lot of courage to see how many initiatives have been launched at our various member schools to guarantee a high quality architectural education and that there is a strong effort to support each other with advices, exchange of experiences and ideas. To be in touch is vital, not only for our schools as functioning institutions, but also for our personal well-being: We need to keep our bounds of community, when we are all behind the laptop screens and completely detached from the physical world and impaired of direct communication. The marathon of videoconferences cannot be a complete replacement for the interactions we would usually have at teaching, research and administrative work. Nevertheless, we all have to cope with this extraordinary situation, reflect and plan for the future, which is quite indistinct. Please have a look at our Covid-19 platforms on our website and get in touch (secretariat@eaae.be) if you have best practice examples to share or ideas to initiate actions.

As mentioned already, EAAE had to reschedule the events planned for this year, with the exception of the General Assembly, which will be held as usual end of August 2020. We will be informing you shortly about the agenda and its online format.

  • The 7th CA²RE conference will take place virtually from 10–12 June 2020, together with the 2nd CA²RE+ event entitled “Collective Evaluation of Design Driven Doctoral Training”. Registration is open.
  • Our joint EAAE–ARCC International Conference has been postponed to 11–14 November 2020 and is currently planned in a blended format that would allow participants to be on site as well as to get involved virtually.
  • The first EAAE Deans Summit will take place a year later than originally planned from 22–23 April 2021. The Oslo School of Architecture and Design is still happy to host the event.
  • Also the Education Academy’s Teacher Training and Workshop were postponed and will take place in April 2021, before the deans summit at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
  • The Annual Conference and General Assembly 2021 will take place from 25-27 August at CTU in Prague.

EAAE was invited to support several applications to the recent Erasmus+ and Horizon 2020 calls. We are pleased and willing to support further initiatives of our member schools. Here you can find an overview of the projects EAAE is currently involved.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, EAAE is represented in a working group together with AEC, Cilect, Culture Action Europe, Cumulus, ELIA, EQ-Arts, MusiQuE and SAR which is drafting the so called “Vienna Declaration on Artistic Research”. The purpose of the declaration is to lobby for the artistic research and to foster its visibility. The communication will follow this summer on our website.

I wish you all again health, endurance and resilience.

Best regards,

Oya Atalay Franck

President, EAAE