Production Studies International Conference 2024
25-28 March 2024
Hosted by the TF/TK Project
@ School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University
How would knowledges and practices of architecture and design be transformed if labour, know-how and processes of building production were made central?
Keynote Speakers: Sérgio Ferro (France) Usina CTAH (Brazil) Christine Wall (UK)
Exhibition Opening: Building: An exhibition under construction @ The Farrell Centre
Production Studies [PS] is an emergent field advancing the critical understanding of relations between architectural design and the production and labour of building. It arises out of TF/TK—a four year research collaboration involving more than two dozen academics and practitioners from UK, Brazil, Ireland and the US—which draws on Sérgio Ferro’s central insight that architecture’s dismissal and neglect of building labour is no mere oversight but rather a structural necessity of capitalist development to maintain the profession’s capacity to act ‘on’ and ‘over’ the building site.
Production Studies research is concerned with mainstream design-labour relations and its histories; with wider practices where design or intellectual labour is separated from production; and—recognising that in many parts of the world building takes place through self-organised processes—with other modes and possibilities of building production. Within TF/TK our research and practice within is diverse - from technical aid in Brazil and in the UK, temple stone-carvers in India, rural migrant building workers in China, maker-spaces in London, unions in the US and in Germany, art fabricators, popular and traditional forms of building, land, building materials and techniques to Production Studies theory and methods. Our researchers include scholars, practitioners and activists in fields such as architecture, history, politics, anthropology, art history, and social movements.
We now invite researchers and practitioners to join us in exploring this new field.
What resistances, alliances and practices could we turn to as emancipatory alternatives to hegemonic production where building know-how and co-operation are valued and affirmed?
What can we learn from studies of mainstream building processes and design/site relations? What historical and contemporary discourses, processes and techniques have been mobilised by architects and by industry to secure the disqualification and subordination of building workers?
How does Production Studies challenge architectural theory and its assumptions and silences?
What structural similarities and specific differences can critical discussion across different socio-spatial contexts and cultures of building reveal?
How can Production Studies explore pressing concerns around climate change, extractivism, indigeneity, gender and sexuality, anti-racism and coloniality?
What other theoretical framings, bodies of research and practices can inform or expand Production Studies?
Listen here to ‘Who is Sérgio Ferro?’—a podcast produced by Cap-a-Pie. Professor Silke Kapp who leads the TF/TK Translations Work Package introduces Ferro’s arguments. [HERE]
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We are hosting three kinds of calls:
Open Call for 20 minute papers on Production Studies in response to the overview description and questions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the TF/TK core team. [link here to the team on the info-wall]
Thematic Calls for papers on specific topics convened by TF/TK researchers, who will review abstracts and co-ordinate panels. See individual descriptions below：
• Ecologies of Production and the Production of Ecologies
• Her Know-how: Gendered struggles over skill in the production of space
• Historians as Producers
• Methods for Studying the Building Site
• Migration and Mobilities in Production
• Technology, Labour and Construction Workers
• The Production of the ArchitectOpen Call for 90 minute workshops in response to the Production Studies overview and questions. These should be proposals for an interactive activity led by the proposer/s and should fit within a 90 minute time slot. Please include preferred numbers, details of space needed and any other requirements.
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Plenary Sessions: Production Pedagogies; Translating Across Spaces
Launches: Sérgio Ferro, Architecture from Below: An Anthology (MACK, 2024); Production Studies Series Booklets Set 1; Production Studies Audio Episodes - TF/TK with Cap-a-Pie
PSIC#2024 is in-person only.
The conference runs from the afternoon of Monday 25 March and closes evening of Wednesday 27 March with an optional day of trips and next steps talks on Thursday 28 March. It will include a mix of plenary sessions, workshops and paper panels (typically 4 x 20 minute papers). We are planning to offer simultaneous interpretation between English and Brazilian Portuguese for one strand across the event.
Please note that paper sessions will be self-chaired. Panellists will be expected to read the papers of the other contributors and meet in advance online to determine how they want to organise and manage the session. This is a method of collective organising that we have developed during our own project to deepen exchange of research between conference participants. There may be some variations in details for thematic call panels.
Registration Fee will be covered by TF/TK funding from the AHRC. Delegates are responsible for covering their own travel and accommodation costs.
A small delegate fee (with reduced student rate) might however be needed to cover additional costs of running one strand of the conference with simultaneous interpretation between English and Brazilian Portuguese. Full details to follow.
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Translating Ferro / Transforming Knowledges of Architecture, Design and Labour for the New Field of Production Studies (TF/TK) is a four year collaborative project between researchers in Brazil and the UK funded by FAPESP and the AHRC with generous support from project partners Grenoble School of Architecture and Central St Martins, and …. [in Brazil]. The project commenced in October 2020 and is organised around two main research activities.
The translation into English and dissemination of three main texts of Sérgio Ferro edited by Silke Kapp and Mariana Moura, and translated by Ellen Heyward and Ana Naomi de Sousa, to be published by MACK between March 2024 and September 2025. Architecture from Below will launch at PSIC#2024.
• Sérgio Ferro, Architecture from Below: An Anthology (March 2024)
• Sérgio Ferro, Design and the Building Site: And Complementary Essays (Sept 2024)
• Sérgio Ferro, Construction of Classical Design (Sept 2025)
Various talks by Sérgio Ferro are available with subtitles on the TF/TK info-wall [HERE] and you can listen to a short podcast by Professor Silke Kapp [HERE]. If you would like access to any of the draft translations or are interested in joining us for our monthly online reading groups please get in touch productionstudies2024@ncl.ac.uk
2. Developing and consolidating the much-needed field of Production Studies with Ferro’s texts providing a catalyst and common ground for the ongoing work of more than two dozen researchers whose practice and research already explores PS concerns. We meet online regularly and have come together in person for three symposia – once in London and twice in São Paulo. We have hosted many public talks including in 2022 a five-week series of panels ‘Production Studies: Work in Progress’ at Central St Martins, London [HERE]. PSIC#2024 is the final gathering of the project and the first to make an open call for contributions. Outputs include a Production Studies website, bibliography and archive and publications:
• Production Studies Series, booklets #1-8 available March 2024; booklets #9-15 available Sept 2024 - lead editor, José Lira with Lara Melotti Tonsig, Will Thomson and Katie Lloyd Thomas.
• Building Sites: Architecture, labour, and the field of production studies (Routledge, 2024) lead editor, Matt Davies with Will Thomson, João Marcos de Almeida Lopes and Katie Lloyd Thomas.
We are looking at publishing a special issue and second anthology about Production Studies as a result of PSIC#2024.