UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State is hosting the virtual 2022 Architecture, Interactive Design and Textiles (ArcInTex) Network Conference on April 7-8, which will examine the critical questions researchers, designers, creators and engineers face when thinking about places, ways of living and materials that make up our environment, particularly in a post-COVID-19 environment that is wrought with political, racial, and economic tensions.

Organized by Felecia Davis, associate professor of architecture in the Stuckeman School and director of the Computational Textiles Lab (SOFTLAB) in the Stuckeman Center for Design Computing, the conference has a theme of “Proposals for Other Worlds: Architectures, Materials, Interactions.”

The two-day event will feature keynote lectures by artist and TED speaker Janet Echleman and Sean Ahlquist of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, as well as a meet-and-greet session, panel presentations and open discussions.

The conference will also feature a Ph.D. Forum, which will provide student researchers the opportunity to share and exhibit their projects online as well as exchange ideas with their counterparts from universities around the world.  

“This is the first time that this international conference has been hosted in the United States and it’s important for the Stuckeman School because the ArcInTex meeting is one of the few places where researchers working in architecture connect with researchers working in textile and interaction design,” said Davis. “It is important for Penn State as a member of the ArcInTex network to help share the work that has been ongoing in the United States on this topic with a larger global community. The projects and works presented will be at different scales — from the micro scale of textile design to the macro — and will focus on the design of space and enclosure with textiles.”

Learn more about the event, which is free and open to the public, and register via the 2022 ArcInTex Network Conference website.

The ArcInTex Network is comprised of researchers and practitioners in architecture, interactive design and textiles who together develop ideas, techniques, methods and programs for new perspectives on design for building, dwelling and living. The network accomplishes this through joint research projects, joint applications for funding larger projects, exchange programs on the master’s and research levels, and holding joint conferences and workshop on emergent topics.