Round the Table: A Planetary Classroom Beyond the 2D Frame

About

Round the Table is an experimental virtual roundtable in 3D format. From the lessons that we have learnt in the past year, can we imagine a more sustainable, inclusive, interactive ands accessible educational environment that helps us to communicate beyond the 2D frame? Most importantly, how would this shift bring changes to our urban environment and the way we distribute tasks between the virtual/physical? The idea of ‘Globally Virtual, Locally Physical’ suggests a search into the prospects of knowledge sharing at the planetary-scale, beyond disciplinary and geographical borders. 

This two-session roundtable, brings together educators, students and software groups who are working and learning inter-disciplinarily between both the virtual and physical worldwide to discuss the future of our education and the tools that interface us. In the same spirit, each session will take place in a WebVR space that is multiplayer accessible via any mobile/desktop devices.

This event is organised by Provides Ng and Alberto Fernandez - respectively a Tutor and PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, and is supported and funded by UCL’s Researcher-led Initiative Awards.  

Schedule

3 September | 10:00 | Decentralised Education: P2p Learning

Decentralised Education: P2p Learning 

How can traditional means of education be disrupted and diversified, and should it?

Guests are invited from all over the world to share their experience and visions in (de)centralising education and knowledge dissemination. The roundtable will explore how different forms and scales of institutions, conferences, platforms, and educators may form a global peer-to-peer collaborative network. In particular, the role of immersive tools and digital technologies will be discussed, pondering on how we may distribute educational tasks between the virtual and the physical.

Opening Introduction: Prof. Mario Carpo and featuring talks from:

• Deepcity by EPFL, Lucía Jalón Oyarzun & Dario Negueruela del Castillo
• CAADRIA Hong Kong, Adam Fingrut
• ZHCODE by Zaha Hadid Architects, Vishu Bhooshan
• BME, Sarolta Rab, Andràs Gyökèr, Melinda Bognàr
• Fieldstation Studio, Michiel Helbig & Corneel Cannaerts + RC19 students
• @R.E.Ar_ , David Doria, Baha Odaibat, Nikoletta Karastathi

24 September | 15:00 | The Phygital in Education

The Phygital in Education 

This roundtable, in two parts, discusses the phygital, its application in education, and the potential impacts on our built environment.

With contributors engaged in the interaction and exchange between the physical and the digital, including developing phygital tools, sharing phygital skills, to hosting events via phygital means, this roundtable explores the processes of how the phygital is taught and how the phygital helps in teaching. It will ask, would the concept of 'virtually global, locally physical’ accelerate an evolution in the traditional socioeconomic models of education, and what form might it take?

Opening introduction: Roberto Bottazzi

Featuring talks from: 

• Mozilla Hubs, Matt Cool
• Houdini School, Debra Isaac & Eli Joteva
• Phygitalism, Ann Kon, Yana Saykovskaya & Oleg Yusupov
• Design Morphine, Michael Pryor
• ARhead.io, Ivan Puzyrev
• CAADfutures, Biayna Bogosian & Evangelos Pantazis 
• SIGraDi, David Sperling and David Torreblanca
• Strelka Institute Public Program, Katya Popova 

29 October | 10:00 - 13:00 | The Phygital to Cyber-physical

The last roundtable of the series discusses in-depth Phygital and Cyber-physical discourses. Through conversations, architects and technologists share their projects in the field, speculating on novel communication spaces that are transformative to the ways in which we collaborate - human-human, human-machine, and machine-machine interactions. The roundtable's guests will develop a critical rethink on the future of collaborative work and education - a collaborative intelligence - and how that may manifest and influence the use and design of the built environment. 

Featuring talks from:

• Phygitalism, Daria Mukhina, Ann Kon, Oleg Yusupov
• ARhead.io, Ivan Puzyrev
• Strelka Institute, Nicolay Boyadjiev
• McNeel Europe, Luis Fraguada
• Uchile Studio 6, Camilo Guerrero, Diego Rossel
• Graphisoft, Miklós Szövényi-Lux, Agnes Márta Gaschitz, Agnes Márta Gaschitz
• The Bartlett, Architectural Design MArch RC2: Robotic Architecture, Valentina Soana

More information

• Urban Design MArch programme page 
• About B-Pro

Image: '(Un)learning', from Urban Design MArch, RC19