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- Convenors:
-
Ronja Trischler
(Technische Universität Dortmund)
Christine Neubert (University of Hamburg)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
Starting from the premise that practices of creating the past, present and future are interconnected, our panel discusses similarities and differences between building and repairing and how their connection can inspire future design and strengthen the collaboration between STS and engineering.
Description
Repair and construction can both be considered ubiquitous, albeit often ‘invisible’ work. While repair is usually understood in relation to the past, building is typically conceived of as a means to shape the future: we repair old paintings or artefacts, technologies and machines, and we build new houses, infrastructures or unique technical systems. However, construction is also based on past decisions and starts from existing conditions (which it might alter or demolish in the process), and repair practices also shape the future.
Science and Technology Studies (STS) in particular emphasize the fundamental social relevance of repair and maintenance and thus address broader questions about the temporal in-/stability of social practice and complement a previous emphasis on (technological) innovation. Repair, then, ‘is just another mode of building the world’ (Pontille 2025) and can also be connected to the field of construction, in which the possibility to repair has become an essential part of contemporary architecture and (civil) engineering.
In our panel, we want to strengthen a collaboration between STS research and engineering and construction in order to contribute to preparing a resilient future. Starting from the notion that the practices of creating the past, present, and future are interconnected, our panel focuses on how the practical and conceptual similarities and differences between building and repairing can inspire future design practices.
We invite contributions that focus on the practical relationships between building and repairing. We are particularly interested in papers that discuss repair’s roles in building, the roles of construction during repairing (in different fields), studies of cases which link repair and construction (such as reuse or circular building), as well as conceptual ideas about building as repairing and repairing as building.