After the successful completion of the first two International PUARL Conferences at the University of Oregon in Portland in the Fall of 2009 and 2011, we at the Portland Urban Architecture Research Laboratory, PUARL, are pleased to announce the next biennial conference titled “Battle for the Life and Beauty of The Earth.” It will focus on problems and issues that we are facing in urban environments and buildings throughout the world today. This conference will take place in Portland, OR in the Fall of 2013, November 1-3, in cooperation with the Collaboration for Inclusive Urbanism, CIU.

Taken from the title of the new book by Christopher Alexander, Hans Joachim Neis, and Maggie Moore Alexander, this year’s conference will focus on the variety of ways in which urban environments and urban buildings, as well as their design and production, can support life, beauty, and wholeness, in addition to confronting the challenges implicit in attaining these goals. Life as a complex web of relationships, as an emergent process over time, and as a human feeling will be discussed in terms of complexity theory, pattern theory, ecology, sustainability, and landscape to address contemporary discourses and debates in environmental design, urban design, and urban architecture.

The three main themes that will be emphasized in this conference are:

• Inclusive Urbanism & the Ecosystems of Cities
• Building Production for a More Beautiful & Resilient World
• (Re)Generative and Emergent Processes

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