Calls for papers

Submissions

Current Call

35.3 Islands

Fabrications The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand  invites papers for a special issue (35.3) guest edited by Ashley Paine (University of Queensland) and Kirsty Volz (Queensland University of Technology) on the theme of “Islands”. Papers are due on 7 February, 2025. 

From spaces of isolation and independence, to archipelagos of connection and knowledge exchange, islands occupy a complex and evocative place in our terrestrial and imaginary worlds. In a Western worldview, islands are at once utopian and dystopian—places of refuge and exile, extravagance and exploitation, paradises and prisons—containing contradictions and contested spatial histories. They offer distance from which to look back and reflect on one’s place in the world, or connote severance from it as places of ostracization: petri dishes of extremism, claustrophobia, paranoia and self-isolation. At the same time, recent scholarship has challenged the insular and spatially bounded concept of islands, adopting an archipelagic approach to oceanic networks of rich interconnected histories that span across political, social and cultural spheres. Such tensions of connection and separation also play out in architectural practice—through islands of discourse and debates—historically visible in certain schools of practice as well as the work of independent practitioners and scholars. Islands are also shaped by architectural practices, from indigenous and colonial to modern and contemporary, from vernacular and regional to global and digital. Islands, therefore, emerge as both sites and subjects of critical historical research, and a lens or position through which to examine the past.

We invite papers that critically reflect upon the many possible interpretations of islands in architectural history: how islands have influenced the production and reception of architecture, and how architecture has contributed to the formation and transformation of island cultures, identities, and environments. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

· The antipodean island-ness of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Interrogations of physical and cultural distance, centre-periphery histories

· Historical studies of the island architecture and building cultures of Oceania—Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia

· Island Histories and Historiographies of Southeast Asia, Nanyang

· Islands of containment: Histories of island fortresses, immigration islands and detention facilities, island quarantine and isolation. COVID bubbles, and the biodomes of self-sustaining environments. The Eden Project, and Buckminster Fuller’s Dome over Manhattan

· Island networks: Archipelagic theory and approaches, oceanic perspectives. Re-thinking boundaries and borders, and redressing continental worldviews. Interconnected island histories and influences.

· Political islands: Architectures of sovereignty and independence, colonisation and control. Strategic islands for military outposts and regional interference. Excised islands. Spaces of exile, self-isolation, and the architecture of Brexit

· Islands of practice: Histories of regional schools and vernacular architectures, as well as solo and independent practitioners. Architecture and individualism, the lone auteur

· Girt by sea: Islands and water, riparian histories. Climate change and island heritage. The architecture and urbanism of floating markets, villages in Southeast Asia

· Island cities: Histories of urban islands. Manhattan. Venice (and Ruskin). Singapore. Dubai’s artificial islands. The city within the city – toward the archipelago

· Fictional islands and island imaginaries: Atlantis, Lilliput, Neverland, and Azkaban

· Islands and indulgence: Sanctuaries and retreats, Coney Island, and Japan’s ‘Art Islands’

· Paradise Island: Studies of island resort architecture. The Gold Coast’s canal islands (Chevron, Hope, Paradise); Bali and the work of Peter Muller. The island resorts of Christine Vadasz

· Treasure Island: Developers and their islands (Keith Williams at Hamilton and Daydream Islands; Alan Bond and Cockatoo Island; Christopher Skase and the island of Majorca)

· Desert island: Spaces of separation, solitude and remoteness

The deadline for papers is February 7, 2025. 

Questions about the special issue can be directed to the guest editors: Ashley Paine () and Kirsty Volz () For submission instructions and portal, go to: https://www.tandfonline/journals/rfab20.

35.2 Housing

Fabrications The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand  invites papers for a special issue (Vol. 35, No. 2) on the theme of Housing, edited by Kelly Greenop and Isabel Rousset. The deadline is 1st November 2024. 

The current housing affordability crisis in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand is well documented across all forms of popular media, and its causes and implications also well documented across scholarly discourse in economics, planning, and the social sciences. The situation is mirrored across the globe with decreasing access to housing in other economically prosperous and developing nations alike. Yet, the trope of a “housing crisis” is far from new and has a longer history that can be traced back to nineteenth-century reformist discourse on the conditions of Europe’s industrial workers. Since Henry Roberts presented model homes for workers at the Great Exhibition of 1851, architecture has long played a visible role in shaping housing debate.

This special issue calls for papers that explore the historical tensions between architecture, housing, and social politics. How can an architectural perspective illuminate the social history of housing? How has the relationship between architecture and society been historically imagined through housing? We are particularly interested in papers that delve into the nuanced dynamics that govern the success or failure of affordable housing projects between architecture and the state and its bureaucratic systems. 

Topics may include, but are not limited to: temporary housing, emergency housing, prefabrication and standardisation; immigrant housing and refugee camps; public housing and the role of the state; First Nations people’s housing, its design, values and historical apprehension; housing for marginalised groups; discourses on affordability, social need and housing security; the speculative house and the role of real estate; the “housing estate” and the relationship of housing to the city; social justice movements and counter-cultural experiments in housing; imagined housing schemes and social utopias; relationships between housing, land, and settler colonialism; transnational networks and the translation of housing design expertise; the legacy of important historians and critics of housing. 

We welcome papers from any period or geography and particularly encourage papers that connect to histories of Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and South-East Asian regions. We also welcome papers that critically reflect on the methods of the housing historian and how architectural perspectives can facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue.

Questions about the special issue should be directed to the journal’s co-editors: Kelly Greenop () and Isabel Rousset () For submission instructions and portal, go to: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rfab20

35.1 Open Issue

Fabrications invites papers for an OPEN issue (Vol.34, no.1). Papers are welcomed on topics addressing the architecture and landscapes of Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific, as are those that focus on other places and in any period. Papers are due by Thursday August 31, 2024.
 
*Please note that papers that are appropriate for an Open issue of the journal can be submitted at any time.  The journal now publishes online first, meaning that your accepted paper will be published on the journal’s page on the publisher’s website once it has gone through the normal editing and proofing process. So you do no need to wait for the completion of the whole issue for the paper to be published online.

Past Calls