MAB14

Dr. Karolina M. Zielinska-Dabkowska: Critical Perspectives on Media Architecture: Is it still possible to design projects without negatively affecting urban nighttime environments and will the future remain dynamic, bright and multi-colored?

Paper Session 3: Critical Perspectives and Urban Curation

Abstract: Nowadays, due to advances in electrical devices, new digital media, lighting, information and communication technologies, cities are being used 24/7. The paper discusses critical aspects of Media Architecture in the context of public spaces as well as urban nighttime environments from the perspective of a practising lighting architect. The author examines recent issues of negative design approaches and presents proposals for improving future projects in the form of guiding principles. Additionally, to better illustrate the phenomenon, an attempt has been made to standardize terminology and to clarify the topic of Media Architecture in the context of artificial light used in the urban environment based on the author’s practical and theoretical research work in the field.

Dr Karolina M Zielinska-Dabkowska

About Dr. Karolina M. Zielinska-Dabkowska, RIBA, IALD, IES, CIE, MSLL
With Ph.D. degree on architectural lighting design and Master degrees in Architecture and Urban planning at Gdansk University of Technology/PL and Architectural Engineering at University of Hildesheim/D, Karolina pursued lighting as a career working for world-renowned firms such as: L-plan Lighting, Berlin/D; Fisher Marantz Stone, New York/USA; Speirs and Major Associates, Light Bureau, London/UK and Reflexion AG, Zurich/CH.

As a lighting designer she was involved in projects ranging from transport, commercial headquarters, hospitality and leisure, retail, private residences to landscape and urban master-planning schemes in Europe, the US, Russia and the Middle East.

She is a professional member of International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD), Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), International Commission on Illumination (CIE) and Society of Light and Lighting (SLL).

Since 2008 she is also actively involved in lighting education at the university level lecturing/mentoring master students in their final-year thesis projects at Faculty of Architecture and Design at University of Applied Sciences, Technology, Business, and Design in Wismar/Germany and KTH Stockholm/Sweden.

She has participated in a number of international conferences, and has written articles on lighting, architecture and design for national and international publications.

Paper Session 3: Critical Perspectives and Urban Curation
This session takes place in the morning on November 22. It features five talks:

James Miller: Media in Built Environments – the Technologies of Mediatization

Gavin Sade: Aesthetics of Urban Media Façades

Tanya Toft: Situations of Presence – Reclaiming public space in the urban digital gallery

Karolina M. Zielinska-Dabkowska: Critical Perspectives on Media Architecture

Selena Savic and Teresa Heitor: Probing the Network: Architecturality of Wireless Infrastructure