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The HOPES Conference is an annual event, held every spring by the Ecological Design Center, a student group at the University of Oregon. Inaugurated in 1994, the conference is an opportunity for students, faculty, community members, and visiting scholars to discuss the relationship between ecology and various design disciplines, and how this connection can produce sustainable solutions to contemporary problems.
The conference consists of a combination of panels, keynote speakers, workshops, exhibitions, and excursions. Past topics addressed during the conference include: environmental literacy, food sustainability issues, religion and the environment, product innovation, and biomimicry. Over the past decade the conference has brought such luminaries as Shigeru Ban, Sim Van der Ryn, Lola Sheppard, Sean Ahlquist, Neri Oxman, Carlo Ratti, Steve Badanes, Francois Roche, David Orr, John Schaeffer, Stephen Kellert, and Clare Cooper Marcus to the University of Oregon campus.
For the past 25 years, an interdisciplinary team of students at the University of Oregon have put on HOPES, an annual design and sustainability conference. Next week, please join us online as we take HOPES to the next level with the first ever 100% virtual HOPES conference! From April 15-17, we will host webinars dedicated to exploring design, ecology, theory, and praxis.
Some of our speakers include S Surface, a curator, architect, and activist currently working as the head of public art for the city of Seattle; Esther Choi, an architect, artist, and architectural theorist presenting on architecture and a Green New Deal; and Pamela Conrad, a landscape architect working to transform challenged urban areas into socially valued and ecologically performing public open spaces. A full list of events is attached and webinar links will be posted at hopes.uoregon.edu/calendar by April 14.
The new virtual format is a great chance to expand the conversation fostered by HOPES to include design students from all across the country. So we are extending a formal invite to your program to join our webinars and other virtual events this April 15-17.
We see this conference as an opportunity to bring the design community together during this unprecedented time. We hope you can join us!
