University of Porto | IPCA Themes

Porto | PORTUGAL : July 6-8, 2027

Heritage(s) 2027: UNESCO Perspectives: Cultural Pasts – Urban Futures–

Conference: July 6-8, 2027 | Abstracts: July 20, 2026

Organised by AMPS and the University of Porto, in collaboration with the University of IPCA – Polytechnic Institute of Cávado e Ave, the conference has a number of strands. Themes of research that are of particular interest to the University of Porto and IPCA include Museums & Archives; Technology & Digital Art; Cultural & Material Heritage; the Politics of Memory and Sustainability.

Specifically, several members of the coordinating group have specific research projects and themes they would like to share with the audience. Delegates, working in these fields are welcomed to participate in specific strands. Examples include:

Alice Semedo | Dissonant Memories in Practice: Mediation, Agonism and the Politics of Interpretation in Museums
Bruno Giesteira | Technological Mediations of Embodied Design and Cultural Symbolism: AI, XR & Sensory Interfaces in Symbolic Heritage
Jorge Pereira | Dissenting Archives: Critical Heritages and Archival Practices of Alternative Cultures
Pedro Amado & Cristina Ferreira | Editorial Heritages: Politics of Type and Image: Analyzing power dynamics in Graphic Languages Across Global Regional Identities
Lígia Lopes | Matter & Memory: New materials as a reinterpretation and preservation of cultural and material heritage
Rui Mendonça | Designing Sustainability Through Accessible Innovation: Applied research in Recyclable Materials & Inclusive Design
Rodrigo Carvalho | Digital Art: Recreating the Past Through Contemporary Digital Technologies
Júlio Dolbeth & Rui Santos | Illustration, Oral and Popular Narratives: Documenting and Reinterpreting Endangered Stories

ALICE SEMEDO | Dissonant Memories in Practice: Mediation, Agonism and the Politics of Interpretation in Museums

This area of research explores how museums produce and mediate dissonant memories through curatorial and educational practices. Informed by agonistic and critical heritage perspectives, it considers interpretation as a political process shaped by institutional power, conflict and temporal approaches that resist closure, reconciliation and premature consensus.

BRUNO GIESTEIRA | Technological Mediations of Embodied Design and Cultural Symbolism: AI, XR & Sensory Interfaces in Symbolic Heritage

This research explores how artificial intelligence, extended reality, and sensory interactive technologies reshape embodied design and somaesthetic engagement with cultural symbolism, emphasising the body as a primary locus of emotional experience, affective perception, and symbolic meaning-making within immersive, adaptive, and computational heritage environments.

JORGE PEREIRA | Dissenting Archives: Critical Heritages & Archival Practices of Alternative Cultures

This research field examines how counter‑cultures, alternative movements, and marginal communities create archival practices that resist dominant narratives. It explores the “archival turn” as a critical tool for preserving dissident heritages and understanding tensions between institutional memory, insurgent documentation, and collective identity‑making.

PEDRO AMADO & CRISTINA FERREIRA | Editorial Heritages: Politics of Type and Image: Analyzing Power Dynamics in Graphic Languages Across Global Regional Identities

This research aims to incite participants to explore both the evolution and the state-of-the-art of editorial media, bridging traditional printing heritages with contemporary digital multi-script systems. By analyzing North/South dynamics, or the East/West tensions, we’ll explore typographic and photographic narratives to foster inclusivity, questioning how recovered design languages can counteract global homogenization and preserve cultural identity in a post-digital world.

LÍGIA LOPES | Matter & Memory: New materials as a reinterpretation and preservation of cultural and material heritage

This research examines how design contributions to the development of new materials, leveraging multidisciplinary teams where the designer’s role establishes relationships between materialisation and preservation of individual and collective memories, cultural and social heritage, and tangible and intangible representations.

RUI MENDONÇA | Designing Sustainability Through Accessible Innovation: Applied Research in Recyclable Materials & Inclusive Design

This research examines how applied design research can advance environmental, economic, and social sustainability through the development of products using waste and recyclable materials. Focusing on low-cost production processes, feasibility, and inclusive design strategies, it explores how industrial and product design can generate accessible, scalable, and socially responsible innovation grounded in material experimentation and real-world application.

RODRIGO CARVALHO | Digital Art: Recreating the Past Through Contemporary Digital Technologies

This research includes projects and case studies that use modern digital tools, such as code, AI, motion design, or animation, to revisit and recreate artworks from the past.

JÚLIO DOLBETH & RUI SANTOS | Illustration, Oral and Popular Narratives: Documenting and Reinterpreting Endangered Stories

This research explores how illustration preserves and reinvents oral narratives, positioning the illustrator as a cultural mediator and addressing ethical challenges in translating intangible heritage into contemporary visual forms.

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Critical Heritages

Interdisciplinary:

The conference forms part of the AMPS Critical Heritages initiative that straddles two of its research programs: The Mediated City and Critical Futures. Under the remit of the Mediated City, AMPS explores how technologies and medias inform the various sectors including heritage, art and the built environment – as both sites of exploration and documentation. Under the remit of Critical Futures, we critique questions of heritage, cultures, communities and a range of social issues, people and place. Examples include heritage gentrification, social inclusion in sites of heritage and the sustainable development of both heritage and non-heritage sites globally.

In bringing together strands of thinking in these areas under the Critical Heritages Initiative, we seek to function as a site for exploration, knowledge exchange and the generation of new insights into questions of heritage from an interdisciplinary perspective. Examples of disciplines that have participated include:

Publications

Research + Publication Program

The Critical Heritages program draws upon the AMPS publication network based on the journal and book series with several international publishing houses:

In addition, the work of researchers is shared through the AMPS Academic YouTube channel, its series of international conferences and its associated proceedings publications.

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Sample Books

The Space of Image: Architectural Experience through Media. (eds) Gul Kacmaz Erk, Nic Theo, June Jordaan. Intellect Books, 2024
Narrating the City: Mediated Representations of Architecture, Urban Form and Social Life. (ed) Ayşegül Akçay Kavakoğlu. Intellect Books, 2023
Urban Histories in Practice: Morphologies and Memory. (eds) Jeffrey Kruth & Steven Rugare. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022
Participatory Practice in Space, Place, and Service Design: Questions of Access, Engagement and Creative Experience. (ed) Kelly L. Anderson. Vernon Press, 2022
Place-Based Sustainability: Research and Design Extending Pathways for Ecological Stewardship. (ed) Jason Montgomery. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022
The Complex City: Social and Built Approaches and Methods. (ed) Caroline Donnellan. Vernon Press, 2021
Critical Practices in Architecture: The Unexamined. (eds) Jon Bean, Susannah Dickinson, Aletheia Ida. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020
Designing for Health & Wellbeing: Home, City, Society. (eds) Matthew Jones, Louis Rice, Fidel Meraz. Vernon Press, 2019
From Conflict to Inclusion in Housing. (eds) Graham Cairns, Georgios Artopoulos, Kirsten Day. UCL Press, 2017
Housing the Future – Alternative Approaches for Tomorrow. (eds) Rachel Isaac-Menard and Graham Potts. Libri Publishing, 2016
Design for a Complex World: Challenges in Practice and Education. (ed) Graham Cairns. Libri Publishing, 2015

Sample Journal Special Issues

Histories of Health. Architecture_MPS ISSN 2050-9006. Vol 24 Nos.1-4. 2023
Art, Space and Activism. Architecture_MPS ISSN 2050-9006. Vol 20 Nos.1-4. 2021
Decolonising the Curriculum. Architecture_MPS ISSN 2050-9006. Vol 21 Nos.1-4. 2022
Art, Image & Place. Architecture_MPS ISSN 2050-9006. Vol 20 Nos.1-4. 2021
Re-Design Teaching Design. Architecture_MPS ISSN 2050-9006. Vol 18 Nos.1-4. 2020.

Sample Conferences

Urban Futures – Cultural Pasts. Barcelona. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. 15-17 July, 2024
Local Culture – Global Spaces. Virtual. University of Melbourne, Louisiana State University, Chinese University of Hong Kong. 05-07 Dec, 2023
Heritages – Prague. Czech Republic. Czech Technical University. 28-30 June, 2023
Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures. Virtual. Queen’s University Belfast | Cape Peninsula University of Technology | National University of Singapore, 1-3 Dec. 2022
Intangible Heritages. University of Kent. Canterbury. 15-17 June, 2022
Connections: Heritage, Architecture, Cities. University of Kent. Canterbury. 28-30 June, 2020
Tangible-Intangible Heritage(s). University of East London. 13-15 June, 2018

Books | Journal | Proceedings | YouTube | Conferences

To participate:

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