The following themes will be dealt with:

1 - The identities of globalization

This initial discussion will attempt to specify the place, occupied within a given context, informed by economic and cultural globalization of specific types of culture and regionalism, and by contrasts between concepts of nation and international style. Participants will gauge the scope of identity-based models, European models, neo-colonialist patterns of logic, and historical cultures specific to urban organization.

2 - Anthropologies of density

This discussion will raise the issue of the diversity of lifestyles and habitats, and will attempt to contrast the cultural understanding of the dwelling with all the different phenomena of standardization, set against the permanent growth of world population. Does architecture still offer individual answers to the habitat on the scale of the world's major urban conglomerations ?

3 - Morphogenesis of the public place

What does the public place mean when referring to its historical sources, European cities and African and Indian megalopolises as well ? How is the public domain defined ? How is the separation between public and private organized? Is an operational model once again involved ? How is the public place deformed and reorganized through situations involving war, urban destruction and natural disasters ? How is the public place--the very fabric of community and social bonding--organized through the different media ?

4 - The architecture of networks and systems

New transport systems and information circulation networks, using the new media are creating a standard economy with a fluctuating architecture. What are the topologies of these para-urban spaces ? What is the interaction between the structures and the understanding and creation of these spaces ? How is the architect incorporating these new variables in architectural design ?

5 - The infinities of localness

What does the "context" mean if it is no longer limited to the socio-historical state of a site that is open to architectural intervention ? What definitions are posited by local situations if we broaden the resource area that these may represent based on technical, material, and ecological use...? What is the connection between local environments that are constantly being reformed by a culture of displacement and exchange, and new attitudes towards tourism and nomadism?

6 - The architect's interventions

What is the architect's expertise function at the international level by way of thoroughly disparate cultural and social situations ? What is the identity of this profession in relation to national situations ? Is the architect still capable of intervening in urban organization, or is he marginalized by industrial construction methods ? How is a territory to be reformed for the intervention of the architect within a commissioning logic informed by economic globalization methods and the uniformity of political decision making ?