RTD 2019 Conference, Rotterdam

We are pleased to announce that the fourth edition of the RTD Conference series, RTD 2019, will be held at Het Nieuwe Instituut (NHI), Rotterdam, on 19th to 22nd March 2019. The RTD 2019 General Chairs are Elisa Giaccardi and Pieter Jan Stappers, and the organising team brings together a wealth of experience from three universities in the Netherlands, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente, and those who have pioneered research-through-design projects and conversations within international communities.

 Hosting RTD in the Netherlands, the RTD 2019 chairs continue to open up the conference to new audiences and conversations, and to help it grow as an international forum for practice-based research that engages all disciplines of Design. RTD 2019 will explore the contemporary socio-material, economic and technological shifts in research-through-design that call for new ways of making. Key features of the RTD format, including Rooms of Interest and the Exhibition, will remain at the heart of the conference, where we will productively explore the frictions and affinities among different research-through-design traditions.

 Building on the success of RTD 2017 at The National Museum of Scotland (NMS), and the creative partnership of the RTD 2017 chairs with NMS staff and curators, the venue of NHI for RTD 2019 offers exciting new opportunities for developing experimental formats for dissemination. As a venue, NHI “aims to illuminate and map a rapidly changing world while at the same time fostering discussion of topics related to the vast field of design” (NHI).