Research
Languages and Vocabularies
Languages and Vocabularies highlights how key elements such as sound, (vernacular) speech, source code, writing, and lexicons can be alternative materials for contemporary design practices, and play pivotal roles in shaping our social, political, ecological, and economic landscapes. It also delves into strategies for reformulation and translation, broadening our definition of design materials and altering how we perceive of actions such as listening, communicating, publishing, and making.
How can novel and alternative vocabularies transform the narratives we construct, the relationships we form, and the cultural schemas underpinning our physical realities? And how can these vocabularies and languages be actively incorporated as materials within the practical, theoretical, and pedagogical dimensions of design practices? Research projects at Nieuwe Instituut delve into these questions through various approaches. We have explored the creation of shared vocabularies around 'waste' across cultural and linguistic boundaries at a workshop during the Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2023, and have been developing a lexicon of terms to investigate what a regenerative store can be as part of the New Store project. In the Design Drafts initiative, we seek to discover new languages to write design together with different magazines and writers. The ongoing project Through Sounds delves into sonic forms of exchange, thinking through sonic infrastructures, their fragility, dependency on DIY and communal efforts. Moreover, we are examining the role of these ephemeral languages in shaping everyday environments by intersecting computation, design, architecture, poetry, and artistic practice in events such as the Research Nights series.