São Paulo 2012

Design Frontiers:
Territories, Concepts, Technologies

Introduction
History marks territories that in some way or another are reflected in design. Since the first ICDHS conference, held in Barcelona in 1999, significant steps were taken to draw attention to the nature of design studies, practice and history in a wider world context. Parallel to that, the configuration of design landscapes has been significantly altered by education, technology and national state policies intended to promote local industries and sites by means of design.

The 8th ICDHS conference, "Design Frontiers: territories, concepts, technologies", aims to discuss how design history and design studies may push the limits of design knowledge. The frontiers of design may be challenged by the exploration of new territories, by the establishment of new concepts, by the emergence of new technologies, as well as by rediscovering the past and by finding new ways of applying current wisdom.

The Call for Papers for ICDHS2012 was very successful, and resulted in a total of 369 submissions, coming from 5 continents and 36 different countries.

All submissions were double-blind reviewed by at least 2 members of the Scientific Committee, composed by 88 researchers from 57 institutions in 19 countries and 3 continents.

Efforts were done in order ensure that the proposals selected would cover different areas, methods, approaches and positions.

The 150 (41%) accepted proposals are representative of 29 countries and 4 different continents.