SHIFT – Sustainability Transitions Lab at UMPRUM is participating in the international research project Ignored Technology, a transnational collaboration between the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AKBILD), UMPRUM, and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (AFAD). Supported by the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships programme, the project establishes a three-year platform for critical research, pedagogical innovation, and experimental practice across architecture, art, and material-based disciplines.
The project emerges from an ongoing dialogue between partner institutions, initiated through earlier academic exchanges, student mobilities, and collaborative workshops developed between Vienna and Prague.
Ignored Technology builds upon this foundation by investigating technological practices that have historically been marginalised, overlooked, or excluded from canonical architectural discourse. At its core, the project challenges the persistent conceptual division between “technology” and “craft,” a distinction deeply embedded in the historical development of architectural knowledge. While technological innovation is often associated with mechanisation, efficiency, and industrial production, many forms of material intelligence—such as textile construction, manual fabrication, and embodied making—have remained situated outside this framework. These practices, frequently associated with domestic labour or informal knowledge systems, constitute a parallel technological lineage that has not been fully integrated into architectural education or research.
By revisiting these marginalised forms of knowledge, the project proposes a broader and more inclusive definition of technology, one that acknowledges its cultural, material, and ecological dimensions. This expanded perspective is particularly relevant in the context of contemporary environmental and societal challenges, where architecture must engage with resource constraints, circular material flows, and adaptive forms of construction. The project therefore positions ignored technologies not as relics of the past, but as potential sources of innovation capable of informing new approaches to sustainable design and material practice.
Currently, SHIFT is establishing collaborations across multiple departments and studios at UMPRUM, including architecture, design, applied arts, and fine arts, with the aim of embedding the project within a broader interdisciplinary educational framework. In parallel, we are developing a theoretical programme consisting of open lectures, invited contributions, and experimental workshops that will serve as a shared platform for critical discourse and collective learning.
Are you interested in collaborating on this project? Let us know!
Contact: veronika.miskovicova@umprum.cz
