The Concordia University Research Chair (CURC) of Carmela Cucuzzella in IDEAS-BE is renewed from July 2020 to July 2025.
The Concordia University Research Chair in Integrated Design, Ecology And Sustainability for the Built Environment (ideas-be) focuses on the study of design projects and practices for the built environment situated at the crossroads of cultural, social, environmental and economic concerns. It considers sustainability as a paradigm crossing the main disciplines and professions concerned with design for the built environment (urban design, architecture, and landscape). This research program identifies, categorizes and disseminates strategic transformations of sustainable intentions in the design of the urban built environment. Our main objective is to better understand how designers go beyond current injunctions of environmental norms and policies in order to achieve a creative balance between design ethics and aesthetics in their public space projects – a question that has remained largely unaddressed in recent design theory.