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Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Understanding the roles of tacit knowledge in the historical collaboration between AEC: a case study approach

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.

Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos

Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

June 20, 2023

Understanding the roles of tacit knowledge in the historical collaboration between AEC: a case study approach

Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Detail of testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC

This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.

Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

Labor, Prescription and Alienation in Architecture: Critical Notes On The Architect’s Practice

Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain

The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.

Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

October 16, 2022

Labor, Prescription and Alienation in Architecture: Critical Notes On The Architect’s Practice

Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain

Image 02: Building of Babel Date: 1882 Artist: Edmund Ollier Source: https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.77290/mode/2up , © Public Domain

Image 03: Weltchronik in Versen, Szene: Der Turmbau zu Babel Date: circa 1370 Artist: Meister der Weltenchronik Source: The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., © Public Domain

The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.

Journal Article

Architectural Ethnography? Incipits, distances, horizons for research and teaching practices

Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione

Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research.

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata

Journal Article

June 18, 2022

Architectural Ethnography? Incipits, distances, horizons for research and teaching practices

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata

Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione

Figura 3 – La mostra finale di Gratosoglio Ground Zero (2019) , © Gennaro Postiglione

Figura 4 – La vita attorno agli oggetti (QLHL 2020), © Gennaro Postiglione

Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research.

Lecture / Talk Video

Beyond Virtual-Reality

This lecture explores VR’s potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres.

Lecture / Talk Video

October 12, 2020

Beyond Virtual-Reality

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

This lecture explores VR’s potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres.

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter

Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.

Angelika Schnell

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

Angelika Schnell

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter

Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.

Unbinding the TACK Publication (a digital publishing platform)

Helen Thomas is sharing the script to her presentation on the TACK publishing platform held at the TACK Conference at ETH Zürich on 21st July 2023.

July 21, 2023

Unbinding the TACK Publication (a digital publishing platform)

Helen Thomas is sharing the script to her presentation on the TACK publishing platform held at the TACK Conference at ETH Zürich on 21st July 2023.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Bed Chamber

Bed Chamber is a work from series Recreation Areas: 1:100 miniatures of islands that mimic or suggest a place. Recreation Areas are objects of power and models to believe. They are substitutes for places and non-places full of fantasy and memories. They can balance your life in turbulent times.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Bed Chamber

Bed Chamber is a work from series Recreation Areas: 1:100 miniatures of islands that mimic or suggest a place. Recreation Areas are objects of power and models to believe. They are substitutes for places and non-places full of fantasy and memories. They can balance your life in turbulent times.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

Anthropomorphe Form, an installation produced by an interdisciplinary team led by Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten and Fabian Bircher explores the potentials of an architectural space that moves and interacts with people.

Book Book chapter

The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.

Michael Polanyi

Book Book chapter

The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

Michael Polanyi

The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.

Book chapter TACK Book

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ. If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976). In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.

Claudia Mainardi

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

Decoding a Practice’s DNA: Multiple registers of tacit knowledge

Claudia Mainardi

In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ. If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976). In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.

Resources Website

Women Writing Architecture

Resources Website

Women Writing Architecture

Lecture / Talk Video

Tack Talks #1: De Vylder Vinck

Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck Christoph Grafe Ionas Sklavounos

Lecture / Talk Video

July 2, 2020

Tack Talks #1: De Vylder Vinck

Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck Christoph Grafe Ionas Sklavounos

Lecture / Talk Video

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

Lecture / Talk Video

July 23, 2020

Tack Talks #1: Haworth Tompkins

Dan Tassell Elizabeth Flower Haworth Tompkins Lara Schrijver Mara Trübenbach

© Haworth Tompkins

© Haworth Tompkins

© Haworth Tompkins

Book Corner: Canteiros da Utopia

The book Canteiros da Utopia, whose title can be translated as Construction Sites of Utopia, is the result of Silke Kapp's Post-doc research in Urban Sociology from the Bauhaus Universiteit Weimar, conducted between 2014 and 2015. Being Kapp’s supervisee during my Master’s studies in Architecture and Urbanism at the same university, which I had the pleasure to read still in its pre-printed version. Kapp’s ability to converge imaginative and critical thought is fully represented in this oeuvre, turning the experience of reading it one of both great literary joy and intellectual stimulus.

December 16, 2021

Book Corner: Canteiros da Utopia

The book Canteiros da Utopia, whose title can be translated as Construction Sites of Utopia, is the result of Silke Kapp's Post-doc research in Urban Sociology from the Bauhaus Universiteit Weimar, conducted between 2014 and 2015. Being Kapp’s supervisee during my Master’s studies in Architecture and Urbanism at the same university, which I had the pleasure to read still in its pre-printed version. Kapp’s ability to converge imaginative and critical thought is fully represented in this oeuvre, turning the experience of reading it one of both great literary joy and intellectual stimulus.

Designing space through motion pictures

© Eva Sommeregger

Eva Sommeregger reflects on the winter semester 2013/14 at ABKW, where animation technology was used in the HTC design studio “Play Architecture” to design spatiality.

Eva Sommeregger

Designing space through motion pictures

Eva Sommeregger

© Eva Sommeregger

Eva Sommeregger reflects on the winter semester 2013/14 at ABKW, where animation technology was used in the HTC design studio “Play Architecture” to design spatiality.

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

The Yield of the Land

This vector drawing is the outcome of an elective course led by Wan and Joris at Ghent University that explored a fragment of the fast-changing landscape of Nanhai District in the Pearl River Delta, Wan’s ancestral home.

Joris Kerremans Hong Wan Chan

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

The Yield of the Land

Joris Kerremans Hong Wan Chan

This vector drawing is the outcome of an elective course led by Wan and Joris at Ghent University that explored a fragment of the fast-changing landscape of Nanhai District in the Pearl River Delta, Wan’s ancestral home.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talk #2: How to define what belongs where?

Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Filippo Cattapan Caendia Wijnbelt Jhono Bennett

Lecture / Talk Video

April 8, 2021

TACK Talk #2: How to define what belongs where?

Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Filippo Cattapan Caendia Wijnbelt Jhono Bennett

LE IMMAGINI ANTICHE DELL’AVANGUARDIA DEI GAMBERI. La rifondazione dell’architettura del dopoguerra tra Italia e Stati Uniti.

Filippo Cattapan

LE IMMAGINI ANTICHE DELL’AVANGUARDIA DEI GAMBERI. La rifondazione dell’architettura del dopoguerra tra Italia e Stati Uniti.

Filippo Cattapan

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels

Lecture / Talk Video

March 11, 2021

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels

Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria, © Public Domain

This essay aims to show that in many of the theories that fundament material culture and architectural experience, labor is implied in the constitution of material and, although seldom directly addressed, it is a determining dimension of materiality. From the Vitruvian and Renaissance treatises and Gottfried Semper to John Ruskin and the Art and Crafts Movement, the underlying presence of labor can be seen intertwined with materials whenever they are called into architectural discussion as sensorial arguments. Just like the physical qualities of materials, labor, skills and techniques are imprinted in the built environment and contribute to the creation of particular atmospheres.

Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria, © Public Domain

Ruskin’s The Nature of the Gothic, © Public Domain

Vitruviu’s De Architectura Libri Decem, © Public Domain

This essay aims to show that in many of the theories that fundament material culture and architectural experience, labor is implied in the constitution of material and, although seldom directly addressed, it is a determining dimension of materiality. From the Vitruvian and Renaissance treatises and Gottfried Semper to John Ruskin and the Art and Crafts Movement, the underlying presence of labor can be seen intertwined with materials whenever they are called into architectural discussion as sensorial arguments. Just like the physical qualities of materials, labor, skills and techniques are imprinted in the built environment and contribute to the creation of particular atmospheres.

Case Study Reflection

(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

© Gennaro Postiglione

Gennaro Postiglione Andreas Lechner

Case Study Reflection

March 1, 2023

(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

Gennaro Postiglione Andreas Lechner

© Gennaro Postiglione

© Gennaro Postiglione

Exhibition Workshop

Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the composite culture of architecture in Flanders

© Filippo Cattapan

Filippo Cattapan Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi)

Exhibition Workshop

Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the composite culture of architecture in Flanders

Filippo Cattapan Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi)

© Filippo Cattapan

© Filippo Cattapan

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Texture Kortrijk – Jewel Box

Wooden model (1/400), representing an existing warehouse and its extension. The orthogonal cast-iron column structure of the existing building is continued in the lightweight steel building on top. The new beams connect the column grid diagonally and at two different heights. The result of logic structural thinking is an unexpected golden crown. The museum Texture celebrates the prosperous past of the flax industry in the region, that used to give the river Schelde a golden shine.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Texture Kortrijk – Jewel Box

Wooden model (1/400), representing an existing warehouse and its extension. The orthogonal cast-iron column structure of the existing building is continued in the lightweight steel building on top. The new beams connect the column grid diagonally and at two different heights. The result of logic structural thinking is an unexpected golden crown. The museum Texture celebrates the prosperous past of the flax industry in the region, that used to give the river Schelde a golden shine.

TACK Conference Participants

Here appear all the biographies in the order of how they presented during the TACK conference.

TACK Conference Participants

Here appear all the biographies in the order of how they presented during the TACK conference.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talk #1: SOMA

SOMA Architecture Lara Schrijver Paula Strunden

Lecture / Talk Video

June 25, 2020

TACK Talk #1: SOMA

SOMA Architecture Lara Schrijver Paula Strunden

Book Corner: “Architecture: The History of Practice.” by Cana Cuff (1992)

The book offers an in-depth analysis of the architectural practice culture –focusing specifically on the American one– as a “social construction”. It puts attention on the tacit knowledge seen as able to disentangle the substance of a professional ethos –affecting both espoused theory and theory-in-use, and it concludes that the design process is based on collective actions as the result of negotiations within a social process.

Claudia Mainardi

Book Corner: “Architecture: The History of Practice.” by Cana Cuff (1992)

Claudia Mainardi

The book offers an in-depth analysis of the architectural practice culture –focusing specifically on the American one– as a “social construction”. It puts attention on the tacit knowledge seen as able to disentangle the substance of a professional ethos –affecting both espoused theory and theory-in-use, and it concludes that the design process is based on collective actions as the result of negotiations within a social process.

Open Access Publication Review

2021

Federica Doglio in a dialogue with Mirko Zardini: A book interview on crises during a crisis

© LetteraVentidue

Claudia Mainardi

Open Access Publication Review

2021

Federica Doglio in a dialogue with Mirko Zardini: A book interview on crises during a crisis

Claudia Mainardi

© LetteraVentidue

© Claudia Mainardi

2021

Hello Iwona

This text was entered into the 2020 Drawing Matter Writing Prize

Hamish Lonergan

2021

Hello Iwona

Hamish Lonergan

This text was entered into the 2020 Drawing Matter Writing Prize

Equal by Design

Equal by Design

Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows

Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows

Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.

Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0

While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.

Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0

Fig. 2_Smiljan Radić_Folly London 2014 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Image Credit: © Images George Rex, „Serpentine Pavilion 2014 / I”, colours changed by the author, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode, (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/14325677738/in/photolist-nPUQTL-8Nt32E-nQ4Nkn-oo16Pr-AaRKVU-o7ggJK-nQ5pnL-o7ros7-o7gfGV-o7g83X-nQ532m-o7yvVR-o7rnAN-nQ5k5C-nQsYXj-o7sNWJ-nQ5k6F-o9kEgv-d9KJ3k-2dvDbQm-nQ5bE1-nQ54j1-o7sLuE-d9KHyK-d9KHvA-nQ4RmU-d9KG5B-d9KGJC-8B6Ftp-d9KF3P-d9KER7-qnV5d7-2cuaupw-2cuauhh-2cuauwL-2aPygS9-2ccrV1M-2dvDfHm-2dvDfqN-zUshZy-2aPyh53-2dvDeKu-2aPygoy-2ccrUDV-2cuatXQ-2aPyg8o-2cuau6W-2ccrUuX-2ccrUR8-2aPyfRb)

Fig. 3_ Smiljan Radić_NAVE Santiago de Chile 2014 Title: Smiljan Radić, NAVE, Santiago de Chile 2014 Image Credit: architecture: Smiljan Radić, photo: Valerie Hoberg

While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Eilfried Huth’s Bauhütte

The Austrian architect Eilfried Huth, a pioneer of participatory housing, used this notion to express his reliance on the embodied knowledge of future inhabitants who gathered as an advocacy group to design a new housing estate called Eschensiedlung,1972-1990 in Deutschlandsberg, Styria.

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW)

Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Eilfried Huth’s Bauhütte

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW)

The Austrian architect Eilfried Huth, a pioneer of participatory housing, used this notion to express his reliance on the embodied knowledge of future inhabitants who gathered as an advocacy group to design a new housing estate called Eschensiedlung,1972-1990 in Deutschlandsberg, Styria.

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.

Korinna Zinovia Weber

October 20, 2023

Book Corner: “The Greek-Orthodox Church Allerheiligen in Munich”

Korinna Zinovia Weber

The Greek-Orthodox Church "Allerheiligen", built between 1993 and 1995, in the Ungererstrasse in Munich is of particular importance for its community, the city and an outstanding example of ecumenism.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #1: Korteknie Stuhlmacher

Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten Tom Avermaete Eric Crevels

Lecture / Talk Video

July 9, 2020

TACK Talks #1: Korteknie Stuhlmacher

Korteknie Stuhlmacher Architecten Tom Avermaete Eric Crevels

Online Teaching Module

Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

© Ionas Sklavounos

Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture

Online Teaching Module

March 23, 2023

Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

© Ionas Sklavounos

Site writing Website

2019-2023

Writing Urban Places – New Narratives of the European City

© Klaske Havik

Writing Urban Places proposes an innovative investigation and implementation of a process for developing human understanding of communities, their society, and their situatedness, by narrative methods.

Site writing Website

2019-2023

Writing Urban Places – New Narratives of the European City

© Klaske Havik

Writing Urban Places proposes an innovative investigation and implementation of a process for developing human understanding of communities, their society, and their situatedness, by narrative methods.

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

Prof. Dr. Jane Rendell, UCL gave a keynote talk 'From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing: Approaches to Architectural Research and Pedagogy' at the 5th Intermediate Meeting of the TACK network.

University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture Jane Rendell

June 14, 2022

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

© Jane Rendell

Prof. Dr. Jane Rendell, UCL gave a keynote talk 'From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing: Approaches to Architectural Research and Pedagogy' at the 5th Intermediate Meeting of the TACK network.

Online Teaching Module

Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

© Paula Strunden

Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

Online Teaching Module

February 20, 2023

Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

© Paula Strunden

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

Over the past years, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars at Politecnico di Milano (UHUAH!) has been exploring how contemporary social and demographic dynamics challenge housing policies and projects. These issues have been at the core of teaching activities in design-based studios involving architecture students. Spurred on not only by the literature on the subject (Ronald/Elsinga, 2012), we are engaged in field research investigating the state of the art of dwelling practices, with the aim to develop alternative housing solutions (and typologies) able to overcome the distance that emerged between demand and supply. A gap mostly depending on the major changes that happened in the last twenty years in households composition, and in what is typically referred to as the family (Carlson/Meyer, 2014), with the consequent crisis of the ideal equivalence between “the family” and the “apartment typology” (Star strategies + architecture, 2016). The paper will therefore present relevant case studies from the Research by Design explorations conducted on existing building stock, a decision taken to empower Adaptive Reuse as a sustainable approach also in Housing. Our Design Manifesto considers the apartment as constituted by a system of independent rooms, in which the bed is not anymore the core device, while the connective space is interpreted as common shared areas (Connective = Collective).

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata Constanze Wolfgring

October 10, 2022

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata Constanze Wolfgring

© Gennaro Postiglione

Drawing focusing on the life around furniture (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione

Design strategy: a set of devices is set in place in dialogue with the existing structure (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione

External view of one of the La Viridiana blocks (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione

© Gennaro Postiglione

Over the past years, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars at Politecnico di Milano (UHUAH!) has been exploring how contemporary social and demographic dynamics challenge housing policies and projects. These issues have been at the core of teaching activities in design-based studios involving architecture students. Spurred on not only by the literature on the subject (Ronald/Elsinga, 2012), we are engaged in field research investigating the state of the art of dwelling practices, with the aim to develop alternative housing solutions (and typologies) able to overcome the distance that emerged between demand and supply. A gap mostly depending on the major changes that happened in the last twenty years in households composition, and in what is typically referred to as the family (Carlson/Meyer, 2014), with the consequent crisis of the ideal equivalence between “the family” and the “apartment typology” (Star strategies + architecture, 2016). The paper will therefore present relevant case studies from the Research by Design explorations conducted on existing building stock, a decision taken to empower Adaptive Reuse as a sustainable approach also in Housing. Our Design Manifesto considers the apartment as constituted by a system of independent rooms, in which the bed is not anymore the core device, while the connective space is interpreted as common shared areas (Connective = Collective).

Book chapter TACK Book

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.

Filippo Cattapan

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

Filippo Cattapan

Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.

29th May 2000

Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

La pandemia di coronavirus ha messo a nudo questioni che erano già oggetto di riflessione con un’accelerazione senza precedenti. Per questo Domus propone di ragionare, ancora a caldo, su quale sia la città che vogliamo.

Claudia Mainardi

29th May 2000

Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

Claudia Mainardi

La pandemia di coronavirus ha messo a nudo questioni che erano già oggetto di riflessione con un’accelerazione senza precedenti. Per questo Domus propone di ragionare, ancora a caldo, su quale sia la città che vogliamo.

Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.

Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio

Lecture / Talk Object Session SHAPERS Video

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Angelo Lunati Onsitestudio

This presentation by Angelo Lunati from Onsitestudio was given as part of the object session SHAPERS during the TACK conference on 21 June 2023.

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Material Chariots

Material references play a vital role in the collaborative work of architects. At the office of De Smet Vermeulen architects in Ghent, chariots are used to expose samples of materials and combine them into palettes.

Paul Vermeulen De Smet Vermeulen architecten

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Material Chariots

Paul Vermeulen De Smet Vermeulen architecten

Material references play a vital role in the collaborative work of architects. At the office of De Smet Vermeulen architects in Ghent, chariots are used to expose samples of materials and combine them into palettes.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Model Haarlemmerplein

This design for 67 apartments, commercial spaces and underground parking was for a location on the edge of the 17th-century western part of central Amsterdam. To anchor the project in its site and broader context, the design draws on historical patterns of parcellation, housing and courtyard typologies, and material expressions that can be found in Amsterdam’s historic core.

Dick van Gameren

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Model Haarlemmerplein

Dick van Gameren

This design for 67 apartments, commercial spaces and underground parking was for a location on the edge of the 17th-century western part of central Amsterdam. To anchor the project in its site and broader context, the design draws on historical patterns of parcellation, housing and courtyard typologies, and material expressions that can be found in Amsterdam’s historic core.

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