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The different ‘places’ where one discusses or presents work, and the particular quality of the environment where these take place. These spatial metaphors range in character from being in-progress, pedagogical or informal to communicative, informational or archival.
The variety of media and formats in which research outputs can take shape, engaging different forms of communication, reaching particular audiences and accomplishing specific purposes.
The different ways in which one person ‘knows more than she can tell’ depending on the character and origin of the knowledge. These different forms of tacit knowing describe its specificity: pointing out whether something is implicit because it is unconscious, unrecognized, unsaid, uncodified etc.
The keywords, fields and concepts that situate the particular contributions of the network within broader literature and schools of thought.
The different phases and forms of dissemination that research and academic outputs can take, indicating the kind of publication, the progress of the work or the forum where they are presented.
The idioms that reflect the multinational character and vocalize the conversations of the TACK network and its outputs.
The members, contributors, facilitators, communities and organizations that build up, around and underneath the TACK Network and participate, in one way or another, in the endeavour of addressing the question of Tacit Knowledge in architecture.
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50 Objects

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Carpenter Chair

© Sarah Vecchio
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Carpenter Chair

Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
© Sarah Vecchio
© TACK
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Rooms: Architectural Model-Making as Ethnographic Research

Fig. 1
ABSTRACT
Within design and architecture, scale models can create worlds of proposition, speculation and fiction. This paper situates the model as a tool for observation, documentation and engagement; a slow, durational method that manifests a deep participation in the lives of place and people marginalised by wider society. Rooms was an artistic and research project undertaken as part of the Urban Nation artistic residency in Berlin which looked at the Romanian immigrant community inhabiting the city, the spaces they occupy and appropriate, and the objects that they surround themselves with. These instances were drawn, surveyed, documented and then recreated through 1:20 paper models. Built to an extreme level of detail the models of everyday space visualise, offer new insight, and give a sense of value and recognition to the lived realities of individuals. A situated mode of research, this form of representation transforms the seemingly mundane into an object of beauty and atmosphere, encouraging access and participation from the participant, maker and the viewer. The inherently collaborative aspect of this process reveals the tacit, implicit knowledge present in everyday actions.
Ecaterina Stefanescu
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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Rooms: Architectural Model-Making as Ethnographic Research

Ecaterina Stefanescu
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
ABSTRACT
Within design and architecture, scale models can create worlds of proposition, speculation and fiction. This paper situates the model as a tool for observation, documentation and engagement; a slow, durational method that manifests a deep participation in the lives of place and people marginalised by wider society. Rooms was an artistic and research project undertaken as part of the Urban Nation artistic residency in Berlin which looked at the Romanian immigrant community inhabiting the city, the spaces they occupy and appropriate, and the objects that they surround themselves with. These instances were drawn, surveyed, documented and then recreated through 1:20 paper models. Built to an extreme level of detail the models of everyday space visualise, offer new insight, and give a sense of value and recognition to the lived realities of individuals. A situated mode of research, this form of representation transforms the seemingly mundane into an object of beauty and atmosphere, encouraging access and participation from the participant, maker and the viewer. The inherently collaborative aspect of this process reveals the tacit, implicit knowledge present in everyday actions.
Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich
We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.
Adam Caruso
Image Series TACK Exhibition Object

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Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Adam Caruso
4 Façade detail, ZSC Arena, Zurich
© TACK
We often include references in our competition submissions, images of places and buildings that hold something of the atmosphere that we intend for the completed project. For the ZSC Arena we wanted to underline our interest in giving this sports building civic qualities appropriate to its social programme and to its position as a gateway into the city from the north west.
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

Pools, Carparks and Ball-Pits: Or why the Notre Dame restoration competition is a meme

By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147, © By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147
ABSTRACT
The first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions.
Hamish Lonergan
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

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Pools, Carparks and Ball-Pits: Or why the Notre Dame restoration competition is a meme

Hamish Lonergan
By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147, © By GodefroyParis - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78090147
ABSTRACT
The first restoration proposals to emerge after fire destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral’s roof and spire were jokes. The more serious schemes that followed Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s announcement of a competition – many markedly similar, recreating what was lost in glass– were collected on mainstream design media websites like Dezeen where they attracted an unusually high volume of angry comments, accusing the architects of insensitivity. Soon after, Ulf Mejergren Architects’ proposal to replace Notre Dame’s roof with a meditative pool was edited into a carpark. It sparked a series of increasingly outlandish edits – first a multi-story carpark, then a ball pit – before the French Senate declared that there would be no competition after all. This at times absurd online interest might be new for architectural competitions, but it is easily explained through meme theory, as conceived of by scholars like Limor Shifman and Ryan Milner: systems of interconnected units of cultural exchange operating on both wider cultural and specific sub-cultural levels. In this essay I contend that meme theory can be used, in reverse, to analyse reactions to, and similarities between, even the most serious Notre Dame proposals. In applying this framework, we can begin to understand how competitions operate more broadly as part of a complex network online and how they relate to traditional competition conditions.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

This book exhibits the B-sides of my dissertation – ideas that were cut from the final version but that have nonetheless proven promising. Dealing with post-digital forms of navigation, it juxtaposes the stories of Polynesian navigator Tupaia, Ancient Greek Kybernetes and Lara Croft’s avatar.
Eva Sommeregger
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

Eva Sommeregger
© TACK
This book exhibits the B-sides of my dissertation – ideas that were cut from the final version but that have nonetheless proven promising. Dealing with post-digital forms of navigation, it juxtaposes the stories of Polynesian navigator Tupaia, Ancient Greek Kybernetes and Lara Croft’s avatar.
Paper

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

ABSTRACT
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
Paper

October 10, 2022

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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
ABSTRACT
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).
Reflection Video

TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

During the 20th century, summer schools emerged as influential moments of encounter and collaboration between students and teachers from diverse cultural contexts. Yet despite their persistence and prominence, there has been relatively little exploration of their role in architectural culture and education. Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge, a summer school about the tacit dimension of summer schools held at Het Nieuwe Instituut in September 2021, set out to fill this gap. The event formed part of the ongoing collaboration between the institute and the Horizons 2020 Innovative Training Network: TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing.
Hamish Lonergan Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)
Reflection Video

September 1, 2021

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TACK Summer School Report: Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge

Hamish Lonergan Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)
During the 20th century, summer schools emerged as influential moments of encounter and collaboration between students and teachers from diverse cultural contexts. Yet despite their persistence and prominence, there has been relatively little exploration of their role in architectural culture and education. Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge, a summer school about the tacit dimension of summer schools held at Het Nieuwe Instituut in September 2021, set out to fill this gap. The event formed part of the ongoing collaboration between the institute and the Horizons 2020 Innovative Training Network: TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Post CIAM

At the last CIAM conference held in Otterlo in 1959, members of Team 10, including Alison and Peter Smithson, Aldo van Eyck, Daniel van Ginkel, Blanche Lemco, and John Voelcker, enacted an ironic funeral procession, presumably carrying CIAM to its grave. It was captured on film by Jaap Bakema. After the demise of CIAM, Bakema initiated a newsletter to keep the network updated. Between 1959 and 1981 he compiled 18 such newsletters, which comprised a summary of contributions he received from around the world.
Dirk van den Heuvel Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Post CIAM

Dirk van den Heuvel Nieuwe Instituut (HNI)
© TACK
At the last CIAM conference held in Otterlo in 1959, members of Team 10, including Alison and Peter Smithson, Aldo van Eyck, Daniel van Ginkel, Blanche Lemco, and John Voelcker, enacted an ironic funeral procession, presumably carrying CIAM to its grave. It was captured on film by Jaap Bakema. After the demise of CIAM, Bakema initiated a newsletter to keep the network updated. Between 1959 and 1981 he compiled 18 such newsletters, which comprised a summary of contributions he received from around the world.
Review

Book Corner: “Tacit and Explicit Knowledge” by Harry Collins (2010)

© Harry Collins
In this book, Collins argues that previous accounts of tacit knowledge were imprecise in distinguishing tacit knowledge from explicit, leading some writers to claim that all knowledge is tacit. Collins takes the opposite position, arguing that nearly all knowledge that seems to be tacit at first can be made explicit and that, paradoxically, it is explicit knowledge which is harder to explain and more rarely studied. He identifies an economic rationale in this focus on the tacit, particularly in management studies: tacit knowledge, transferrable through verbal or written instructions, are cheaper to provide than the ongoing training (apprenticeships, practice, socialisation,) required for explicit knowledge.
Hamish Lonergan
Review

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Book Corner: “Tacit and Explicit Knowledge” by Harry Collins (2010)

Hamish Lonergan
© Harry Collins
In this book, Collins argues that previous accounts of tacit knowledge were imprecise in distinguishing tacit knowledge from explicit, leading some writers to claim that all knowledge is tacit. Collins takes the opposite position, arguing that nearly all knowledge that seems to be tacit at first can be made explicit and that, paradoxically, it is explicit knowledge which is harder to explain and more rarely studied. He identifies an economic rationale in this focus on the tacit, particularly in management studies: tacit knowledge, transferrable through verbal or written instructions, are cheaper to provide than the ongoing training (apprenticeships, practice, socialisation,) required for explicit knowledge.
Book chapter Case Study Conference Paper Paper

2022

A Joint of Many Worlds: Entangled Stories in Battaile en Ibens’s 78+ Construction System in Timber

© Eric Crevels
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the distinct networks of technical and embodied knowledge present in the development of the 78+ construction system in timber, designed in the 1970-80s by Flemish design office Battaile Ibens. It develops the history of the knooppunt, a joint of a particular material and technical complexity that structures the system’s wooden beams and cross-shaped columns, and argues for the understanding of architecture and construction as complex constellations of different crafts and skills, including but not limited to architectural design and engineering. Design and technical decisions are traced in parallel to economic and marketing strategies, weaving together social and material phenomena that shaped the system’s history. From the initial designs and prototyping, through publicity decisions and appearances in international expositions, until its idealization in the office’s approach, the history of the knooppunt exemplifies the interplay between different stakeholders and knowledge orbiting the technological development of construction systems.
Eric Crevels
Book chapter Case Study Conference Paper Paper

2022

View

A Joint of Many Worlds: Entangled Stories in Battaile en Ibens’s 78+ Construction System in Timber

Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the distinct networks of technical and embodied knowledge present in the development of the 78+ construction system in timber, designed in the 1970-80s by Flemish design office Battaile Ibens. It develops the history of the knooppunt, a joint of a particular material and technical complexity that structures the system’s wooden beams and cross-shaped columns, and argues for the understanding of architecture and construction as complex constellations of different crafts and skills, including but not limited to architectural design and engineering. Design and technical decisions are traced in parallel to economic and marketing strategies, weaving together social and material phenomena that shaped the system’s history. From the initial designs and prototyping, through publicity decisions and appearances in international expositions, until its idealization in the office’s approach, the history of the knooppunt exemplifies the interplay between different stakeholders and knowledge orbiting the technological development of construction systems.

Stoà n°6 Viaggi: Greetings from the Bruine Banaan. Christian Kieckens’ Journeys and the Construction of European Disciplinary Culture

Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Filippo Cattapan

Stoà n°6 Viaggi: Greetings from the Bruine Banaan. Christian Kieckens’ Journeys and the Construction of European Disciplinary Culture

Filippo Cattapan
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Fig. 1-5. Marc Dubois, Postcards sent to Christian Kieckens, 1992-2013. © Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens.
Video

A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

In June 2022, the “Symposium Under the Landscape” was held on the islands of Santorini and Therasia (Cyclades, Greece), proposing a critical rethinking of the increasingly topical notion of landscape.
Ionas Sklavounos
Video

August 1, 2023

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A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

Ionas Sklavounos
In June 2022, the “Symposium Under the Landscape” was held on the islands of Santorini and Therasia (Cyclades, Greece), proposing a critical rethinking of the increasingly topical notion of landscape.
Lecture / Talk

29th May 2000

Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

© Domus
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
Lecture / Talk

29th May 2000

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Dove va la città dopo il coronavirus

Claudia Mainardi
© Domus
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.
Review

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.
Eric Crevels
Review

December 16, 2021

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Book Corner: Canteiros da Utopia

Eric Crevels
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.
Book chapter Interview Open Access Publication

Shot/Reverse Shot: A conversation on architecture, design and the climate emergency

A Conversation on Architecture, Design and the Climate Emergency with Rania Ghosn, El Hadi Jazairy & Peg Rawes facilitated by Rodney Harrison (RH)
Peg Rawes
Book chapter Interview Open Access Publication

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Shot/Reverse Shot: A conversation on architecture, design and the climate emergency

Peg Rawes
A Conversation on Architecture, Design and the Climate Emergency with Rania Ghosn, El Hadi Jazairy & Peg Rawes facilitated by Rodney Harrison (RH)
Book chapter TACK Book

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

ABSTRACT
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

View

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

Claudia Mainardi
ABSTRACT
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.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.
Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects
© TACK
I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.
Book

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
Book

October 20, 2023

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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.
Essay Paper

The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
Hamish Lonergan
Essay Paper

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The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

Hamish Lonergan
@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
© Patrick Mackie
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
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
ABSTRACT
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.
Eric Crevels
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

October 16, 2022

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

Eric Crevels
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
ABSTRACT
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

The American Pictures of the “Shrimps’ Vanguard”

ABSTRACT
The research addresses the idea of the “picturescape” as a form of episteme1, which tacitly and structurally influence the operative design modalities applied in both architectural theory and practice. The definition of “picturescape” is derived from the term “objectscape”, coined by the Leiden archaeologist Miguel John Versluys. Specularly to this notion, the term refers to the new configuration of visual culture that was caused by the emergence of the technical means of images reproduction from the beginning of the Seventeenth century onwards. During the course of the following centuries, pictures differently corresponded to the historical contexts in which they were acting, producing a substantial impact in the definition of the coeval cultures and of their related ideas of architecture. Final objective of the research is the thorough understanding of such an influence at the multiple levels at which it operated.
Filippo Cattapan
Essay

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The American Pictures of the “Shrimps’ Vanguard”

Filippo Cattapan
ABSTRACT
The research addresses the idea of the “picturescape” as a form of episteme1, which tacitly and structurally influence the operative design modalities applied in both architectural theory and practice. The definition of “picturescape” is derived from the term “objectscape”, coined by the Leiden archaeologist Miguel John Versluys. Specularly to this notion, the term refers to the new configuration of visual culture that was caused by the emergence of the technical means of images reproduction from the beginning of the Seventeenth century onwards. During the course of the following centuries, pictures differently corresponded to the historical contexts in which they were acting, producing a substantial impact in the definition of the coeval cultures and of their related ideas of architecture. Final objective of the research is the thorough understanding of such an influence at the multiple levels at which it operated.
Lecture / Talk Video

6 December 2021

TACK Talks #3: Narratives of Tacit Knowledge

Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Lecture / Talk Video

6 December 2021

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TACK Talks #3: Narratives of Tacit Knowledge

Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© TACK
A still from TACK TALKS #3 – an online lecture by Prof. Dr. Klaske Havik and Prof. Dr. Janina Gosseye, © TACK
A slide from Dr. Klaske Havik’s lecture "Investigating Practices through Narrative" , © Prof. Klaske Havik
A slide from Dr. Klaske Havik’s lecture "Investigating Practices through Narrative" , © Prof. Klaske Havik
A slide from Dr. Klaske Havik’s lecture "Investigating Practices through Narrative"
A slide from Dr. Janina Gosseye’s lecture "Narratives of Tacit Knowledge", © Dr. Janina Gosseye
A slide from Dr. Janina Gosseye’s lecture "Narratives of Tacit Knowledge", © Dr. Janina Gosseye
A slide from Dr. Janina Gosseye’s lecture "Narratives of Tacit Knowledge", © Dr. Janina Gosseye
Essay

Building worlds: architecture as speculation on society

As part of The Persistence of Questioning, critical reflections for the future: ‘What is architecture?’, Lara Schrijver argues that Science fiction in particular can help architecture to consider unforeseen consequences of design decisions. We thoroughly need to recognize how on the one hand the environment and society are connected, and how on the other hand the future remains difficult to predict.
Lara Schrijver
Essay

March 7, 2022

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Building worlds: architecture as speculation on society

Lara Schrijver
As part of The Persistence of Questioning, critical reflections for the future: ‘What is architecture?’, Lara Schrijver argues that Science fiction in particular can help architecture to consider unforeseen consequences of design decisions. We thoroughly need to recognize how on the one hand the environment and society are connected, and how on the other hand the future remains difficult to predict.
Image Interview Reflection

Echoes from the Venice Biennale TACK Visit

Image 01 “First Image”, Serbian Pavilion, Caendia Wijnbelt, © Caendia Wijnbelt
Caendia Wijnbelt and Paula Strunden reflect upon two images of the Venice Biennale 2021.
Paula Strunden Caendia Wijnbelt
Image Interview Reflection

November 1, 2021

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Echoes from the Venice Biennale TACK Visit

Paula Strunden Caendia Wijnbelt
Image 01 “First Image”, Serbian Pavilion, Caendia Wijnbelt, © Caendia Wijnbelt
Image 02 “Another Image”, Brazilian Pavilion, Caendia Wijnbelt, © Caendia Wijnbelt
Caendia Wijnbelt and Paula Strunden reflect upon two images of the Venice Biennale 2021.
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

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Model Haarlemmerplein

Dick van Gameren
© TACK
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.
Reader

Konvolut

The Konvolut is a growing physical product, containing important material created by the TACK network, such as readers, programs, annotated bibliography, etc. Its concept was thought as a collection in an envelope that could grow with material over time. Its nature of being in-between and a work-in-progress fitted well with the idea of tacit knowledge. It’s playful design reflects its individual nature, as each envelope has grown differently for every owner.
Klaske Havik Tim Anstey Helena Mattsson
Reader

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Konvolut

Klaske Havik Tim Anstey Helena Mattsson
© Janina Gosseye
© Janina Gosseye
© Janina Gosseye
© Janina Gosseye
© Janina Gosseye
The Konvolut is a growing physical product, containing important material created by the TACK network, such as readers, programs, annotated bibliography, etc. Its concept was thought as a collection in an envelope that could grow with material over time. Its nature of being in-between and a work-in-progress fitted well with the idea of tacit knowledge. It’s playful design reflects its individual nature, as each envelope has grown differently for every owner.
Book chapter TACK Book

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

ABSTRACT
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

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

Filippo Cattapan
© TACK
ABSTRACT
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.
TACK Book

Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
TACK Book

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Tacit Knowledge in Architecture, A Quest

Tom Avermaete Margitta Buchert Janina Gosseye Klaske Havik
This is the introduction to the TACK Book "Perspectives on Tacit knowledge in Architecture" written by Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Janina Gosseye and Klaske Havik.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

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Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
Challenging practice students engaging in the workshop debate (The author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
Students and staff of AT working with Denver residents on the Action Research Studio (Author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Review

Report from the TACK Talks #1

© TACK
What sort of tacit knowledge can we glean on Zoom, when so much architectural literature on the tacit insists on prolonged physical interaction? The answer is a great deal, going by the first series of TACK Talks. Across 9 online lectures, 9 practices, 14 designers, 10 ESR respondents, 3 moderators and a weekly audience of between 85 and an astonishing 535 viewers, the TACK network joined together to tackle a deceptively simple question: ‘how do we know?’. Their responses reveal the breadth of experience and depth of reflective thinking in the network, already establishing key themes in how we conceive tacit knowledge.
Hamish Lonergan
Review

August 18, 2020

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Report from the TACK Talks #1

Hamish Lonergan
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
What sort of tacit knowledge can we glean on Zoom, when so much architectural literature on the tacit insists on prolonged physical interaction? The answer is a great deal, going by the first series of TACK Talks. Across 9 online lectures, 9 practices, 14 designers, 10 ESR respondents, 3 moderators and a weekly audience of between 85 and an astonishing 535 viewers, the TACK network joined together to tackle a deceptively simple question: ‘how do we know?’. Their responses reveal the breadth of experience and depth of reflective thinking in the network, already establishing key themes in how we conceive tacit knowledge.
Online Teaching Module

Understanding Situated Tacit Knowledge through Southern Urbanist architectural practice approaches

© Jhono Bennett
Jhono Bennett Peg Rawes University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture
Online Teaching Module

February 15, 2023

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Understanding Situated Tacit Knowledge through Southern Urbanist architectural practice approaches

Jhono Bennett Peg Rawes University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture
© Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
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

View

Eilfried Huth’s Bauhütte

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW)
© TACK
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.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object Video

55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E

This film, 55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E, is produced in collaboration with Vandkunsten & Arkitema Architects as part of the EU-project CIRCuIT. It focuses on strategies for circular construction in regenerative cities, exploring a post-industrial area in Copenhagen before it undergoes urban renewal.
Sofie Stilling
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object Video

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55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E

Sofie Stilling
© TACK
This film, 55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E, is produced in collaboration with Vandkunsten & Arkitema Architects as part of the EU-project CIRCuIT. It focuses on strategies for circular construction in regenerative cities, exploring a post-industrial area in Copenhagen before it undergoes urban renewal.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.
Onsitestudio
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Concrete Column, Pirelli Learning Centre

Onsitestudio
© TACK
This precast concrete column fragment from the Pirelli Learning Centre built in Milan (Italy) in 2022 is a case in point. The physicality of the column has created a strong reference to the between-war Italian architecture culture. Its material form speaks to the innovation in construction techniques that characterised the period, while its ornamentation echoes that of the neighbouring Bicocca degli Arcimboldi villa; illuminates the company’s history as well as the common culture through a series of abstract tire thread advertising graphics imprinted on the columns and façade elements.
Paper Session VECTORS Site writing TACK Conference Proceedings

Revealing the tacit: a critical spatial practice based on walking and re/presenting

ABSTRACT
Spatial practices that investigate architectural space with the ideal architect's eye and a commonplace representational perspective have been the subject of a lot of writing. The potential of critical spatial practices, which combine performative actions with incomplete representation possibilities, to investigate and reveal the tacit knowledge underlying space is yet unexplored. This paper finds its problem in these missing pieces in the literature and tries to decipher by deconstructing the conventional methods and tactics it criticizes, a way is sought to trigger the creative potentials of the relationship between body and space that cannot be stable. Critical spatial practices can be situated as alternative ways of understanding the architectural space and establishing a dialogue with it since they pave the way for new kinds of relationships to emerge between the subject and the space. This study focuses on the act of walking, which is claimed to be a critical spatial practice, and its re/presentation, which is argued to reveal tacit knowledge in the walked place. Based on the poststructuralist critical theories, the case study was carried out in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul in the Khans District by walking and extracting the things which can reveal tacit knowledge. By finding top-down investigation and representation tools problematic in capturing and expressing the body and space interactions, experiences, and experimentation on the ground level, I believe walking by drifting through the invisible spaces and transitions of the Khans District when viewed from above is meaningful in expressing the experimental and creative flows on the ground level. Depending on the re/presentation, it can be suggested that performing a spatial practice with the participation of the body and interpreting the architectural space from a critical position carry the contingency of uncovering tacit knowledge.
Nilsu Altunok
Paper Session VECTORS Site writing TACK Conference Proceedings

View

Revealing the tacit: a critical spatial practice based on walking and re/presenting

Nilsu Altunok
ABSTRACT
Spatial practices that investigate architectural space with the ideal architect's eye and a commonplace representational perspective have been the subject of a lot of writing. The potential of critical spatial practices, which combine performative actions with incomplete representation possibilities, to investigate and reveal the tacit knowledge underlying space is yet unexplored. This paper finds its problem in these missing pieces in the literature and tries to decipher by deconstructing the conventional methods and tactics it criticizes, a way is sought to trigger the creative potentials of the relationship between body and space that cannot be stable. Critical spatial practices can be situated as alternative ways of understanding the architectural space and establishing a dialogue with it since they pave the way for new kinds of relationships to emerge between the subject and the space. This study focuses on the act of walking, which is claimed to be a critical spatial practice, and its re/presentation, which is argued to reveal tacit knowledge in the walked place. Based on the poststructuralist critical theories, the case study was carried out in the Historical Peninsula of Istanbul in the Khans District by walking and extracting the things which can reveal tacit knowledge. By finding top-down investigation and representation tools problematic in capturing and expressing the body and space interactions, experiences, and experimentation on the ground level, I believe walking by drifting through the invisible spaces and transitions of the Khans District when viewed from above is meaningful in expressing the experimental and creative flows on the ground level. Depending on the re/presentation, it can be suggested that performing a spatial practice with the participation of the body and interpreting the architectural space from a critical position carry the contingency of uncovering tacit knowledge.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 860413. This website reflects only the author’s view and the European Commission Research Executive Agency is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
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