Objects – TACK

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.

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

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Tack Talks #1: De Vylder Vinck

Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck Christoph Grafe Ionas Sklavounos

Site writing Website

2019-2023

Writing Urban Places – New Narratives of the European City

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.

Klaske Havik

Site writing Website

2019-2023

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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.

Fanzine Site writing

Zine

Spridd’s office, photo by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

It’s a morning in autumn 2020, and I have let myself into Spridd’s office. It is quiet and empty. The curtains are drawn and the light is off. I look at the dark computer screens and imagine all the drawings being made, emails sent, conversations had between staff members elsewhere, from their computers at home. Work being made and discussed and planned on digital platforms that I can’t see from here.

Anna Livia Vørsel Spridd

Fanzine Site writing

May 3, 2021

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Zine

Anna Livia Vørsel Spridd

Spridd’s office, photo by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

Photo from stay at Forskningsstationen by author, © Anna Livia Voersel

It’s a morning in autumn 2020, and I have let myself into Spridd’s office. It is quiet and empty. The curtains are drawn and the light is off. I look at the dark computer screens and imagine all the drawings being made, emails sent, conversations had between staff members elsewhere, from their computers at home. Work being made and discussed and planned on digital platforms that I can’t see from here.

Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Image 02: Denilson Baniwa Yawareté Mural Artist: Denilson Baniwa Photo: Rafaela Campos Alves , © Creative Commons

ABSTRACT

This essay proposes an analysis using the “symbolic economy of predation” to provide new perspectives on the question of pixo. For this, pixo will be considered as any act on walls, building facades, asphalt or monuments rejecting the hierarchical separations between writing, scribbling, painting or graffiti imposed by the art system and other institutions. In Amerindian ontology, as Viveiros de Castro describes, the feeding regime is the predominant model upon which relations are perceived. The predator and prey duality stands as the archetypical role ruling interactions between different subjectivities and perspectives. This “symbolic economy” permeates social relations and translates them into a particular epistemology shared by many indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region. We aim to consider the relationships between those who practice pixo and the city through an analogy with the predator and prey dialectic. We argue that, on the one hand, these taggers get symbolical dominion over the city’s territory by marking places with their signatures, thus gaining recognition from their peers; on the other, the city - represented by formal governmental and economic institutions - preys upon taggers by criminalizing their practice as vandalism and by socioeconomically excluding peripheral populations, thus denying their access and right to the city itself. Pixo is a reaction to the passive role imposed on society that gains critical and artistic qualities as a practice of protest, endorsing its predatory performance. This analogy intents provide a new perspective to describe the city and its complex relations with the aesthetical and social realities of its inhabitants. A distinct description of the urban relations that might enable planners and policymakers to evaluate socio-political phenomena within the city through a new set of lenses, allowing the development of innovative approaches to tackle and decriminalize conflictual practices as the pixo.

Eric Crevels Alice Queiroz

Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

March 25, 2021

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Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Eric Crevels Alice Queiroz

Image 02: Denilson Baniwa Yawareté Mural Artist: Denilson Baniwa Photo: Rafaela Campos Alves , © Creative Commons

Image 03: Topo Museu de Artes e Ofícios e Artes nos Edifícios no Centro de Belo Horizonte Photo: Magno Dias, © Creative Commons

Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. “Metafísicas Canibais: Elementos para uma antropologia pós-estrutural”. São Paulo, Cosac Naify, 2015

ABSTRACT

This essay proposes an analysis using the “symbolic economy of predation” to provide new perspectives on the question of pixo. For this, pixo will be considered as any act on walls, building facades, asphalt or monuments rejecting the hierarchical separations between writing, scribbling, painting or graffiti imposed by the art system and other institutions. In Amerindian ontology, as Viveiros de Castro describes, the feeding regime is the predominant model upon which relations are perceived. The predator and prey duality stands as the archetypical role ruling interactions between different subjectivities and perspectives. This “symbolic economy” permeates social relations and translates them into a particular epistemology shared by many indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region. We aim to consider the relationships between those who practice pixo and the city through an analogy with the predator and prey dialectic. We argue that, on the one hand, these taggers get symbolical dominion over the city’s territory by marking places with their signatures, thus gaining recognition from their peers; on the other, the city - represented by formal governmental and economic institutions - preys upon taggers by criminalizing their practice as vandalism and by socioeconomically excluding peripheral populations, thus denying their access and right to the city itself. Pixo is a reaction to the passive role imposed on society that gains critical and artistic qualities as a practice of protest, endorsing its predatory performance. This analogy intents provide a new perspective to describe the city and its complex relations with the aesthetical and social realities of its inhabitants. A distinct description of the urban relations that might enable planners and policymakers to evaluate socio-political phenomena within the city through a new set of lenses, allowing the development of innovative approaches to tackle and decriminalize conflictual practices as the pixo.

Object Session LINEAGES Object Session SHAPERS Object Session SITE

Report on the Object Sessions of the TACK Conference

Ionas Sklavounos

Object Session LINEAGES Object Session SHAPERS Object Session SITE

August 16, 2023

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Report on the Object Sessions of the TACK Conference

Ionas Sklavounos

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

The stool called WALDE

In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.

Irmgard Frank

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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The stool called WALDE

Irmgard Frank

In contrast to space, we come into direct contact with furniture. We not only see it, but we also touch it, move it, carry it around, etc. Users feel what a piece of furniture holds and what distinguishes it from another.

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talk #2: How to reach out to communities of practice?

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Dirk van den Heuvel Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Christoph Grafe

Lecture / Talk Video

May 6, 2021

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TACK Talk #2: How to reach out to communities of practice?

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Dirk van den Heuvel Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) Christoph Grafe

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Forêt DesCartes

Christian Kieckens, Forêt DesCartes, postcards stand prototype, 1995

This curious object evokes Kieckens’ habits and practices: the collection of images and their arrangement in space, travel as a form of disciplinary exchange with a community of practice, and the teaching of architecture by means of references. Forêt DesCartes is an experimental spatial device for handling, transmitting, and producing tacit visual knowledge.

Filippo Cattapan

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Forêt DesCartes

Filippo Cattapan

Christian Kieckens, Forêt DesCartes, postcards stand prototype, 1995

This curious object evokes Kieckens’ habits and practices: the collection of images and their arrangement in space, travel as a form of disciplinary exchange with a community of practice, and the teaching of architecture by means of references. Forêt DesCartes is an experimental spatial device for handling, transmitting, and producing tacit visual knowledge.

Book chapter TACK Book

Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

ABSTRACT

Building on scenography, performance theory and findings from neurosciences, tacit knowing in architecture is understood here as embodied, embedded and enacted perceptual dimension of our built environment. Through art- and design-based research, tacitly knowing is examined as a form of practice and a new extended reality (XR) design tool is probed to exercise it. Since the atmospheric turn in architecture (Böhme 2017, McCormack 2014, Bille et al. 2015), it is well known that spatial perception is multi-sensory and that the interplay of our senses goes beyond the cross-fertilization of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Nevertheless, architectural designers may have only touched the surface of what we might be able to feel regarding our spatial environments. Apart from the sensation of our movement and whether our environment is too hot or cold, our abilities to feel space physically remain challenging to represent and communicate through conventional architectural tools. This includes i.e. our sense of balance, our ability to feel time passing, our knowledge of which of our body parts are where without having to look at them, and our sense of gravity, orientation, and illumination. Some of these “always-there-but-never-felt” sensations can be revealed and physically experienced when entering a fully immersive virtual environment for the first time. As our brain takes a split second to adjust to the novel surroundings, it is at this moment that we can suddenly sense our senses at work. The XR case study “Infra-thin Magick”, exhibited as part of Speculative Fiction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022, explains how such unanticipated insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting our multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. Leaning on the design theoretician Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallan’s understanding of the “autonomous model”, this performative real-time and -scale XR model that oscillates between physical installation and virtual reality (VR) experience is employed as an operative tool for designing and analyzing spatial experiences beyond the known sensations of our built environment. First user-testing results are presented, and the premise of the autonomous model to co-create reality and allow architects to research through active participation, first-hand experience, discovery, and play are brought to light.

Paula Strunden

Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

Paula Strunden

ABSTRACT

Building on scenography, performance theory and findings from neurosciences, tacit knowing in architecture is understood here as embodied, embedded and enacted perceptual dimension of our built environment. Through art- and design-based research, tacitly knowing is examined as a form of practice and a new extended reality (XR) design tool is probed to exercise it. Since the atmospheric turn in architecture (Böhme 2017, McCormack 2014, Bille et al. 2015), it is well known that spatial perception is multi-sensory and that the interplay of our senses goes beyond the cross-fertilization of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Nevertheless, architectural designers may have only touched the surface of what we might be able to feel regarding our spatial environments. Apart from the sensation of our movement and whether our environment is too hot or cold, our abilities to feel space physically remain challenging to represent and communicate through conventional architectural tools. This includes i.e. our sense of balance, our ability to feel time passing, our knowledge of which of our body parts are where without having to look at them, and our sense of gravity, orientation, and illumination. Some of these “always-there-but-never-felt” sensations can be revealed and physically experienced when entering a fully immersive virtual environment for the first time. As our brain takes a split second to adjust to the novel surroundings, it is at this moment that we can suddenly sense our senses at work. The XR case study “Infra-thin Magick”, exhibited as part of Speculative Fiction at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2022, explains how such unanticipated insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting our multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. Leaning on the design theoretician Thea Brejzek and Lawrence Wallan’s understanding of the “autonomous model”, this performative real-time and -scale XR model that oscillates between physical installation and virtual reality (VR) experience is employed as an operative tool for designing and analyzing spatial experiences beyond the known sensations of our built environment. First user-testing results are presented, and the premise of the autonomous model to co-create reality and allow architects to research through active participation, first-hand experience, discovery, and play are brought to light.

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

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.

Review

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

Review

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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.

Case Study Reflection

(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

Gennaro Postiglione Andreas Lechner

Case Study Reflection

March 1, 2023

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(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

Gennaro Postiglione Andreas Lechner

Essay

Designing space through motion pictures

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

Essay

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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.

Presentation

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.

Helen Thomas

Presentation

July 21, 2023

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Unbinding the TACK Publication (a digital publishing platform)

Helen Thomas

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.

Lecture / Talk

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

Lecture / Talk

June 14, 2022

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From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

University College London, Bartlett School of Architecture 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.

Conference Paper Open Access Publication

Explicitly Tacit: Polanyi’s “Tacit Knowledge” in the Architectural Theory of Charney and Rowe

ABSTRACT

The scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi coined the term “tacit knowledge” in 1958 to describe a type of unconscious, embodied and social knowledge that could not be explicitly taught through rules or rote-learning. He argued, instead, that some knowledge relied on practice, critique, socialisation and personal biography. In this sense, something like tacit knowledge has long played an important role in architectural education — where skill is acquired through (re)drawing, writing and model-making, reviewed by teachers and peers — even before Polanyi named it. Yet, for all the affinities between design education and tacit knowledge, Polanyi’s epistemology has rarely been directly addressed in architectural theory. This paper considers two exceptions in the writing and pedagogy of Melvin Charney and Colin Rowe in the 1970s. Both figures used Polanyi’s philosophy to propose alternatives to the “ultra” positions of Modernism. Charney argued that Quebecois vernacular architecture reflected a tacit, collective building culture that was inseparable from the embodied construction practices of craftspeople. This could not be made explicit in construction manuals or histories; students had to discover it through drawing and building themselves. Meanwhile, Rowe credited Polanyi’s Beyond Nihilism (1960) in the gestation of Collage City (1978, with Fred Koetter). Polanyi’s essay argued that individual freedom was important in making new discoveries, but that individuals still had a responsibility to go beyond themselves by conforming to collective norms and standards. This, too, found a parallel in Rowe and Koetter’s rejection of Modernist utopianism. At the same time, a close reading of these minor encounters reveals certain continuities and misalignments between Rowe and Charney’s interpretation and Polanyi’s own position as a prominent anti-Communist and contributor to early neoliberalism. Ultimately, this paper aims to clarify the role of tacit knowledge in the theory of these two architect/educators and, in doing so, simultaneously clarify the relationship between tacit knowledge and architectural pedagogy more broadly.

Hamish Lonergan

Conference Paper Open Access Publication

November 10, 2021

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Explicitly Tacit: Polanyi’s “Tacit Knowledge” in the Architectural Theory of Charney and Rowe

Hamish Lonergan

ABSTRACT

The scientist and philosopher Michael Polanyi coined the term “tacit knowledge” in 1958 to describe a type of unconscious, embodied and social knowledge that could not be explicitly taught through rules or rote-learning. He argued, instead, that some knowledge relied on practice, critique, socialisation and personal biography. In this sense, something like tacit knowledge has long played an important role in architectural education — where skill is acquired through (re)drawing, writing and model-making, reviewed by teachers and peers — even before Polanyi named it. Yet, for all the affinities between design education and tacit knowledge, Polanyi’s epistemology has rarely been directly addressed in architectural theory. This paper considers two exceptions in the writing and pedagogy of Melvin Charney and Colin Rowe in the 1970s. Both figures used Polanyi’s philosophy to propose alternatives to the “ultra” positions of Modernism. Charney argued that Quebecois vernacular architecture reflected a tacit, collective building culture that was inseparable from the embodied construction practices of craftspeople. This could not be made explicit in construction manuals or histories; students had to discover it through drawing and building themselves. Meanwhile, Rowe credited Polanyi’s Beyond Nihilism (1960) in the gestation of Collage City (1978, with Fred Koetter). Polanyi’s essay argued that individual freedom was important in making new discoveries, but that individuals still had a responsibility to go beyond themselves by conforming to collective norms and standards. This, too, found a parallel in Rowe and Koetter’s rejection of Modernist utopianism. At the same time, a close reading of these minor encounters reveals certain continuities and misalignments between Rowe and Charney’s interpretation and Polanyi’s own position as a prominent anti-Communist and contributor to early neoliberalism. Ultimately, this paper aims to clarify the role of tacit knowledge in the theory of these two architect/educators and, in doing so, simultaneously clarify the relationship between tacit knowledge and architectural pedagogy more broadly.

Essay

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

Essay

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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.

Interview Video

THE POWER OF SILENT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN KNOWLEDGE

Tom Avermaete and Hamish Lonergan were interviewed by Gabrielle Attinger from the EU Grants Access in Zürich about their perspective on the TACK project.

Tom Avermaete Hamish Lonergan

Interview Video

March 1, 2022

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THE POWER OF SILENT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN KNOWLEDGE

Tom Avermaete Hamish Lonergan

Tom Avermaete and Hamish Lonergan were interviewed by Gabrielle Attinger from the EU Grants Access in Zürich about their perspective on the TACK project.

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

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.

Image Series Reflection

Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

Caendia Wijnbelt

Image Series Reflection

June 1, 2022

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Ideas at the confluence of places: conferencing by journeying.

Caendia Wijnbelt

Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talk #1: OnSite Studio

Onsitestudio Christoph Grafe Claudia Mainardi

Lecture / Talk Video

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TACK Talk #1: OnSite Studio

Onsitestudio Christoph Grafe Claudia Mainardi

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Glassplitter / Broken glass

Near the end of the previous century, waste recycling became more common in Switzerland – not only for paper, but also metal and glass. While developing the plans for the Kirchner Museum Davos in 1989, we had the idea to use waste glass as roof covering for the glazed building, instead of gravel or sheet metal. Glass has a similar weight to gravel and is therefore well suited for ballasting flat roofs. Without much effort, the cullet could be taken from the recycling process before remelting.

Annette Gigon Mike Guyer

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Glassplitter / Broken glass

Annette Gigon Mike Guyer

Near the end of the previous century, waste recycling became more common in Switzerland – not only for paper, but also metal and glass. While developing the plans for the Kirchner Museum Davos in 1989, we had the idea to use waste glass as roof covering for the glazed building, instead of gravel or sheet metal. Glass has a similar weight to gravel and is therefore well suited for ballasting flat roofs. Without much effort, the cullet could be taken from the recycling process before remelting.

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Tactiles

Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.

Katharina Kasinger

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Tactiles

Katharina Kasinger

Tactiles are relational objects that foster interactive approaches of un-learning restrictive spatial codes, re-learning through encounters of intimacy, embodiment and connectedness, and co-learning through shared performative experiences.

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

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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.

Video

Weightless Bricks Act I: Production

Paula Strunden

Video

February 20, 2019

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Weightless Bricks Act I: Production

Paula Strunden

Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

ABSTRACT

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.

Eric Crevels

Book chapter Conference Paper Open Access Publication

15 August 2021

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The Tangible Presence of Human Labor in Architecture

Eric Crevels

ABSTRACT

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.

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Clay Landscape

This 1:1000 landscape model made from clay shows the site of a prominent 12th century church and graveyard located between two housing areas, Tensta and Rinkeby, built during the 1960´s as part of the Million Programme in Stockholm, where we are currently adding a wall of housing combined with an assembly hall, 100 metres long. In our practice we have used this kind of clay model for numerous projects over the years.

Ola Broms Wessel Klas Ruin Spridd

Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Clay Landscape

Ola Broms Wessel Klas Ruin Spridd

This 1:1000 landscape model made from clay shows the site of a prominent 12th century church and graveyard located between two housing areas, Tensta and Rinkeby, built during the 1960´s as part of the Million Programme in Stockholm, where we are currently adding a wall of housing combined with an assembly hall, 100 metres long. In our practice we have used this kind of clay model for numerous projects over the years.

Fotocronache Romane. The Representations of the City from Urban to Disciplinary Metaphors

Filippo Cattapan

Fotocronache Romane. The Representations of the City from Urban to Disciplinary Metaphors

Filippo Cattapan

Conference Paper Paper

POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.

Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger

Conference Paper Paper

November 4, 2021

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POSTHUMANIST SANDBOX: THE POTENTIAL OF MULTIPLAYER – ENVIRONMENTS

Valerie Messini Eva Sommeregger

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to reveal a novel assessment of creative production in academic education, re-evaluating the conceptual and artistic potential of virtual real-time collaboration through digital media. Allowing for transcultural exchange as well as global participation, this could positively influence the development of novel artistic approaches and innovative measures for universities by contributing to a more contemporary, location-independent, and ultimately more equal form of art and knowledge production.

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

RE-enactment

In 2015 we exhibited our work in this gallery and made some spatial interventions, including coloured columns, such as this one. These interventions represented our way of thinking, reflecting, acting, and communicating. We believe that a RE-enactment of a part of this exhibition fits well within the TACK framework. We thus proposed to RE-instal a column.

Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck

Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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RE-enactment

Architecten Jan De Vylder Inge Vinck

In 2015 we exhibited our work in this gallery and made some spatial interventions, including coloured columns, such as this one. These interventions represented our way of thinking, reflecting, acting, and communicating. We believe that a RE-enactment of a part of this exhibition fits well within the TACK framework. We thus proposed to RE-instal a column.

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.

ABSTRACT

An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy

Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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Dissemination of Architectural Culture: A View on Turkish Architects’ Journeys in the Pre-Digital Age

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.

Figure 2 Pages from Hulusi Güngör’s How to Build Cities, Istanbul, 1969.

Figure 5 Doğan Kuban on a trip from Istanbul to Diyarbakır with his students

ABSTRACT

An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.

Book Open Access Publication

2021

The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

Lara Schrijver Margitta Buchert Angelika Schnell Tom Avermaete Christoph Grafe

Book Open Access Publication

2021

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The Tacit Dimension: Architecture Knowledge and Scientific Research

Lara Schrijver Margitta Buchert Angelika Schnell Tom Avermaete Christoph Grafe

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.

Paula Strunden

Lecture / Talk Video

October 12, 2020

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Beyond Virtual-Reality

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.

Maputo Land Rover

Maputo Land Rover

On the TACK Publishing Platform

On the TACK Publishing Platform

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

Heinrich Helfenstein’s Photography

The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

Re-enactment panels ILAUD @TACK Summer school 2021

Re-enactment panels ILAUD @TACK Summer school 2021

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Tack Talks #1: Cityförster

July 16, 2020

Tack Talks #1: Cityförster

Busy body – Living and working in urban renewal neighbourhoods

Busy body – Living and working in urban renewal neighbourhoods

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

March 11, 2021

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

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

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

Tack Talks #1: De Vylder Vinck

July 2, 2020

Tack Talks #1: De Vylder Vinck

2019-2023

Writing Urban Places – New Narratives of the European City

2019-2023

Writing Urban Places – New Narratives of the European City

Zine

May 3, 2021

Zine

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

March 25, 2021

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Report on the Object Sessions of the TACK Conference

August 16, 2023

Report on the Object Sessions of the TACK Conference

Book Corner: “Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research” by Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead, Deborah Van der Plaat (2019)

Book Corner: “Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research” by Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead, Deborah Van der Plaat (2019)

The stool called WALDE

The stool called WALDE

Material Orbit

Material Orbit

TACK Talk #2: How to reach out to communities of practice?

May 6, 2021

TACK Talk #2: How to reach out to communities of practice?

Forêt DesCartes

Forêt DesCartes

Poetic Water Boundaries: towards a possible borderless sea, (2018)

June 1, 2018

Poetic Water Boundaries: towards a possible borderless sea, (2018)

Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

November 1, 2022

Exploring Spatial Perception through Performative 1:1 Extended Reality Models: Preliminary insights from Infra-thin Magick

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

Tests and References, ZSC Arena, Zurich 2012–22

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

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

(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

March 1, 2023

(Atlas of) Typology Affordances

Designing space through motion pictures

Designing space through motion pictures

TACK Talks #3: “In-tray – tracing lost voices in architectural archives” x “Election! Architecture and the Tacit Politics of Design”

June 27, 2022

TACK Talks #3: “In-tray – tracing lost voices in architectural archives” x “Election! Architecture and the Tacit Politics of Design”

Unbinding the TACK Publication (a digital publishing platform)

July 21, 2023

Unbinding the TACK Publication (a digital publishing platform)

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

June 14, 2022

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

Explicitly Tacit: Polanyi’s “Tacit Knowledge” in the Architectural Theory of Charney and Rowe

November 10, 2021

Explicitly Tacit: Polanyi’s “Tacit Knowledge” in the Architectural Theory of Charney and Rowe

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

THE POWER OF SILENT ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN KNOWLEDGE

March 1, 2022