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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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Review

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

© Janina Gosseye
This book is a collection of twelve essays by an international group of scholars which deals with various research methods of oral history and the question of who has been unheard. The book critiques that architectural history contains mostly the main architect’s view as well as addresses only a particular group of intellectuals. Therefore the individual narratives within an on-going relational process should be decentralized by having an 'integrative dialogue with actors'
Mara Trübenbach Claudia Mainardi
Review

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

Mara Trübenbach Claudia Mainardi
© Janina Gosseye
This book is a collection of twelve essays by an international group of scholars which deals with various research methods of oral history and the question of who has been unheard. The book critiques that architectural history contains mostly the main architect’s view as well as addresses only a particular group of intellectuals. Therefore the individual narratives within an on-going relational process should be decentralized by having an 'integrative dialogue with actors'
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.
Essay Open Access Publication

2021

Investigating the 21st Century Emerging Approaches to Practice: Codification of Architectural Epistemes, from Discourses to Practices

© Claudia Mainardi
ABSTRACT
Given the timeframe of the last 20 years, the research investigates the codification of diverse forms of tacit knowledge in architecture, its transfer, and translation from institutional narratives to principles and conventions that are crystallized in the everyday practice of selected design offices. Positioned into the lines of theories that see architecture as “a product” of a socio-political-economic condition, the aim is to understand how events that have occurred/are occurring in current times influence the professional practice and, consequently, its codes. The work is imagined to be developed through three phases. A first part –conceived as macro- analysis– is proposed as an attempt to reconstruct a historical framework of events not yet historicized; a second and intermediate one identifies the protagonists –or the practices that the research is interested at–; and a third one –as micro- analysis– made of in-depth investigations of case studies selected through the protagonists of the second phase.
Claudia Mainardi
Essay Open Access Publication

2021

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Investigating the 21st Century Emerging Approaches to Practice: Codification of Architectural Epistemes, from Discourses to Practices

Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
ABSTRACT
Given the timeframe of the last 20 years, the research investigates the codification of diverse forms of tacit knowledge in architecture, its transfer, and translation from institutional narratives to principles and conventions that are crystallized in the everyday practice of selected design offices. Positioned into the lines of theories that see architecture as “a product” of a socio-political-economic condition, the aim is to understand how events that have occurred/are occurring in current times influence the professional practice and, consequently, its codes. The work is imagined to be developed through three phases. A first part –conceived as macro- analysis– is proposed as an attempt to reconstruct a historical framework of events not yet historicized; a second and intermediate one identifies the protagonists –or the practices that the research is interested at–; and a third one –as micro- analysis– made of in-depth investigations of case studies selected through the protagonists of the second phase.
Review

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

© Dana Cuff
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
© Dana Cuff
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.
Paper Site writing

REFLECTIVE ANIMATION. Navigating the What-What

© Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
Critically engaging with one’s positionality in contemporary architectural research in a post-Apartheid South African context requires an approach that blends concerns about identity, location, and voice in responsibly creative means, while not reinforcing the existing power dynamics inherent in such work. This essay employs Jane Rendell’s Site-Writing modality to develop a means of navigating these inter-demographic and inter-locational dilemmas - the What-What - that emerge when working from a »northerly« located institution and speaking from a »Southern« position through multiple audiences. A reflective-animation method has been developed that provides a proto-methodology for both documenting and speculating with the tacit nature of spatial design practice in post-Apartheid South African cities.
Jhono Bennett
Paper Site writing

November 1, 2022

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REFLECTIVE ANIMATION. Navigating the What-What

Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
Figure 10: A Screen Grab from the Digital Exhibition of the Site-Writing Project Entitled: Spirit of the Order (Bennett 2021) that Blends Animation with Writing and Drawing., © Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
Critically engaging with one’s positionality in contemporary architectural research in a post-Apartheid South African context requires an approach that blends concerns about identity, location, and voice in responsibly creative means, while not reinforcing the existing power dynamics inherent in such work. This essay employs Jane Rendell’s Site-Writing modality to develop a means of navigating these inter-demographic and inter-locational dilemmas - the What-What - that emerge when working from a »northerly« located institution and speaking from a »Southern« position through multiple audiences. A reflective-animation method has been developed that provides a proto-methodology for both documenting and speculating with the tacit nature of spatial design practice in post-Apartheid South African cities.
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

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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.
Review

Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan
Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.
Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan
Review

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Konvolut – Annotated Bibliography on Tacit Knowledge

Eric Crevels Anna Livia Vørsel Mara Trübenbach Filippo Cattapan Claudia Mainardi Paula Strunden Ionas Sklavounos Jhono Bennett Caendia Wijnbelt Hamish Lonergan
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge by Filippo Cattapan, Photo: Filippo Cattapan, 2023, © Filippo Cattapan
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Jhono Bennett, Photo: Jhono Bennett, 2023
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Mara Trübenbach , Photo: Mara Trübenbach, 2023, © Mara Trübenbach
Book Collection on Tacit Knowledge of Ionas Sklavounos, Photo: Ionas Sklavounos, 2023, © Ionas Sklavounos
Eric Crevels (EC), Mara Trübenbach (MT), Hamish Lonergan (HL), Anna Livia Vørsel (AV), Jhono Bennett (JB), Filippo Cattapan (FC), Caendia Wijnbelt (CW), Paula Strunden (PS), Ionas Sklavounos (IS), Claudia Mainardi (CM) compiled this bibliography with comments as part of the TACK Network training between 2019-2023.
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.
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.
Open Access Publication Paper

Knowledge in Architecture: draughtsmanship or craftsmanship?

Image 01: Mason worker drawing Date: 1425 Source: Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1. Nürnberg 1426–1549. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
What are draughtsmanship and craftsmanship in architecture and what is their relation? This question represents, of course, what could be called two distinct fields of knowledge and communities of practice, architecture and craft, and can very generally describe how their specific knowledge take shape or, in other words, through what kind of practice it is manifested.
Eric Crevels
Open Access Publication Paper

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Knowledge in Architecture: draughtsmanship or craftsmanship?

Eric Crevels
Image 01: Mason worker drawing Date: 1425 Source: Hausbuch der Mendelschen Zwölfbrüderstiftung, Band 1. Nürnberg 1426–1549. Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg, Amb. 317.2°, © Public Domain
Image 02: Sketch of a detail by John Ruskin Source: http://www.themorgan.org/collection/literary-and-historical-manuscripts/191761, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
What are draughtsmanship and craftsmanship in architecture and what is their relation? This question represents, of course, what could be called two distinct fields of knowledge and communities of practice, architecture and craft, and can very generally describe how their specific knowledge take shape or, in other words, through what kind of practice it is manifested.
Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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

Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC
ABSTRACT
This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.
Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos
Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

June 20, 2023

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

Laurens Bulckaen Rika Devos
Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC
Author: Laurens Bulckaen (picture taken) Title: Detail of testing report of Hennebique office on the reinforced concrete floors of the Postal office in Ghent (1906) source: KADOC
ABSTRACT
This paper tries to introduce three kinds of tacit knowledge that, according to the authors, are present in the process of designing and constructing a building. By looking through the lens of the concept of tacit knowledge, collaboration between the architect, engineer and contractor, thus the building professionals is evaluated. By closely examining a limited number of key archival documents in three case studies that were already developed before, it becomes visible that tacit knowledge is an indispensable part of the intangible process of collaboration in building. Since creating buildings requires to assemble large amounts of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines, also interdisciplinary knowledge is necessary, which is often tacit in nature. As the complexity in building grew, throughout history it also became visible that roles of the building actors started to shift and new roles emerged. Using the concept of tacit knowledge this research tries to bridge the gap of looking at the building process as a collaborative effort also showing that the building process is governed by much more than the factual explicit knowledge of only one actor.
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

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.
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

City as Forest

© Verena Brehm
We understand the city as a forest: a complex (eco)system in which various spatial elements are synergistically and dynamically networked. In this sense, with every design, the challenge and the opportunity arise to contribute to the system as a whole rather than creating a solitary object.
Verena Brehm CITYFÖRSTER
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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City as Forest

Verena Brehm CITYFÖRSTER
© Verena Brehm
© TACK
We understand the city as a forest: a complex (eco)system in which various spatial elements are synergistically and dynamically networked. In this sense, with every design, the challenge and the opportunity arise to contribute to the system as a whole rather than creating a solitary object.
Note Review Site writing

Book Corner: ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism by Jane Rendell (2010)

Rendell, J. (2010) ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism
The introduction to the author’s positional body of work, sets the theoretical and intellectual context for the ideas underpinning Site-Writing as a practice and their aims in giving voice to this form of practice. The author uses seminal writers on phycology, art-practice and philosophy as figures to guide their later theories and discusses the relationship between architecture and art-critique as reflective and positional practices.
Jhono Bennett Anna Livia Vørsel
Note Review Site writing

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Book Corner: ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism by Jane Rendell (2010)

Jhono Bennett Anna Livia Vørsel
Rendell, J. (2010) ‘Pre-Positions’, in Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism
The introduction to the author’s positional body of work, sets the theoretical and intellectual context for the ideas underpinning Site-Writing as a practice and their aims in giving voice to this form of practice. The author uses seminal writers on phycology, art-practice and philosophy as figures to guide their later theories and discusses the relationship between architecture and art-critique as reflective and positional practices.
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

No Body, Never Mind: The entanglement of how architects construct imagination

Figure 3.1: My Mother’s back, 1996, Elinor Carucci Source: Elinor Carucci’s private archive. US Credit: Elinor Carucci., © US Credit: Elinor Carucci
ABSTRACT
In architectural practice, one does not primarily write, one draws, models or explains with words, mostly through the visual communication of ideas. Just as architects use literacy to describe stories and connect with what touches them, material literacy is necessary to describe what architects literally touch. Material has the ability to respond to the design and even influence it at a very early stage of the process when it comes into contact with the body. As the scientist Barad rightly asked: “How did language come to be more trustworthy than matter?” (Barad, 2003). Material can create an experimental platform to trigger emotions, to go beyond norms and return to what has become schematic in the process of making architecture. This method of architectural dramaturgy, i.e., seeking a multifaceted narrative about house and home through engagement with material, could critically reveal unseen labour and unheard voices, and facilitate a connection to our surrounding.   The paper argues feelings from the inside of the body that apparent on the outside of the body offer new ways of knowledge production in architecture. Adopting the interdisciplinary approach by Finish architect and critic Juhani Pallasmaa (in his The Thinking Hand, 2009) the paper considers theatre and performance studies as examples of phenomenological aspects of kinaesthetic and multi-sensory perception of “the internal space and one’s inner mental space” (Pallasmaa, 2009, p.19). By theoretically analysing related emotions embedded in the various hands-on processes mediated through visuals (image, video, drawings) and the applicability of the materiality of the human body (voice, gesture, etc.), empathy and trust in both architectural and theatrical production are an important trajectory to enrich collective knowledge. Starting from here, the chapter advocates not only looking at visual mediation of material, but going beyond that and prompting the capability to read and listen to sound, expression and movement that come from both sides equally – humans and non-humans – to build up material literacy and achieve a sensitivity towards tacit knowledge in architecture.
Mara Trübenbach
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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No Body, Never Mind: The entanglement of how architects construct imagination

Mara Trübenbach
Figure 3.1: My Mother’s back, 1996, Elinor Carucci Source: Elinor Carucci’s private archive. US Credit: Elinor Carucci., © US Credit: Elinor Carucci
ABSTRACT
In architectural practice, one does not primarily write, one draws, models or explains with words, mostly through the visual communication of ideas. Just as architects use literacy to describe stories and connect with what touches them, material literacy is necessary to describe what architects literally touch. Material has the ability to respond to the design and even influence it at a very early stage of the process when it comes into contact with the body. As the scientist Barad rightly asked: “How did language come to be more trustworthy than matter?” (Barad, 2003). Material can create an experimental platform to trigger emotions, to go beyond norms and return to what has become schematic in the process of making architecture. This method of architectural dramaturgy, i.e., seeking a multifaceted narrative about house and home through engagement with material, could critically reveal unseen labour and unheard voices, and facilitate a connection to our surrounding.   The paper argues feelings from the inside of the body that apparent on the outside of the body offer new ways of knowledge production in architecture. Adopting the interdisciplinary approach by Finish architect and critic Juhani Pallasmaa (in his The Thinking Hand, 2009) the paper considers theatre and performance studies as examples of phenomenological aspects of kinaesthetic and multi-sensory perception of “the internal space and one’s inner mental space” (Pallasmaa, 2009, p.19). By theoretically analysing related emotions embedded in the various hands-on processes mediated through visuals (image, video, drawings) and the applicability of the materiality of the human body (voice, gesture, etc.), empathy and trust in both architectural and theatrical production are an important trajectory to enrich collective knowledge. Starting from here, the chapter advocates not only looking at visual mediation of material, but going beyond that and prompting the capability to read and listen to sound, expression and movement that come from both sides equally – humans and non-humans – to build up material literacy and achieve a sensitivity towards tacit knowledge in architecture.
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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