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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

Essay Open Access Publication

Domestic Italy After WWII: Collecting Stories from Middle-Class Houses

In their essay entitled, “Domestic Italy After WWII: Collecting Stories from Middle-Class Houses” published in Candide. Journal of Archtiectural Knowledge in 2015, Gaia Caramellino and Filippo De Pieri address a series of methodological challenges raised by the inquiry on ordinary residential environment and the diverse forms of communicating and transferring knowledge between the different cultures of the communities of practices engaged in its production.
Gaia Caramellino
Essay Open Access Publication

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Domestic Italy After WWII: Collecting Stories from Middle-Class Houses

Gaia Caramellino
In their essay entitled, “Domestic Italy After WWII: Collecting Stories from Middle-Class Houses” published in Candide. Journal of Archtiectural Knowledge in 2015, Gaia Caramellino and Filippo De Pieri address a series of methodological challenges raised by the inquiry on ordinary residential environment and the diverse forms of communicating and transferring knowledge between the different cultures of the communities of practices engaged in its production.
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.
Book chapter Essay

Introduction to “Entwerfen Erforschen: Der performative turn in der Architekturlehre” (2016)

© Angelika Schnell
This is the introduction to the book "Angelika Schnell, Eva Sommeregger, Waltraud Indrist (Hrsg.), Entwerfen Erforschen: Der performative turn in der Architekturlehre, Birkhäuser Publishers, Basel/Berlin/Boston 2016".
Angelika Schnell
Book chapter Essay

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Introduction to “Entwerfen Erforschen: Der performative turn in der Architekturlehre” (2016)

Angelika Schnell
© Angelika Schnell
This is the introduction to the book "Angelika Schnell, Eva Sommeregger, Waltraud Indrist (Hrsg.), Entwerfen Erforschen: Der performative turn in der Architekturlehre, Birkhäuser Publishers, Basel/Berlin/Boston 2016".
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Model of Silodam Housing

© MVRDV
This diagrammatic model was developed to discuss the disposition of various elements of a new housing estate in Amsterdam with its clients; a private investor-developer and an affordable housing cooperation, embodies tacit knowledge in multiple ways.
Nathalie de Vries
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Model of Silodam Housing

Nathalie de Vries
© MVRDV
© TACK
This diagrammatic model was developed to discuss the disposition of various elements of a new housing estate in Amsterdam with its clients; a private investor-developer and an affordable housing cooperation, embodies tacit knowledge in multiple ways.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Anthropomorphe Form

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

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Anthropomorphe Form

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

On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

© Anna Livia Vørsel
Anna Livia Vørsel Helena Mattsson Helena Mattsson Jennifer Mack KTH Royal Institute of Technology, KTH School of Architecture
Online Teaching Module

February 10, 2022

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On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

Anna Livia Vørsel Helena Mattsson Helena Mattsson Jennifer Mack KTH Royal Institute of Technology, KTH School of Architecture
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
© Anna Livia Vørsel
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.
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.
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.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Tannour

This installation emphasises this reciprocal relationship between the crafted object and the architectural space it inhabits. It pushes the boundaries of the tannour from the realm of adjustment to its architectural setting into an architectural creation in its own right. The soap tower no longer merely inhabits, it becomes inhabitable.
Nadi Abusaada Wesam Al Asali
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Tannour

Nadi Abusaada Wesam Al Asali
© TACK
This installation emphasises this reciprocal relationship between the crafted object and the architectural space it inhabits. It pushes the boundaries of the tannour from the realm of adjustment to its architectural setting into an architectural creation in its own right. The soap tower no longer merely inhabits, it becomes inhabitable.
Essay

Designing space through motion pictures

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

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Designing space through motion pictures

Eva Sommeregger
© Eva Sommeregger
Eva Sommeregger reflects on the winter semester 2013/14 at ABKW, where animation technology was used in the HTC design studio “Play Architecture” to design spatiality.
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

Busy body – Living and working in urban renewal neighbourhoods 

Littie Diederen and Yvonne van den Elsen, Zoiets Maak Je Toch Niet, Ik Zeg Altijd, Dat Doen Mannen... Ervaringen van Vrouwen in de Stadsvernieuwing (Amsterdam: NCDB, 1983).
ABSTRACT
Urban renewal reinforces the isolation of working-class women. This was concluded in the 1983 publication “Zoiets maak je toch niet, ik zeg altijd, dat doen mannen…”. This booklet criticizes 1980s participatory urban renewal of the Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam and addresses the exclusion of women. Several inventive tools were developed in this neighbourhood to empower women to make their diverse, tacit, embodied knowledge heard and make design suggestions that better fitted their needs. As a result, new knowledge was brought into participatory urban renewal processes of which women were so often excluded; diversifying and expanding what was commonly perceived as the concerns of the resident. This paper brings forward various tools developed in the Staatsliedenbuurt that were used as vehicles to bring women’s voices into urban renewal processes, such as the fictiocritical character Els, a workshop on dwelling stories, and a manual. The paper contributes to histories on the collective efforts by various women’s groups in the 1980s that fought exclusion and sought to develop feminist approaches for urban design by making what is the tacitly known, explicit; making the invisible, visible.
Soscha Monteiro de Jesus
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

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Busy body – Living and working in urban renewal neighbourhoods 

Soscha Monteiro de Jesus
Littie Diederen and Yvonne van den Elsen, Zoiets Maak Je Toch Niet, Ik Zeg Altijd, Dat Doen Mannen... Ervaringen van Vrouwen in de Stadsvernieuwing (Amsterdam: NCDB, 1983).
ABSTRACT
Urban renewal reinforces the isolation of working-class women. This was concluded in the 1983 publication “Zoiets maak je toch niet, ik zeg altijd, dat doen mannen…”. This booklet criticizes 1980s participatory urban renewal of the Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam and addresses the exclusion of women. Several inventive tools were developed in this neighbourhood to empower women to make their diverse, tacit, embodied knowledge heard and make design suggestions that better fitted their needs. As a result, new knowledge was brought into participatory urban renewal processes of which women were so often excluded; diversifying and expanding what was commonly perceived as the concerns of the resident. This paper brings forward various tools developed in the Staatsliedenbuurt that were used as vehicles to bring women’s voices into urban renewal processes, such as the fictiocritical character Els, a workshop on dwelling stories, and a manual. The paper contributes to histories on the collective efforts by various women’s groups in the 1980s that fought exclusion and sought to develop feminist approaches for urban design by making what is the tacitly known, explicit; making the invisible, visible.
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.
Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

In Quest of Meaning – Revisiting the discourse around “non-pedigreed” architecture.

ABSTRACT
In their practice, architects never refer to something as “pedigreed” to describe their work. However, during the 1960s, Bernard Rudofsky introduced the term "non-pedigreed" architecture, which he attributed to edifices not designed by formally trained architects, but for various reasons, their status exceeds that of the "mere building". As a fact, since explicit knowledge around “non-pedigreed” architecture is scarce, architects rely mostly on interpretations. This contribution revisits several of these interpretations through the perspective of its "actors," referring to the scholarly work of selected architects, and it is structured into three parts. The first section introduces the motivations behind the study of "non-pedigreed" architecture, delving into questions of aesthetics and authorship. The second part explores the fruitful contradictions arising from the first section and focuses on the relationship between vernacular architecture and the concept of Time, as well as the development of craft skills. Finally, the third part examines specific case studies where the value of vernacular architecture shifts from being merely a reference point to becoming an integral part of the architectural production process.
Vasileios Chanis
Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

June 21, 2023

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In Quest of Meaning – Revisiting the discourse around “non-pedigreed” architecture.

Vasileios Chanis
Figure 1 and Figure 2: Jacques Tati, Mon Oncle, 1958 (Directed and produced by Jacques Tati)
ABSTRACT
In their practice, architects never refer to something as “pedigreed” to describe their work. However, during the 1960s, Bernard Rudofsky introduced the term "non-pedigreed" architecture, which he attributed to edifices not designed by formally trained architects, but for various reasons, their status exceeds that of the "mere building". As a fact, since explicit knowledge around “non-pedigreed” architecture is scarce, architects rely mostly on interpretations. This contribution revisits several of these interpretations through the perspective of its "actors," referring to the scholarly work of selected architects, and it is structured into three parts. The first section introduces the motivations behind the study of "non-pedigreed" architecture, delving into questions of aesthetics and authorship. The second part explores the fruitful contradictions arising from the first section and focuses on the relationship between vernacular architecture and the concept of Time, as well as the development of craft skills. Finally, the third part examines specific case studies where the value of vernacular architecture shifts from being merely a reference point to becoming an integral part of the architectural production process.
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.
Presentation TACK Exhibition Object

Infra-thin Magick

The performative extended reality model "Infra-thin Magick" allows you to experience how such insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting your multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. It invites you to co-create embodied spatiality through active participation and play.
Paula Strunden
Presentation TACK Exhibition Object

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Infra-thin Magick

Paula Strunden
© TACK
The performative extended reality model "Infra-thin Magick" allows you to experience how such insights can be purposefully evoked by displacing and reassembling the components constituting your multimodal and synaesthetic spatial perception. It invites you to co-create embodied spatiality through active participation and play.
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
© TACK
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.
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
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
This lecture explores VR’s potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres.
Lecture / Talk

From Critical Spatial Practice to Site-Writing

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

Maputo Land Rover

Between 1998 and 2005, we engaged in the design and construction of the Dutch Embassy in Mozambique. Offering an opportunity to tap into local tacit knowledge, this project revealed the importance of culturally specific knowledge and skills in design and building projects.
Kees Kaan
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Maputo Land Rover

Kees Kaan
© TACK
Between 1998 and 2005, we engaged in the design and construction of the Dutch Embassy in Mozambique. Offering an opportunity to tap into local tacit knowledge, this project revealed the importance of culturally specific knowledge and skills in design and building projects.
Book

PORTRAITS

PORTRAITS is a significant publication that offers a unique perspective on fifteen major built works by the Dutch firm to date. These selected projects are portrayed as distinct characters with distinctive physiognomies, yet they belong to the same family and share similar features, hence the book's title.
Kees Kaan
Book

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PORTRAITS

Kees Kaan
PORTRAITS is a significant publication that offers a unique perspective on fifteen major built works by the Dutch firm to date. These selected projects are portrayed as distinct characters with distinctive physiognomies, yet they belong to the same family and share similar features, hence the book's title.
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.
Essay

Performing Space Through Photography

AA394585 cucina 314 420 300 3703 4961 RGB
Photography used as a tool within the architectural design process has been little studied so far. Yet, since photography implies a discourse in itself, it may turn out as being far more than a tool. By comparing two major examples the essay wants to show how the use of photography allows architects to rather perform their design ideas than merely represent them, and how the traditional architectural discourse –in particular modernism vs. postmodernism– becomes challenged. On the one hand there is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who pasted various photographs from newspapers and magazines in his design drawings furnishing them with an extraordinary modern atmosphere. But, as a consequence, the inherent dislocation of space and time shifts slightly the whole collage into what almost might be called a postmodern simulacrum. On the other hand there is Paolo Portoghesi who always wanted to overcome modernism’s ignorance towards architecture’s past. Despite the fact that photography has been considered as the modernist way of seeing the world, he exemplified this position by publishing a series of books on baroque architecture in Italy, equipped with compelling photographs taken by himself. They carry the reader off into the rich and tempting world of Roman baroque applying all available means of modernist photographic techniques and tricks. It will be shown that the modernist Mies and the postmodernist Portoghesi use similar visual material and techniques, but the way their photographic techniques are embedded in the broader visual discourse shifts their meaning from “seeing photographically” to the “photographic gaze”.
Angelika Schnell
Essay

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Performing Space Through Photography

Angelika Schnell
AA394585 cucina 314 420 300 3703 4961 RGB
Photography used as a tool within the architectural design process has been little studied so far. Yet, since photography implies a discourse in itself, it may turn out as being far more than a tool. By comparing two major examples the essay wants to show how the use of photography allows architects to rather perform their design ideas than merely represent them, and how the traditional architectural discourse –in particular modernism vs. postmodernism– becomes challenged. On the one hand there is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who pasted various photographs from newspapers and magazines in his design drawings furnishing them with an extraordinary modern atmosphere. But, as a consequence, the inherent dislocation of space and time shifts slightly the whole collage into what almost might be called a postmodern simulacrum. On the other hand there is Paolo Portoghesi who always wanted to overcome modernism’s ignorance towards architecture’s past. Despite the fact that photography has been considered as the modernist way of seeing the world, he exemplified this position by publishing a series of books on baroque architecture in Italy, equipped with compelling photographs taken by himself. They carry the reader off into the rich and tempting world of Roman baroque applying all available means of modernist photographic techniques and tricks. It will be shown that the modernist Mies and the postmodernist Portoghesi use similar visual material and techniques, but the way their photographic techniques are embedded in the broader visual discourse shifts their meaning from “seeing photographically” to the “photographic gaze”.
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.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Chozos, Houses of Nomadic Shepherds

Chozos in Cabeza del Buey. On the left the traditional chozo, on the right the demountable chozo that has toured to Germany and now Switzerland. Photo: Marie Kuch
The chozos are traditional huts that up until about 50 years ago were built by shepherds in rural Spain as they moved around the fields with their sheep. This chozo was constructed in September 2022 by sixteen students from the University of Stuttgart during an intense exchange with experts in southern Spain.
Alba Balmaseda Dominguez Kyra Bullert Špela Setzen Markus Vogl
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

October 5, 2022

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Chozos, Houses of Nomadic Shepherds

Alba Balmaseda Dominguez Kyra Bullert Špela Setzen Markus Vogl
Chozos in Cabeza del Buey. On the left the traditional chozo, on the right the demountable chozo that has toured to Germany and now Switzerland. Photo: Marie Kuch
© TACK
The chozos are traditional huts that up until about 50 years ago were built by shepherds in rural Spain as they moved around the fields with their sheep. This chozo was constructed in September 2022 by sixteen students from the University of Stuttgart during an intense exchange with experts in southern Spain.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Bed Chamber

Bed Chamber is a work from series Recreation Areas: 1:100 miniatures of islands that mimic or suggest a place. Recreation Areas are objects of power and models to believe. They are substitutes for places and non-places full of fantasy and memories. They can balance your life in turbulent times.
U5 Collective
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Bed Chamber

U5 Collective
© TACK
Bed Chamber is a work from series Recreation Areas: 1:100 miniatures of islands that mimic or suggest a place. Recreation Areas are objects of power and models to believe. They are substitutes for places and non-places full of fantasy and memories. They can balance your life in turbulent times.
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.
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

Toolkit for Today

As part of the 2017 Toolkit seminar, Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead raise questions and discuss cases from their own work gathering oral histories, including for a project on female architects in Australia. They are joined by, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, who discusses interviews he conducted with those affected by the development of Montreal’s Place des Festivals.
Janina Gosseye Naomi Stead
Video

August 17, 2017

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Toolkit for Today

Janina Gosseye Naomi Stead
As part of the 2017 Toolkit seminar, Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead raise questions and discuss cases from their own work gathering oral histories, including for a project on female architects in Australia. They are joined by, Thomas-Bernard Kenniff, who discusses interviews he conducted with those affected by the development of Montreal’s Place des Festivals.
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.
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
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.
Newsletter Resources

The TACK Conference and TACK Exhibition 19-21 June 2023 in Zürich

After three intensive years of research and exchanges, the TACK project reached its last big milestone: the TACK Conference welcomed 150 people at ETH Zürich to discuss tacit knowledge in architecture and its various forms.
TACK Network ETH Zürich, Department of Architecture
Newsletter Resources

July 13, 2023

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The TACK Conference and TACK Exhibition 19-21 June 2023 in Zürich

TACK Network ETH Zürich, Department of Architecture
© TACK
After three intensive years of research and exchanges, the TACK project reached its last big milestone: the TACK Conference welcomed 150 people at ETH Zürich to discuss tacit knowledge in architecture and its various forms.
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
© TACK
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.
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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