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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.

50 Objects

Online Teaching Module

Epistemic horizons of tacit knowledge: matters of skill and craftsmanship

© Eric Crevels
Eric Crevels Klaske Havik Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
Online Teaching Module

February 15, 2023

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Epistemic horizons of tacit knowledge: matters of skill and craftsmanship

Eric Crevels Klaske Havik Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
© Eric Crevels
Diagram Fanzine Interview

Interview with Kristina Schinegger and Stefan Rutzinger

On 7 April 2021, Kristina Schinegger (KS) and Stefan Rutzinger (SR) were interviewed on Zoom by Paula Strunden, PhD Candidate, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Paula Strunden SOMA Architecture
Diagram Fanzine Interview

April 7, 2021

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Interview with Kristina Schinegger and Stefan Rutzinger

Paula Strunden SOMA Architecture
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
On 7 April 2021, Kristina Schinegger (KS) and Stefan Rutzinger (SR) were interviewed on Zoom by Paula Strunden, PhD Candidate, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Essay Journal Article

The Epistemology of the Unspoken: On the Concept of Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary Design Research

Design Issues 28, no. 2 (2012)
The concept of tacit knowledge has advanced to become a prolific guiding principle in contemporary design research. In their attempts to describe knowledge within the scope of design, design researchers frequently draw on this concept and its related references. They attest that design is influenced by tacit knowledge in a distinctive way.
Claudia Mareis
Essay Journal Article

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The Epistemology of the Unspoken: On the Concept of Tacit Knowledge in Contemporary Design Research

Claudia Mareis
Design Issues 28, no. 2 (2012)
The concept of tacit knowledge has advanced to become a prolific guiding principle in contemporary design research. In their attempts to describe knowledge within the scope of design, design researchers frequently draw on this concept and its related references. They attest that design is influenced by tacit knowledge in a distinctive way.
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 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.
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

(Un)Programming the Factory: Weaving Panopticon Stories

ABSTRACT
This paper departs from practice-based research developed in Coelima, a Portuguese textile factory under socio-spatial dismantlement, to investigate the relationships between its assembly line, stories, and weaving. I ask how sets of tacit knowledge developed through workers' stories and temporal hand-weaving practices can provide new directions for architectural design to reimagine alternative 'poethical' (Retallack, 2003) working modes in the assembly line. To do so, I build upon workers' stories, which refer to acts of surveillance experienced in the weaving department under capital efficiency (Giedion, 1948), to investigate the tacit process of patterning stories through weaving (Kruger, 2001; Albers, 1959). Words taken from the workers' stories are designed as weave draft notations, or 'panopticon patterns', through a collaborative event with a group of former workers of Coelima to generate a site-specific textile language and knowledge. Although this knowledge can only be transmitted via experience, repetition, and performative making (Nimkulrat, 2012), I suggest that it can evoke emancipatory possibilities for workers and architects to reimagine socially and spatially other configurations for the assembly line grounded in ideas of industrial commons (Rappaport, 2021). Finally, I argue that knowledge acquired from weaving, weave draft notations and stories can provide creative means for architectural design to (un)program work control and time in Coelima's assembly line while re-evaluating issues of (post)work, pleasure, and productivity within the contemporary workplace.
Fernando Ferreira
Paper Session VECTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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(Un)Programming the Factory: Weaving Panopticon Stories

Fernando Ferreira
ABSTRACT
This paper departs from practice-based research developed in Coelima, a Portuguese textile factory under socio-spatial dismantlement, to investigate the relationships between its assembly line, stories, and weaving. I ask how sets of tacit knowledge developed through workers' stories and temporal hand-weaving practices can provide new directions for architectural design to reimagine alternative 'poethical' (Retallack, 2003) working modes in the assembly line. To do so, I build upon workers' stories, which refer to acts of surveillance experienced in the weaving department under capital efficiency (Giedion, 1948), to investigate the tacit process of patterning stories through weaving (Kruger, 2001; Albers, 1959). Words taken from the workers' stories are designed as weave draft notations, or 'panopticon patterns', through a collaborative event with a group of former workers of Coelima to generate a site-specific textile language and knowledge. Although this knowledge can only be transmitted via experience, repetition, and performative making (Nimkulrat, 2012), I suggest that it can evoke emancipatory possibilities for workers and architects to reimagine socially and spatially other configurations for the assembly line grounded in ideas of industrial commons (Rappaport, 2021). Finally, I argue that knowledge acquired from weaving, weave draft notations and stories can provide creative means for architectural design to (un)program work control and time in Coelima's assembly line while re-evaluating issues of (post)work, pleasure, and productivity within the contemporary workplace.
Book chapter TACK Book

Hunting Tacit Knowledge: Encounters in architectural education at ILAUD and ETH

ABSTRACT
Tacit knowledge in architectural education is slippery. It encompasses a broad range of unconscious, embodied, social and otherwise hidden forms of knowing. On one hand, this means that it manifests in different ways depending on the pedagogical format or context. On the other, it resists explanation through the traditional, and largely explicit, tools of academic writing. Therefore, rather than seeking to define it, this paper proposes three approaches for locating and describing it. First, forms of tacit knowing—which we rely on, often without thinking, in our studio, school, or regional culture—become more visible in “moments of encounter” between communities. Second, discussions and negotiations of tacit knowledge often occur through architectural materials: drawings, models, texts, buildings. Third, “moments of tacit encounter” require more evocative and speculative methods of writing and representation, with different evidentiary standards. To test these approaches, this paper narrates two “moments of encounter” as case studies, encompassing different pedagogical formats, actors, writing methods, and revealing different forms of tacit knowledge.   In 2020, I arrived at ETH Zurich, where I began an autoethnographic study of tacit knowledge in discussions between critics across design studios. I was drawn to the realistic models of Studio Caruso, which I first encountered in my architectural studies in Australia. There, they represented a hitherto unimaginable departure from model abstraction. In Zurich, though, some critics were less dazzled, questioning the labor they required. Elsewhere, realistic models had been at the center of right-wing outrage over a kiosk designed by Caruso’s office in Escher-Wyss Platz in 2007. Around these models, the tacit architectural expectations of various groups seemed to reveal itself.   In 2021, I organized a summer school in Rotterdam on summer schools. Over five days, we re-enacted a charette exercise originally set for the 1986 edition of the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD): the summer workshops founded by Giancarlo de Carlo in Urbino. Summer schools are ephemeral in nature—intense, productive, social, life-changing, but only for a few weeks—leaving little evidence of their tacit dimension for us to study today. Re-enacting it ourselves, coming from different educational backgrounds, we started to understand something of what it must have felt like in 1986. We experienced the clashes and arguments, and overcome them through drawings or by discussing images, by talking in those informal moments on the staircase or over lunch.
Hamish Lonergan
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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Hunting Tacit Knowledge: Encounters in architectural education at ILAUD and ETH

Hamish Lonergan
ABSTRACT
Tacit knowledge in architectural education is slippery. It encompasses a broad range of unconscious, embodied, social and otherwise hidden forms of knowing. On one hand, this means that it manifests in different ways depending on the pedagogical format or context. On the other, it resists explanation through the traditional, and largely explicit, tools of academic writing. Therefore, rather than seeking to define it, this paper proposes three approaches for locating and describing it. First, forms of tacit knowing—which we rely on, often without thinking, in our studio, school, or regional culture—become more visible in “moments of encounter” between communities. Second, discussions and negotiations of tacit knowledge often occur through architectural materials: drawings, models, texts, buildings. Third, “moments of tacit encounter” require more evocative and speculative methods of writing and representation, with different evidentiary standards. To test these approaches, this paper narrates two “moments of encounter” as case studies, encompassing different pedagogical formats, actors, writing methods, and revealing different forms of tacit knowledge.   In 2020, I arrived at ETH Zurich, where I began an autoethnographic study of tacit knowledge in discussions between critics across design studios. I was drawn to the realistic models of Studio Caruso, which I first encountered in my architectural studies in Australia. There, they represented a hitherto unimaginable departure from model abstraction. In Zurich, though, some critics were less dazzled, questioning the labor they required. Elsewhere, realistic models had been at the center of right-wing outrage over a kiosk designed by Caruso’s office in Escher-Wyss Platz in 2007. Around these models, the tacit architectural expectations of various groups seemed to reveal itself.   In 2021, I organized a summer school in Rotterdam on summer schools. Over five days, we re-enacted a charette exercise originally set for the 1986 edition of the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD): the summer workshops founded by Giancarlo de Carlo in Urbino. Summer schools are ephemeral in nature—intense, productive, social, life-changing, but only for a few weeks—leaving little evidence of their tacit dimension for us to study today. Re-enacting it ourselves, coming from different educational backgrounds, we started to understand something of what it must have felt like in 1986. We experienced the clashes and arguments, and overcome them through drawings or by discussing images, by talking in those informal moments on the staircase or over lunch.
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.
Book chapter TACK Book

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

© TACK
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
© TACK
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.
Conference Paper Open Access Publication

Everyday Practice As Paradigm To Study Architectural Contemporary Codes

© Claudia Mainardi
Claudia Mainardi's contribution presented at the CA2RE Delft conference has been a significant opportunity to discuss her doctoral research that, dealing with the present history, proposes an empirical approach: without aiming to achieve a definitive response, yet disentangling processes while being formed.
Claudia Mainardi
Conference Paper Open Access Publication

March 2, 2023

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Everyday Practice As Paradigm To Study Architectural Contemporary Codes

Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
Claudia Mainardi's contribution presented at the CA2RE Delft conference has been a significant opportunity to discuss her doctoral research that, dealing with the present history, proposes an empirical approach: without aiming to achieve a definitive response, yet disentangling processes while being formed.
Essay

The American Pictures of the “Shrimps’ Vanguard”

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

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The American Pictures of the “Shrimps’ Vanguard”

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

Rooms: Architectural Model-Making as Ethnographic Research

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

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Rooms: Architectural Model-Making as Ethnographic Research

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

Experiences in Archival Secondments

Az W depot, Möllersdorf, Halle 9 © Architekturzentrum Wien, Sammlung, Photo: Mara Trübenbach
Anna Livia Vørsel Filippo Cattapan Mara Trübenbach
Newsletter

August 12, 2022

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Experiences in Archival Secondments

Anna Livia Vørsel Filippo Cattapan Mara Trübenbach
Az W depot, Möllersdorf, Halle 9 © Architekturzentrum Wien, Sammlung, Photo: Mara Trübenbach
Christian Kieckens, Annotated map of Rome, ca. 1989, Flanders Architecture Institute – collection Flemish Community, archive of Christian Kieckens
AzW library shelves, dust blower and magnifying glass. Collage by Anna Livia Vørsel
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 Object Session LINEAGES

Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge in Colonial Mapping Practices

This text is an extended retrospective summary of Eva Sommeregger's talk entitled "Navigating, Performing and Book Making", given at the Tacit Knowledge Symposium at ETH Zurich during the Object Session Lineages on 20 June 2023.
Eva Sommeregger
Lecture / Talk Object Session LINEAGES

June 20, 2023

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Re-enacting Tacit Knowledge in Colonial Mapping Practices

Eva Sommeregger
Tupaia’s map, drawn by the author on Forster’s copy; the connecting lines between the islands and numbering logic were added by the author; the islands marked with an x were added by the Europeans to start the mapping process but Tupaia did not include them in his scheme. 1 Rurutu, 2 Ra‘ivavae; 3 Rarotonga, 4 Niue, 5a Vava‘u, 5b Uiha; 6 Manuae, 7a Maupiha‘a, 7b Motu One, 7c Miti‘aro, 8a Mangaia, 8b ?, 8c Atiu, 9 Rimatara, 10 Rurutu, 11 Tupua‘I, 12 Ra‘ivavae, 13 Rapa Iti; 14 Uea, 15 Rotuma, 16a Savai‘I, 16b Uvea, 17a Upolu, 17b Niuafo‘ou, 18 Niatoputapu and Tafai, 19 Tutuila, 20 Manua, 21 Motu a Manu; 22 Ra‘ivavae, 23 Mangareva, 24 Temoe, 25 Oeno, 26 Pitcairn Island, 27 Henderson, 28 Ducie, 29 Rapa Nui; 30 Nuku Hiva, 31a Hiva‘Oa, 31b Ua Pou; 32 Marquesas Group, 33 Oahu. Photograph of the map displayed in the limited edition leporello version of TUPAIA, KYBERNETES & LARA CROFT. Bodily Perspectives on Postdigital Spaces
© TACK
This text is an extended retrospective summary of Eva Sommeregger's talk entitled "Navigating, Performing and Book Making", given at the Tacit Knowledge Symposium at ETH Zurich during the Object Session Lineages on 20 June 2023.
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.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object Video

55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E

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

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55°42’14.8”N 12°33’18.4”E

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

Material Chariots

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

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Material Chariots

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

A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

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

August 1, 2023

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A video report from the “Symposium Under the Landscape”

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

Concept model, ‘Innerer Garten’, Zürich Leutschenbach

Model making can be a heuristic practice for architects. For us, this model was both a concept finding and communication instrument that we used in the Innerer Garten project in Zürich Leutschenbach.
Martina Voser
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Concept model, ‘Innerer Garten’, Zürich Leutschenbach

Martina Voser
© TACK
Model making can be a heuristic practice for architects. For us, this model was both a concept finding and communication instrument that we used in the Innerer Garten project in Zürich Leutschenbach.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

A Studio for Orbanism – Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office

The house of Luc Deleu, the founder of T.O.P. office, in the city of Antwerp (Belgium), is not only a design studio and home for the architect but, above all, it is a space of accumulated knowledge: a kaleidoscope of collected references and an archive of drawings and models produced over more than fifty years.
Sofie de Caigny Tine Poot Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi)
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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A Studio for Orbanism – Luc Deleu & T.O.P. office

Sofie de Caigny Tine Poot Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi)
© TACK
The house of Luc Deleu, the founder of T.O.P. office, in the city of Antwerp (Belgium), is not only a design studio and home for the architect but, above all, it is a space of accumulated knowledge: a kaleidoscope of collected references and an archive of drawings and models produced over more than fifty years.
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.
Newsletter

Map of Mobility – A visualisation of research movement

Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map” and shares with us his thoughts on the map showing the research movement of the TACK doctoral students.
Gennaro Postiglione
Newsletter

May 22, 2022

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Map of Mobility – A visualisation of research movement

Gennaro Postiglione
Gennaro Postiglione initiated the idea of a “TACK Map” and shares with us his thoughts on the map showing the research movement of the TACK doctoral students.
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)
Lecture / Talk

Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.
Gaia Caramellino
Lecture / Talk

April 26, 2021

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Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan

Gaia Caramellino
In her talk Stories of Houses: investigating ordinary practices in post-War Milan (held in the framework of TACK training axis 2, module 1 “Probing Tacit Knowledge” on 26 April 2021), Gaia Caramellino questioned the practices of tacit knowledge embedded in the particular cultural network engaged in the design and construction of post-WWII Milan ordinary residential environment.
TACK Exhibition Object

Tesseln/Bâton à marques

Bâtons à marques (also called ratement,s Tesseln) are  pieces of carved carved wood used as tally sticks in the Swiss Alps. They functioned as  as records of use rights, productstaxes, products, and labour duties in relation to common resources. Tesseln in Upper-Valais and and bâton à marques in LowerBas-Valais were employed in the governance of common property and resourcesvarious forms of common property, including alpine pastures, wine, and irrigation water.
Nicole de Lalouviere
TACK Exhibition Object

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Tesseln/Bâton à marques

Nicole de Lalouviere
© TACK
Bâtons à marques (also called ratement,s Tesseln) are  pieces of carved carved wood used as tally sticks in the Swiss Alps. They functioned as  as records of use rights, productstaxes, products, and labour duties in relation to common resources. Tesseln in Upper-Valais and and bâton à marques in LowerBas-Valais were employed in the governance of common property and resourcesvarious forms of common property, including alpine pastures, wine, and irrigation water.
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'
Journal Article

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

Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione
ABSTRACT
Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research. 
Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata
Journal Article

June 18, 2022

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

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata
Figura 1 – profili degli abitanti e nuove tipologie di stanze (ReCoDe 2019), © Gennaro Postiglione
Figura 3 – La mostra finale di Gratosoglio Ground Zero (2019) , © Gennaro Postiglione
Figura 4 – La vita attorno agli oggetti (QLHL 2020), © Gennaro Postiglione
ABSTRACT
Architectural ethnography has increasingly been a focus of attention thanks to recent studies carried out by Albena Yaneva or to practices and research carried out by Momoyo Kaijima with her Atelier Bow Wow. Starting from an interest in the specificities of ethnographical approaches if practiced by architects, or by professionals and researchers having particular attention to forms, materiality and uses of the space in the everyday, this article outlines a literature review on ethnography for designers. This review has been helpful in defining through convergences and distances a specific positioning that we are assuming in teaching and doing research for design. A path that led to further questions on the role of transcription (graphical, photographic, textual) in architectural ethnography, as well as to challenging the role of tradition and innovation in this recent stream of research. 
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0
ABSTRACT
While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.
Valerie Hoberg
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

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UNCOMMONING: ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ARCHITECTURE

Valerie Hoberg
Fig. 1_Marcel Duchamp_Fontaine 1917 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Credit: Alfred Stieglitz, artist: Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, Creator: H. P. Roché, Public Domain CC0 1.0
Fig. 2_Smiljan Radić_Folly London 2014 Title: Marcel Duchamp (R. Mutt), Fontaine, 1917 Image Credit: © Images George Rex, „Serpentine Pavilion 2014 / I”, colours changed by the author, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode, (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/14325677738/in/photolist-nPUQTL-8Nt32E-nQ4Nkn-oo16Pr-AaRKVU-o7ggJK-nQ5pnL-o7ros7-o7gfGV-o7g83X-nQ532m-o7yvVR-o7rnAN-nQ5k5C-nQsYXj-o7sNWJ-nQ5k6F-o9kEgv-d9KJ3k-2dvDbQm-nQ5bE1-nQ54j1-o7sLuE-d9KHyK-d9KHvA-nQ4RmU-d9KG5B-d9KGJC-8B6Ftp-d9KF3P-d9KER7-qnV5d7-2cuaupw-2cuauhh-2cuauwL-2aPygS9-2ccrV1M-2dvDfHm-2dvDfqN-zUshZy-2aPyh53-2dvDeKu-2aPygoy-2ccrUDV-2cuatXQ-2aPyg8o-2cuau6W-2ccrUuX-2ccrUR8-2aPyfRb)
Fig. 3_ Smiljan Radić_NAVE Santiago de Chile 2014 Title: Smiljan Radić, NAVE, Santiago de Chile 2014 Image Credit: architecture: Smiljan Radić, photo: Valerie Hoberg
ABSTRACT
While art and architecture share many characteristics, artistic knowledge offers some specific possibilities for contemporary architectural practice. Based on a theoretical framework around the artistic tacit knowing and with a focus on artistic reflexivity and its potential for knowledge production, the article explores artistic knowledge examples in the work of the Chilean architect Smiljan Radić. They mainly occur in accompanying practices like writing, collecting or photographing, but which are intertwined with and have an effect on the built. A light is shed on the imaginative, critical and transformative potentials of the artistic knowledge. These potentials especially come to play regarding the complexity of contemporary and future challenges for architecture. An outlook uses the example of the Spanish office Ensamble Studio to raise approaches to action and thought for potential future architectural practice. The specific potential of art and artistic knowledge to address complex problems through focused, reflexive, contextual thinking is highlighted as a way to overcome the known and inadequate – here: uncommoning.
Online Teaching Module

Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

© Ionas Sklavounos
Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture
Online Teaching Module

March 23, 2023

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Bridging architectural knowledge and lived experience through apprenticeship

Ionas Sklavounos Lara Schrijver University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Architecture
© Ionas Sklavounos
© Ionas Sklavounos
© Ionas Sklavounos
© Ionas Sklavounos
© Ionas Sklavounos
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Post CIAM

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

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Post CIAM

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