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About TACK TACK Book How to Use What is Tacit Knowledge?
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

Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

© Claudia Mainardi
Claudia Mainardi Gennaro Postiglione Gaia Caramellino Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies
Online Teaching Module

March 10, 2023

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Probing Tacit Knowledge. Codes of Tacit Knowledge

Claudia Mainardi Gennaro Postiglione Gaia Caramellino Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
© Claudia Mainardi
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.
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

For architects, hand drawing is not only an important tool to grasp the history, experience, and knowledge of a place but also a space of tacit negotiation with peers and others. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake struck Japan, Atelier Bow-Wow began to produce collective hand drawings on large paper sheets, on which several work simultaneously, to jointly find a better future. This approach was further developed with students in different public spaces.
Momoyo Kaijima
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Public Drawings, Atelier Bow-Wow

Momoyo Kaijima
© TACK
For architects, hand drawing is not only an important tool to grasp the history, experience, and knowledge of a place but also a space of tacit negotiation with peers and others. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake struck Japan, Atelier Bow-Wow began to produce collective hand drawings on large paper sheets, on which several work simultaneously, to jointly find a better future. This approach was further developed with students in different public spaces.
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

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

Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.
Eric Crevels
Essay Journal Article Open Access Publication

October 16, 2022

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

Eric Crevels
Image 01: Tower of Babel under Construction Date: 1590 Artist: unknown Source: https://www.wga.hu/html/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge4/ztower_b.html, © Public Domain
Image 02: Building of Babel Date: 1882 Artist: Edmund Ollier Source: https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.77290/mode/2up , © Public Domain
Image 03: Weltchronik in Versen, Szene: Der Turmbau zu Babel Date: circa 1370 Artist: Meister der Weltenchronik Source: The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., © Public Domain
ABSTRACT
The present essay seeks to point out contemporary phenomena of decreasing autonomy by the alienation of everyday skills that, together with architectural drawing, promote the architect and urbanist’s figure to that of an expert, thus immobilizing its practice in a heteronomous form. It aims the exposition, with the critiques of Ivan Illich and Sérgio Ferro, how the architect’s practice contributes to the alienation and exploitation of the construction worker’s labour in detriment of the body-skill dialectics, which would allow for a closer relation between individual and society. Opposing this alienation processes, both in consuming as in the production of architecture, with studies about technology and anthropology, it argues in favor of a politics of transformation of architectures technology based on the relation between body, skills, learning and technique.
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.
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.
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.
Model TACK Exhibition Object

Four Square Levels

Complete perspective of the empty object.Carabanchel, Madrid, 2021. Photo: Samuel H. Ramírez.
For the past three years, I have been researching assembly methods that can join together different post-consumer objects found in the street without the use of glue or screws.  
Samuel H. Ramirez
Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Four Square Levels

Samuel H. Ramirez
Complete perspective of the empty object.Carabanchel, Madrid, 2021. Photo: Samuel H. Ramírez.
© TACK
For the past three years, I have been researching assembly methods that can join together different post-consumer objects found in the street without the use of glue or screws.  
Essay

design-based.

© ABKW
The starting point for the following descriptions, analytical reflections and meta-theoretical questions is the course “Design Project in History, Theory, Criticism”, which Angelika Schnell taught over several consecutive semesters together with Eva Sommeregger at the Institute for Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Elke Krasny Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Essay

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design-based.

Elke Krasny Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© ABKW
The starting point for the following descriptions, analytical reflections and meta-theoretical questions is the course “Design Project in History, Theory, Criticism”, which Angelika Schnell taught over several consecutive semesters together with Eva Sommeregger at the Institute for Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Lecture / Talk Video

TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels
Lecture / Talk Video

March 11, 2021

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TACK Talks #2: How to archive embodied knowledge?

Sofie de Caigny Vlaams Architectuurinstituut (VAi) Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) Ionas Sklavounos Paula Strunden Mara Trübenbach Eric Crevels
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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

Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.
ABSTRACT
An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.
Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy
Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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

Ceren Hamiloglu Ahsen Özsoy
Figure 1: Page showing the plans and drawings of Amsterdam and Berlin Stadiums. Source: Seyfettin Nasıh, ‘Stadyumlar: Almanya Stadyumları Hakkında Bir Tetkin Raporu [Stadiums: A Study Report on German Stadiums]’, Arkitekt, 33-34 (1933), 307.
Figure 2 Pages from Hulusi Güngör’s How to Build Cities, Istanbul, 1969.
Figure 5 Doğan Kuban on a trip from Istanbul to Diyarbakır with his students
ABSTRACT
An architect is an intellectual person who develops a professional architectural identity and approach through an accumulation of their personal experiences, education and knowledge. Perhaps the most pivotal part in an architect’s ‘formation journey’ is the initial years they start constructing their architectural selfhood. The initial years in which a person “becomes” an architect, are signified by the mobility of young architects, ideas and encounters, through which an architecture culture forms and disseminates. The dissemination of ideas is facilitated through institutions, visual, verbal and textual representations. Traveling, with its ability to embody all of these components appears to be a fruitful practice through which architecture culture can be analyzed. During the twentieth century, new encounters provided a ground from which Turkish-speaking architects established a firmer professional position and disseminated new implementations in the architecture field. The purpose of this research is to understand how Turkish-speaking architects’ journeys in the pre-digital age, contributed to the period’s architectural discourse in Turkey. Therefore, the ways in which architects traveled, translated and disseminated their travel experiences were studied and evaluated through content analysis.

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

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

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

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

Clay 3D Print of Urmein

The model displayed here, a Clay 3D Print of Urmein, a rural village in Switzerland, highlights the exploratory path that architects often take when new technologies become available. The model is based on information drawn from photogrammetry and drone footage, and has been produced by a clay printer intended for pottery – all tools that do not typically belong in the architect’s toolbox.
Martin Roesch Nicola Graf
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Clay 3D Print of Urmein

Martin Roesch Nicola Graf
© TACK
The model displayed here, a Clay 3D Print of Urmein, a rural village in Switzerland, highlights the exploratory path that architects often take when new technologies become available. The model is based on information drawn from photogrammetry and drone footage, and has been produced by a clay printer intended for pottery – all tools that do not typically belong in the architect’s toolbox.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Model Haarlemmerplein

This design for 67 apartments, commercial spaces and underground parking was for a location on the edge of the 17th-century western part of central Amsterdam. To anchor the project in its site and broader context, the design draws on historical patterns of parcellation, housing and courtyard typologies, and material expressions that can be found in Amsterdam’s historic core.
Dick van Gameren
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Model Haarlemmerplein

Dick van Gameren
© TACK
This design for 67 apartments, commercial spaces and underground parking was for a location on the edge of the 17th-century western part of central Amsterdam. To anchor the project in its site and broader context, the design draws on historical patterns of parcellation, housing and courtyard typologies, and material expressions that can be found in Amsterdam’s historic core.
Book chapter TACK Book

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

ABSTRACT
In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ.   If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976).   In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.
Claudia Mainardi
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

View

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

Claudia Mainardi
ABSTRACT
In the manifold spectrum of how tacit knowledge can be conceived in architecture, the contribution aims to investigate that embedded in the architects' design process by reflecting on the codes they employ.   If the vectors are tools or communicative materials –i.e., drawings, sketches, models, texts, etc.– used for transmission, the codes are here interpreted as those characters –whether in the form of recurring patterns or aesthetic choices, technical solutions, vocabulary, etc.– that define the specificity of a practice. As the DNA of an office, and not just of its principal, as Rem Koolhaas argues (Winston, 2016), they articulate across different levels depending on the context within which they are shared: spanning from the ones used within the practice itself –forming the basis for collaboration between different project team members;– to those adopted externally to communicate with both clients and an extended community of practice. Differences in terms of codes might parallel diverse methods for their investigation. Indeed, for the former, the use of an ethnographic approach capable of unpacking specificities from within seems to be the most adequate –i.e., revealing how the implicit values of a practice are transferred into form through a collective process mediated by multiple actors;– for the latter, instead, it would be more proper to employ public occasions as a pretext through which to decipher a shared “language.” (Eco, 1976).   In general, the paper argues that codification processes are necessarily conditioned by the context in which they take place, by the positioning within the disciplinary debate, and by the actors (Latour and Yaneva. 2008) participating in their development. These closely interrelated aspects constitute the tacit knowledge inherent to a practice. Hence, although capable of changing over time, such knowledge is a unique and characterized product for an office. At the same time, it is the contribution that each firm provides in shaping its community of practice, whose shared knowledge unfolds through exchanges and encounters.
Open Access Publication Paper

Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach
ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?
Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak
Open Access Publication Paper

January 23, 2023

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Scale in passing: Re-calibrating narrowness through spatial interventions

Mara Trübenbach Marianna Czwojdrak
Fig. 1: Elevation of the project proposal., © Mara Trübenbach
Fig. 2: Installation., © Mara Trübenbach
Fig. 8: Top view of the installation., © Mara Trübenbach
ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the art installation Motion of Scales, which was temporarily installed in the city centre of Kolding, Denmark, as a part of the NORDES 2021 conference, this article explores the interrelation between body, material and its performative potential. Analysing the design process through description and observation of how it was experienced and interacted with by urban public, the design-led research aims to interrogate subjectivity, emotion and embodied knowledge in academic research and its methods. How could movement within scale open up new perspectives? Does material hold a potential to reveal new modes of thinking in design research? How and to what extent could emotion contribute to design practices?
Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

On Twists and Turns. Architecture: Design and Judgment

Herman Hertzberger, Sketch Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid, The Hague, The Netherlands, August 1984
ABSTRACT
Architects design in different ways, but rarely in the form of waiting for a singular hunch. Most often, instead, designing is hard work, reassessing material again and again, until the moment the various facets come together convincingly. In this paper, I use Hannah Arendt’s discussion of judgment in order to understand the process of design. Arendt borrows her understanding from Immanuel Kant, but draws it out of his aesthetic perspective and reassesses it into a political context. She emphasizes how a community is a necessary prerequisite for every judgment made. It is not enough to simply hear what others say, but one need to be able to think from that particular situation, in order to judge the validity of that perspective. I see a parallel here with design, though architects operate in different communities. The main challenge of design then is to connect these communities through the design and to understand what kind of information and knowledge can be gained within the different communities. By drawing the parallel, I will discuss the different knowledge communities wherein architects operate, and how 'judgment' offers a model of activating various knowledge systems.
Hans Teerds
Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

July 4, 2023

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On Twists and Turns. Architecture: Design and Judgment

Hans Teerds
Herman Hertzberger, Sketch Ministerie van Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid, The Hague, The Netherlands, August 1984
Herman Hertzberger, Sketch Chassé Theatre, Breda, The Netherlands, March 14, 1992
© TACK
ABSTRACT
Architects design in different ways, but rarely in the form of waiting for a singular hunch. Most often, instead, designing is hard work, reassessing material again and again, until the moment the various facets come together convincingly. In this paper, I use Hannah Arendt’s discussion of judgment in order to understand the process of design. Arendt borrows her understanding from Immanuel Kant, but draws it out of his aesthetic perspective and reassesses it into a political context. She emphasizes how a community is a necessary prerequisite for every judgment made. It is not enough to simply hear what others say, but one need to be able to think from that particular situation, in order to judge the validity of that perspective. I see a parallel here with design, though architects operate in different communities. The main challenge of design then is to connect these communities through the design and to understand what kind of information and knowledge can be gained within the different communities. By drawing the parallel, I will discuss the different knowledge communities wherein architects operate, and how 'judgment' offers a model of activating various knowledge systems.
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

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Improvised architectural responses to the changing climate – Making, sharing and communicating design processes in rural Bangladesh

Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows
ABSTRACT
Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to global climate change because of the shifting riparian characteristics of its landscape and location, with weather-driven calamities disproportionately affecting low-income rural communities. Research findings highlight the unequal distribution of responsibilities and the greater burden on women in the community to respond to the threats of extreme climate. The research methodology for this PhD by Architectural Practice therefore seeks to empower those in Bangladeshi villages by enabling marginalised voices to be heard through an emphasis on collective engagement, especially incorporating the contributions by female residents. Carried out through community-oriented projects in the remote village of Rajapur, this ‘live’ practice-based thesis explores, tests, shares and disseminates some of the rich and varied forms of tacit knowledge which can provide valuable understandings both for those people in the locality and also for architects and designers on the international scale. Responding to social and ecological ‘entanglements’ in Rajapur, the specific problems addressed are erratic rainfall patterns which create both droughts and floods, rising sea levels caused by climate change, and naturally occurring extremely high levels of arsenic-contaminated groundwater supplies, poisoning the food chain and fish in nearby ponds and lakes. How to devise affordable, low-tech solutions that utilise the tacit knowledge and skills of those living in remote villages such as Rajapur? To reshape architectural practice as an active agent for decolonising design methods, so that issues of climate change and spatial justice can be better dealt with, the research draws upon applied anthropological methods – ‘ethnography in the field’ – which prioritise local community members as the indigenous producers of design research, analytical drawings, making and storytelling. The thesis thus addresses a gap in knowledge by contributing a unique approach to participatory architectural practice, showing how it can be expanded to include rural communities in the Global South.
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.
Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

ABSTRACT
This article covers a question relative to the double determination and dialecticity in the concept of labour, as developed by Marx from the Hegelian dialectics. It seeks to demonstrate the ontological significance of the concept to the Marxian thought, a key element in his critics as a path to self-conscience and as a territory for alienation. Through the inquiry on the concepts of abstraction concreteness in relation to labour, it hopes to clarify its employment and epistemological reach as it provides an understanding of alienation as a process of abstraction that, projected in the social relations of production, becomes concrete.
Eric Crevels
Conference Paper Journal Article Paper

July 27, 2020

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Aspectos da conceituação do trabalho em Marx: a alienação como abstração concreta

Eric Crevels
ABSTRACT
This article covers a question relative to the double determination and dialecticity in the concept of labour, as developed by Marx from the Hegelian dialectics. It seeks to demonstrate the ontological significance of the concept to the Marxian thought, a key element in his critics as a path to self-conscience and as a territory for alienation. Through the inquiry on the concepts of abstraction concreteness in relation to labour, it hopes to clarify its employment and epistemological reach as it provides an understanding of alienation as a process of abstraction that, projected in the social relations of production, becomes concrete.
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.
Online Teaching Module

Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

© Paula Strunden
Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Online Teaching Module

February 20, 2023

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Unveiling Embodied Tacit Knowledge through the Act of Drawing

Paula Strunden Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
© Paula Strunden
Conference Paper Open Access Publication

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

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

November 10, 2021

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

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

A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

© TACK
ABSTRACT
Abstract The legally implemented South African Apartheid city model of the 20th Century very specifically separated urban inhabitants along strict racial spatial definitions as set out by city practitioners and mandated by the national government on top of the existing colonial state model of segregation. These societal logics and legal systems have had a wide-scale systemic phyco-spatial effect on the many generations of urban dwellers who have no reference to patterns of living and space-making outside of this city-model. More specifically, the laws and regulations that carried these ideologies have instilled largely prejudiced tacit forms of understanding of self and ‘other’ that remain deeply entrenched in the spatial practitioners who are trusted to design and make within this context. For this reason, a critically proactive engagement with these harmfully biased tacit knowledge systems is a crucial endeavour across the built-environment practice – especially so in the architectural and the related spatial design disciplines. Such a deeply interpersonal recognition of such dynamics within spatial-design practice call for approaches, methods, and techniques that operate through considered and inclusive forms of practice that are often difficult to frame within the current ‘northern’ framings of the architect or the designer. Instead, other conceptual frameworks such as Southern Urbanism offer a more situated armature to locate these questions and begin an other-wisely based inquiry through these challenges. By thinking about an architectural - or more appropriately: a spatial design practice - through values and actions that are true to the locus of the site from which they exist, on the situated terms of the context that produce them, and through the languages – spoken, gestured and visual – that they are actioned through; the research holds an the potential to reveal other forms of more connective tacit knowledge that exist in these ways of making and maintaining urban spaces. Such an inquiry holds the potential to guide these practices both within the disciplines of the architect and support those engaging with these dynamics to expand their understandings of practice and the ‘Imaginative Geographies’ of separation and difference that continue to shape the post-Apartheid and post-Colonial cities of South Africa.
Jhono Bennett
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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A Post-Post Positional Praxis: Locating ideas of repair in a Southern city

Jhono Bennett
© TACK
ABSTRACT
Abstract The legally implemented South African Apartheid city model of the 20th Century very specifically separated urban inhabitants along strict racial spatial definitions as set out by city practitioners and mandated by the national government on top of the existing colonial state model of segregation. These societal logics and legal systems have had a wide-scale systemic phyco-spatial effect on the many generations of urban dwellers who have no reference to patterns of living and space-making outside of this city-model. More specifically, the laws and regulations that carried these ideologies have instilled largely prejudiced tacit forms of understanding of self and ‘other’ that remain deeply entrenched in the spatial practitioners who are trusted to design and make within this context. For this reason, a critically proactive engagement with these harmfully biased tacit knowledge systems is a crucial endeavour across the built-environment practice – especially so in the architectural and the related spatial design disciplines. Such a deeply interpersonal recognition of such dynamics within spatial-design practice call for approaches, methods, and techniques that operate through considered and inclusive forms of practice that are often difficult to frame within the current ‘northern’ framings of the architect or the designer. Instead, other conceptual frameworks such as Southern Urbanism offer a more situated armature to locate these questions and begin an other-wisely based inquiry through these challenges. By thinking about an architectural - or more appropriately: a spatial design practice - through values and actions that are true to the locus of the site from which they exist, on the situated terms of the context that produce them, and through the languages – spoken, gestured and visual – that they are actioned through; the research holds an the potential to reveal other forms of more connective tacit knowledge that exist in these ways of making and maintaining urban spaces. Such an inquiry holds the potential to guide these practices both within the disciplines of the architect and support those engaging with these dynamics to expand their understandings of practice and the ‘Imaginative Geographies’ of separation and difference that continue to shape the post-Apartheid and post-Colonial cities of South Africa.
Lecture / Talk Video

Tack Talks #1: Cityförster

Verena Brehm CITYFÖRSTER Lara Schrijver Caendia Wijnbelt
Lecture / Talk Video

July 16, 2020

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Tack Talks #1: Cityförster

Verena Brehm CITYFÖRSTER Lara Schrijver Caendia Wijnbelt
© TACK
Frame from the online talk with Verena Brehm, Lara Schrijver, Caendia Wijnbelt, © TACK
A slide from Verena Brehm’s presentation, © Verena Brehm, Cityförster
Circular City principle: a frame from the presentation by Cityförster, © Cityförster
A slide from Verena Brehm’s presentation, © Cityförster
Reader

Konvolut

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

View

Konvolut

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

Book Corner: “The Invention of Culture” by Wagner Roy (1976)

The Invention of Culture, Wagner, Roy. (1976), © University of Chicago Press
Eric Crevels reviews the chapter "The assumption of Culture" from Roy Wagners Book "The Invention of Culture" (1976), The University of Chicago Press, London, Page 12 - 21
Eric Crevels
Newsletter Review

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Book Corner: “The Invention of Culture” by Wagner Roy (1976)

Eric Crevels
The Invention of Culture, Wagner, Roy. (1976), © University of Chicago Press
Eric Crevels reviews the chapter "The assumption of Culture" from Roy Wagners Book "The Invention of Culture" (1976), The University of Chicago Press, London, Page 12 - 21
Paper

From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

ABSTRACT
Over the past years, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars at Politecnico di Milano (UHUAH!) has been exploring how contemporary social and demographic dynamics challenge housing policies and projects. These issues have been at the core of teaching activities in design-based studios involving architecture students. Spurred on not only by the literature on the subject (Ronald/Elsinga, 2012), we are engaged in field research investigating the state of the art of dwelling practices, with the aim to develop alternative housing solutions (and typologies) able to overcome the distance that emerged between demand and supply. A gap mostly depending on the major changes that happened in the last twenty years in households composition, and in what is typically referred to as the family (Carlson/Meyer, 2014), with the consequent crisis of the ideal equivalence between “the family” and the “apartment typology” (Star strategies + architecture, 2016). The paper will therefore present relevant case studies from the Research by Design explorations conducted on existing building stock, a decision taken to empower Adaptive Reuse as a sustainable approach also in Housing. Our Design Manifesto considers the apartment as constituted by a system of independent rooms, in which the bed is not anymore the core device, while the connective space is interpreted as common shared areas (Connective = Collective).
Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata Constanze Wolfgring
Paper

October 10, 2022

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From Unconventional Households to Unconventional Affordable Housing

Gennaro Postiglione Paola Briata Constanze Wolfgring
© Gennaro Postiglione
Drawing focusing on the life around furniture (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione
Design strategy: a set of devices is set in place in dialogue with the existing structure (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione
External view of one of the La Viridiana blocks (@ReCoDe-DAStU)., © Gennaro Postiglione
© Gennaro Postiglione
ABSTRACT
Over the past years, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars at Politecnico di Milano (UHUAH!) has been exploring how contemporary social and demographic dynamics challenge housing policies and projects. These issues have been at the core of teaching activities in design-based studios involving architecture students. Spurred on not only by the literature on the subject (Ronald/Elsinga, 2012), we are engaged in field research investigating the state of the art of dwelling practices, with the aim to develop alternative housing solutions (and typologies) able to overcome the distance that emerged between demand and supply. A gap mostly depending on the major changes that happened in the last twenty years in households composition, and in what is typically referred to as the family (Carlson/Meyer, 2014), with the consequent crisis of the ideal equivalence between “the family” and the “apartment typology” (Star strategies + architecture, 2016). The paper will therefore present relevant case studies from the Research by Design explorations conducted on existing building stock, a decision taken to empower Adaptive Reuse as a sustainable approach also in Housing. Our Design Manifesto considers the apartment as constituted by a system of independent rooms, in which the bed is not anymore the core device, while the connective space is interpreted as common shared areas (Connective = Collective).
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
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. 
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'
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

Eilfried Huth’s Bauhütte

The Austrian architect Eilfried Huth, a pioneer of participatory housing, used this notion to express his reliance on the embodied knowledge of future inhabitants who gathered as an advocacy group to design a new housing estate called Eschensiedlung,1972-1990 in Deutschlandsberg, Styria.
Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW)
Drawing Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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Eilfried Huth’s Bauhütte

Monika Platzer Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW)
© TACK
The Austrian architect Eilfried Huth, a pioneer of participatory housing, used this notion to express his reliance on the embodied knowledge of future inhabitants who gathered as an advocacy group to design a new housing estate called Eschensiedlung,1972-1990 in Deutschlandsberg, Styria.
Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

Crackpot’ and ‘Dangerous’: On the authenticity of Miesian reproductions

© Ron Frazier from Bloomington IL, United States
ABSTRACT
In 2016, the architectural press reported the planned reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe’s Wolf House, built in 1927 in Gubin, Poland, and destroyed during World War Two. Supporters claimed that, by consulting the architect’s presentation drawings, they could rebuild the house authentically. They cited a simplistic reading of philosopher Nelson Goodman’s distinction between autographic art—where an original is certified by the hand of the author—and the allographic, which is replicated through notation. Barry Bergdoll called the proposal ‘crackpot’, arguing that without the lost construction documentation it would become a ‘simulacrum’: an allusion to Jean Baudrillard’s notion of a copy without reference. Mies himself thought there was something ‘dangerous’ in building ‘a model of a real house’ after constructing his own full-scale façade mock-up for the unbuilt Kröller-Müller House (1913). Since then, an unprecedented number of reproductions have entered into their own ‘dangerous’ conversation with Mies’ work, trading to varying degrees on their authenticity. Some, like the Barcelona Pavilion reconstruction (1986) engage with heritage and archival practices in an attempt to accurately reconstruct a lost work. Others, often appearing in exhibitions such as OMA’s La Casa Palestra at the 1985 Milan Triennale, exploit the fame of Mies’ architecture to offer a rhetorical interpretation that reinforces their own authorial signature. Meanwhile self-professed 1:1 models, like Robbrecht en Daem’s Mies 1:1 Golf Club Project (2013), seem deliberately tied to Mies’ authority, stripping away materials to focus on a singular reading of the work in a model-making tradition stretching back to Alberti. By returning to Goodman’s autographic/allographic dichotomy and Baudrillard’s simulacrum, this paper seeks to make sense of these multiplying reproductions across art, architecture and conservation, and their conflicting claims to authenticity. Ultimately, this frames Miesian reproductions as one contested site in broader discussions of architecture’s relationship to authorship and authentic heritage.
Hamish Lonergan
Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

View

Crackpot’ and ‘Dangerous’: On the authenticity of Miesian reproductions

Hamish Lonergan
© Ron Frazier from Bloomington IL, United States
© Victor Grigas
ABSTRACT
In 2016, the architectural press reported the planned reconstruction of Mies van der Rohe’s Wolf House, built in 1927 in Gubin, Poland, and destroyed during World War Two. Supporters claimed that, by consulting the architect’s presentation drawings, they could rebuild the house authentically. They cited a simplistic reading of philosopher Nelson Goodman’s distinction between autographic art—where an original is certified by the hand of the author—and the allographic, which is replicated through notation. Barry Bergdoll called the proposal ‘crackpot’, arguing that without the lost construction documentation it would become a ‘simulacrum’: an allusion to Jean Baudrillard’s notion of a copy without reference. Mies himself thought there was something ‘dangerous’ in building ‘a model of a real house’ after constructing his own full-scale façade mock-up for the unbuilt Kröller-Müller House (1913). Since then, an unprecedented number of reproductions have entered into their own ‘dangerous’ conversation with Mies’ work, trading to varying degrees on their authenticity. Some, like the Barcelona Pavilion reconstruction (1986) engage with heritage and archival practices in an attempt to accurately reconstruct a lost work. Others, often appearing in exhibitions such as OMA’s La Casa Palestra at the 1985 Milan Triennale, exploit the fame of Mies’ architecture to offer a rhetorical interpretation that reinforces their own authorial signature. Meanwhile self-professed 1:1 models, like Robbrecht en Daem’s Mies 1:1 Golf Club Project (2013), seem deliberately tied to Mies’ authority, stripping away materials to focus on a singular reading of the work in a model-making tradition stretching back to Alberti. By returning to Goodman’s autographic/allographic dichotomy and Baudrillard’s simulacrum, this paper seeks to make sense of these multiplying reproductions across art, architecture and conservation, and their conflicting claims to authenticity. Ultimately, this frames Miesian reproductions as one contested site in broader discussions of architecture’s relationship to authorship and authentic heritage.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

20-11-2021

HERMIA

© Mara Trübenbach
"Through the material, I built a relationship with the (hi)story of the ship and acquired knowledge that is tacitly held between the humans and the non-humans."
Mara Trübenbach
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

20-11-2021

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HERMIA

Mara Trübenbach
© Mara Trübenbach
© TACK
"Through the material, I built a relationship with the (hi)story of the ship and acquired knowledge that is tacitly held between the humans and the non-humans."
Essay Lecture / Talk Reader Reflection Teaching Element

Conversation – Lara Schrijver, Peg Rawes and Margitta Buchert

© TACK
Conversation on Contexts, Values and Reflexivity in Tacit Knowledge, between Lara Schrijver, Margitta Buchert and Peg Rawes.
Lara Schrijver Peg Rawes Margitta Buchert
Essay Lecture / Talk Reader Reflection Teaching Element

April 28, 2022

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Conversation – Lara Schrijver, Peg Rawes and Margitta Buchert

Lara Schrijver Peg Rawes Margitta Buchert
© TACK
Conversation on Contexts, Values and Reflexivity in Tacit Knowledge, between Lara Schrijver, Margitta Buchert and Peg Rawes.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Texture Kortrijk – Jewel Box

Wooden model (1/400), representing an existing warehouse and its extension. The orthogonal cast-iron column structure of the existing building is continued in the lightweight steel building on top. The new beams connect the column grid diagonally and at two different heights. The result of logic structural thinking is an unexpected golden crown. The museum Texture celebrates the prosperous past of the flax industry in the region, that used to give the river Schelde a golden shine.
An Fonteyne
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

View

Texture Kortrijk – Jewel Box

An Fonteyne
© TACK
Wooden model (1/400), representing an existing warehouse and its extension. The orthogonal cast-iron column structure of the existing building is continued in the lightweight steel building on top. The new beams connect the column grid diagonally and at two different heights. The result of logic structural thinking is an unexpected golden crown. The museum Texture celebrates the prosperous past of the flax industry in the region, that used to give the river Schelde a golden shine.
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.