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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

Essay

Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter
Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.
Angelika Schnell
Essay

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Return from the Future: The Concept of Retroactivity

Angelika Schnell
OMA (1975), triptych, Boompjes Tower Slab, 1982. Colour silkscreen print, 716 × 1216 mm. Silkscreener: Bernard Ruygrok. Source: Drawing Matter
Koolhaas called his 1978 book Delirious New York a ‘retroactive manifesto for Manhattan’. In her essay Angelika Schnell describes how the concept of retroactivity is used in the architecture of OMA. Especially the high-rise project for Boompjes in Rotterdam, made between 1979 and 1981, is a design that ‘has become effective at a time in the past’. A careful reading of the accompanying text, but also the features of the design itself, reveal the circular logic of the hermeneutical model used by Koolhaas: designs are the stories that provoked the causes in the past.
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.
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

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.
Drawing TACK Exhibition Object

Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019

Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019 Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
The drawing as a synthesis is made after the project is built or the competition is over. This kind of ‘drawing made afterwards’ is about bringing all the principal ideas and responses that now already exist into a drawing. It is a synthesis, and like a poem it reduces or condenses the new reality of the project and describes it all at once very precisely.
Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
Drawing TACK Exhibition Object

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Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019

Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
Kunsthaus Glarus II, Drawing as a Synthesis, 2019 Conen Sigl Architekt:innen, Zürich
© TACK
The drawing as a synthesis is made after the project is built or the competition is over. This kind of ‘drawing made afterwards’ is about bringing all the principal ideas and responses that now already exist into a drawing. It is a synthesis, and like a poem it reduces or condenses the new reality of the project and describes it all at once very precisely.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

The stool called WALDE

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

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The stool called WALDE

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

What is Tacit Knowledge?

Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.
Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach
Note

March 1, 2023

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What is Tacit Knowledge?

Hamish Lonergan Eric Crevels Mara Trübenbach
Book collection on Tacit Knowledge of Hamish Lonergan, Photo: Hamish Lonergan, 2023, © Hamish Lonergan
Broadly speaking, we can think about tacit knowledge in two ways.
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.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Chozos, Houses of Nomadic Shepherds

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

October 5, 2022

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Chozos, Houses of Nomadic Shepherds

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

Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

ABSTRACT
Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.
Filippo Cattapan
Book chapter TACK Book

November 1, 2022

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Forêt DesCartes: Images, fragments, and repertoires in Kieckens’s tacit knowledge

Filippo Cattapan
© TACK
ABSTRACT
Christian Kieckens' archive at the Flemish Architecture Institute in Antwerp holds a curious object: the Foret DesCartes. It is a prototype of Kaartenstander (postcards display table stand) designed by Kieckens in 1995. The object is extremely simple: an MDF board with maple veneer on which are inserted 16 postcard holders made of bent iron rods arranged in a regular 6x4 cm grid. More than just an odd display of postcards, this small object is an operational tool for producing and transmitting architectural knowledge through the collection of images and their recomposition in space. The same cognitive mode that is represented by the Foret DesCartes can be found reflected within Christian Kieckens' key practices: the architectural trip and its communication within a Belgian and European community of practice, the use of photography as a documentation tool but also as a visual reflection on architecture, the transmission of knowledge through the medium of the illustrated book and of the exhibition, the teaching of architecture by means of examples and references. Currently underway at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal within the framework of the TACK network, the research project, ‘The Pictures on the Wall. The Composite Culture of a Contemporary Flemish Architect’, investigates Kieckens’s role as mediator between the transatlantic architectural culture of the 1980s and the local context of Flanders. The key assumption is that this process of cultural migration happened first of all at the tacit level. Kieckens’s tacit knowledge is primarily found in its fragmentary nature – as a repertoire of themes and images – as well as in its crucial relationship with a number of visual practices and media. This attitude is considered from an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates external viewpoints such as those of cultural studies, anthropology, and iconology. On this basis, Kieckens’s practices have been operatively addressed by means of a hybrid methodology, which combines bibliographic and archival studies with a series of performative approaches such as interviews and immersive ethnographic investigation, pedagogical re-enactment and experimental display, images collection and visual comparison. Within a curatorial secondment at the Flanders Architecture Institute VAi in Antwerp and a collaboration with Hasselt University, these approaches finally resulted in the exhibition, ‘Forêt DesCartes – Christian Kieckens and the Composite Culture of Architecture in Flanders’, which opened at the De Singel Centre in November 2022.
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

25 Objects of Belonging

‘Objects of belonging’ are found or ready-made objects that users adapt to redefine the conventional boundaries of a home. These objects’ tacit presence dissolves where the house begins and ends, blurring boundaries between urban and domestic spheres.
Samantha Ong Ariel Bintang
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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25 Objects of Belonging

Samantha Ong Ariel Bintang
© TACK
‘Objects of belonging’ are found or ready-made objects that users adapt to redefine the conventional boundaries of a home. These objects’ tacit presence dissolves where the house begins and ends, blurring boundaries between urban and domestic spheres.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.
Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Playa Blanca, Bankers, and the Pivotal Point

Holger Hoffmann One Fine Day architects
© TACK
I made this 1:200 working model entitled ‘Playa Blanca, Bankers and the Pivotal Point’ during my time at the Städelschule Frankfurt. The three-dimensional knot bent from copper wire combines investigations into rotational symmetries, the programmatic linking of living and working environments, and early aesthetic explorations into the consequences of parametric design models. This physical model formed the basis for a series of digital models whose gene codes continue to shape the work of our office in terms of methods and aesthetics to this day.
Conference Paper Paper Session ACTORS TACK Conference Proceedings

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

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

June 21, 2023

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

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

The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.
Michael Polanyi
Book Book chapter

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The Tacit Dimension [Excerpt]

Michael Polanyi
The book “The Tacit Dimension” by Michael Polanyi was published firstly in 1966 at The University of Chicago Press. The following is an excerpt from the chapter “Tacit Knowing” (p. 4-13). I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell. This fact seems obvious enough; but it is not easy to say exactly what it means. Take an example. We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed among a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know. So most of this knowledge cannot be put into words. But the police have recently introduced a method by which we can communicate much of this knowledge. They have made a large collection of pictures showing a variety of noses, mouths, and other features. From these the witness selects the particulars of the face he knows, and the pieces can then be put together to form a reasonably good likeness of the face. This may suggest that we can communicate, after all, our knowledge of a physiognomy, provided we are given adequate means for expressing ourselves. But the application of the police method does not change the fact that previous to it we did know more than we could tell at the time. Moreover, we can use the police method only by knowing how to match the features we remember with those in the collection, and we cannot tell how we do this. This very act of communication displays a knowledge that we cannot tell.
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.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Book chapter Open Access Publication

2021

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Teaching Design in a Post-Rainbow Nation A South African Reflection on the Limits and Opportunities of Design Praxis

Orli Setton, Eric Wright, Claudia Morgado, Blanca Calvo, residents and leaders of Denver Informal Settlement and the UJ Professional Practice students from 2013 to 2017.
Example co-developed code of engagement (Author 2017), © Jhono Bennett
© Jhono Bennett
Challenging practice students engaging in the workshop debate (The author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
Students and staff of AT working with Denver residents on the Action Research Studio (Author’s photos), © Jhono Bennett
ABSTRACT
There has been an intense discourse on the relationship between inter-stakeholder university engagements, or service learning, and the broader society that South African universities claim to serve over the past decade in both local and international academia. The inherent problem within these power structures, the challenges to achieving mutually beneficial project outcomes and the growing concern of vulnerable, unheard institutional and individual voices are critical factors. The recognition of these dynamics within the emerging field of design research and design-led teaching is less nuanced in these debates. Training institutions of architecture have a rich history of undertaking service-learning initiatives to create value and learning for both the students and the stakeholders of such projects. Still, in South Africa, they are only now seen through a post-rainbow nation lens. The FeesMustFall movement is primarily driving this change. Larger institutions are recognising previously marginalised voices that now find traction in learning and practice across South Africa. This chapter reflects the author’s experience with emergent views and concerns as a researcher, lecturer and spatial design practitioner in Johannesburg. This section centres on learning regarding city-making in Southern Africa, and it presents two case studies followed by a discussion of growth opportunities.
Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Image 02: Denilson Baniwa Yawareté Mural Artist: Denilson Baniwa Photo: Rafaela Campos Alves , © Creative Commons
ABSTRACT
This essay proposes an analysis using the “symbolic economy of predation” to provide new perspectives on the question of pixo. For this, pixo will be considered as any act on walls, building facades, asphalt or monuments rejecting the hierarchical separations between writing, scribbling, painting or graffiti imposed by the art system and other institutions. In Amerindian ontology, as Viveiros de Castro describes, the feeding regime is the predominant model upon which relations are perceived. The predator and prey duality stands as the archetypical role ruling interactions between different subjectivities and perspectives. This “symbolic economy” permeates social relations and translates them into a particular epistemology shared by many indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region. We aim to consider the relationships between those who practice pixo and the city through an analogy with the predator and prey dialectic. We argue that, on the one hand, these taggers get symbolical dominion over the city’s territory by marking places with their signatures, thus gaining recognition from their peers; on the other, the city - represented by formal governmental and economic institutions - preys upon taggers by criminalizing their practice as vandalism and by socioeconomically excluding peripheral populations, thus denying their access and right to the city itself. Pixo is a reaction to the passive role imposed on society that gains critical and artistic qualities as a practice of protest, endorsing its predatory performance. This analogy intents provide a new perspective to describe the city and its complex relations with the aesthetical and social realities of its inhabitants. A distinct description of the urban relations that might enable planners and policymakers to evaluate socio-political phenomena within the city through a new set of lenses, allowing the development of innovative approaches to tackle and decriminalize conflictual practices as the pixo.
Eric Crevels Alice Queiroz
Conference Paper Open Access Publication Paper

March 25, 2021

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Urban Predation: The symbolic economy of the Pixo

Eric Crevels Alice Queiroz
Image 02: Denilson Baniwa Yawareté Mural Artist: Denilson Baniwa Photo: Rafaela Campos Alves , © Creative Commons
Image 03: Topo Museu de Artes e Ofícios e Artes nos Edifícios no Centro de Belo Horizonte Photo: Magno Dias, © Creative Commons
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. “Metafísicas Canibais: Elementos para uma antropologia pós-estrutural”. São Paulo, Cosac Naify, 2015
ABSTRACT
This essay proposes an analysis using the “symbolic economy of predation” to provide new perspectives on the question of pixo. For this, pixo will be considered as any act on walls, building facades, asphalt or monuments rejecting the hierarchical separations between writing, scribbling, painting or graffiti imposed by the art system and other institutions. In Amerindian ontology, as Viveiros de Castro describes, the feeding regime is the predominant model upon which relations are perceived. The predator and prey duality stands as the archetypical role ruling interactions between different subjectivities and perspectives. This “symbolic economy” permeates social relations and translates them into a particular epistemology shared by many indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region. We aim to consider the relationships between those who practice pixo and the city through an analogy with the predator and prey dialectic. We argue that, on the one hand, these taggers get symbolical dominion over the city’s territory by marking places with their signatures, thus gaining recognition from their peers; on the other, the city - represented by formal governmental and economic institutions - preys upon taggers by criminalizing their practice as vandalism and by socioeconomically excluding peripheral populations, thus denying their access and right to the city itself. Pixo is a reaction to the passive role imposed on society that gains critical and artistic qualities as a practice of protest, endorsing its predatory performance. This analogy intents provide a new perspective to describe the city and its complex relations with the aesthetical and social realities of its inhabitants. A distinct description of the urban relations that might enable planners and policymakers to evaluate socio-political phenomena within the city through a new set of lenses, allowing the development of innovative approaches to tackle and decriminalize conflictual practices as the pixo.
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.
Online Teaching Module

Retracing Visual and Formal Migrations of Tacit Knowledge within Communities of Practice

© Filippo Cattapan
Filippo Cattapan Christoph Grafe Bergische Universität Wuppertal, School of Architecture and Building Engineering
Online Teaching Module

April 8, 2023

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Retracing Visual and Formal Migrations of Tacit Knowledge within Communities of Practice

Filippo Cattapan Christoph Grafe Bergische Universität Wuppertal, School of Architecture and Building Engineering
© Filippo Cattapan
© Filippo Cattapan
© Filippo Cattapan
© Filippo Cattapan
© Filippo Cattapan
Essay Paper

COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
Margitta Buchert
Essay Paper

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COMMON GROUND. Discursive Orders in Architecture

Margitta Buchert
Fig. 6:
ABSTRACT
Is it possible to characterize the relation of architecture and science, if it is not derived from established scientific conventions? This essay highlights one field of the multifaceted spectrum, which pops up in the context of this question, a field, which can be observed when expanding the focus from science to knowledge and processes of its formation and transformation. Focal point will be the question where and in which ways knowledge appears and marks a `common ground´. The investigations are revolved around the most important field of thematisation and mediation of architectural reality at the beginning of the 21st century to be found globally, the International Architecture Biennale, which takes place in Venice in a two year cycle. Furthermore special attention will be riveted on the biennale of 2012, which was dedicated to the theme `Common Ground´. The following notions are enmeshed with the consideration, that with a presentation and uncovering of knowledge and communication on it, we have here a kind of discourse in architecture that might not only process attitudes and a stabilization of the discipline, but also provides triggers for generic processes of scientific contexts and basic understandings of research and design in architecture.
Essay Paper

The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
Hamish Lonergan
Essay Paper

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The Royal National Theatre from Architectural Review to TikTok

Hamish Lonergan
@whoresonlybathroom, ‘Brutalist architecture needs to die’, TikTok screenshot, 17 December 2019, © Hamish Lonergan
© Patrick Mackie
ABSTRACT
The Royal National Theatre in London (1976), designed by Denys Lasdun, has attracted an unusually high volume of critical debate. Tracing the ways that critics have disagreed over time, particularly on aesthetic grounds, reveals the fluctuating fortunes of concrete Brutalist architecture beyond the theatre. This cycle has continued to inform discussion online, on social media platforms including TikTok. Ultimately, this essay argues that the only way to make sense of these conflicting accounts is to value the theatre for its capacity to generate critical, aesthetic judgments.
Diagram Drawing Presentation Video

Re-enacting Le Corbusier’s way of sketching

Paula Strunden and Desilava Petkova (as students) are re-enacting the Le Corbusier's style to sketch.
Paula Strunden Desislava Petkova Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Diagram Drawing Presentation Video

November 13, 2012

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Re-enacting Le Corbusier’s way of sketching

Paula Strunden Desislava Petkova Angelika Schnell Eva Sommeregger Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Paula Strunden and Desilava Petkova (as students) are re-enacting the Le Corbusier's style to sketch.
Online Teaching Module

On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

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

February 10, 2022

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On Method: Tacit Knowledge in the Expanded Field of Architecture

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

Carpenter Chair

© Sarah Vecchio
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

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Carpenter Chair

Sarah Becchio Paolo Borghino
© Sarah Vecchio
© TACK
Carpenter Chair is an icon of construction and a eulogy to the exploration of the ordinary. It is a low, comfortable, and flexible lounge chair inspired by the aesthetics of the construction site.
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 TACK Exhibition Object

The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

This book exhibits the B-sides of my dissertation – ideas that were cut from the final version but that have nonetheless proven promising. Dealing with post-digital forms of navigation, it juxtaposes the stories of Polynesian navigator Tupaia, Ancient Greek Kybernetes and Lara Croft’s avatar.
Eva Sommeregger
Exhibition TACK Exhibition Object

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The B-Sides. Tupaia, Kybernetes & Lara Croft

Eva Sommeregger
© TACK
This book exhibits the B-sides of my dissertation – ideas that were cut from the final version but that have nonetheless proven promising. Dealing with post-digital forms of navigation, it juxtaposes the stories of Polynesian navigator Tupaia, Ancient Greek Kybernetes and Lara Croft’s avatar.
Lecture / Talk Video

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

© TACK
Jennifer Mack Tim Anstey Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Lecture / Talk Video

June 27, 2022

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

Jennifer Mack Tim Anstey Angelika Schnell Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
© TACK
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Glassplitter / Broken glass

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

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Glassplitter / Broken glass

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

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE : KNOWING BODIES

Fig. 1. Sofia Pintzou, contribution to »Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Tanztagebuch«, 2020, interpreting choreographic material from Sasha Waltz’ »noBody«, first performed 2002 at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, film stills from the video, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-dVgonIT0, accessed July 25, 2023.
ABSTRACT
This contribution addresses tacit knowledge as an embodied form of knowing and traces the potential of the body to inform and explore, contain and convey, obtain and express architectural knowledge — in the experiencing, designing, creating, and living of architectural space. If, as framed by Polanyi, »we know more than we can tell«, focusing on the body and its immanent knowledge allows to access immediate forms of architectural knowledge. Experience, memory, and the capacity for anticipation are equally rooted in the body; corporeally anchored, contained in, and inscribed to the body. Respectively, creative imagination in architectural design relies upon the body. Through knowing how we experience architecture, we are eager to anticipate future perception in architectural design. Following my doctoral thesis, entitled “Impulses and Dialogues of Architecture and the Body”, I present the knowledge of the body as a contribution to the body of knowledge of architecture: Using the example of the working method and oeuvre of Sasha Waltz & Guests – which I investigate against the background of my own artistic practice, especially in in-situ and site-specific performances, as well as my attempts at the including of somatic practices into my academic teaching in the field of architecture – I exploit the body as a medium of spatial research, and as an immediate form of conveyance and expression in the discipline of architecture.
Katharina Voigt
Paper Session NATURE(S) TACK Conference Proceedings

July 20, 2023

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BODY OF KNOWLEDGE : KNOWING BODIES

Katharina Voigt
Fig. 1. Sofia Pintzou, contribution to »Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Tanztagebuch«, 2020, interpreting choreographic material from Sasha Waltz’ »noBody«, first performed 2002 at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, film stills from the video, online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-dVgonIT0, accessed July 25, 2023.
Fig. 2. Antonia Krabusch: Embodied Gestures, Gesture of Intimacy (left) and Gesture of Public (right), initial task for the design studio “Tanzhaus München – ein Ort für zeitgenössischen Tanz”, general masters’ thesis, winter 2021/22, Chair of Architectural Design and Conception, supervised by Katharina Voigt and Prof. Uta Graff.
Fig. 3. Lukas Walcher: Embodied Gestures, Gesture of Intimacy (left) and Gesture of Public (right), initial task for the design studio “Tanzhaus München – ein Ort für zeitgenössischen Tanz”, general masters’ thesis, winter 2021/22, Chair of Architectural Design and Conception, supervised by Katharina Voigt and Prof. Uta Graff.
ABSTRACT
This contribution addresses tacit knowledge as an embodied form of knowing and traces the potential of the body to inform and explore, contain and convey, obtain and express architectural knowledge — in the experiencing, designing, creating, and living of architectural space. If, as framed by Polanyi, »we know more than we can tell«, focusing on the body and its immanent knowledge allows to access immediate forms of architectural knowledge. Experience, memory, and the capacity for anticipation are equally rooted in the body; corporeally anchored, contained in, and inscribed to the body. Respectively, creative imagination in architectural design relies upon the body. Through knowing how we experience architecture, we are eager to anticipate future perception in architectural design. Following my doctoral thesis, entitled “Impulses and Dialogues of Architecture and the Body”, I present the knowledge of the body as a contribution to the body of knowledge of architecture: Using the example of the working method and oeuvre of Sasha Waltz & Guests – which I investigate against the background of my own artistic practice, especially in in-situ and site-specific performances, as well as my attempts at the including of somatic practices into my academic teaching in the field of architecture – I exploit the body as a medium of spatial research, and as an immediate form of conveyance and expression in the discipline of architecture.
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.
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.
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.
Exhibition Model TACK Exhibition Object

Clay Landscape

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

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Clay Landscape

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